FRANCE: Back to basics for Chanel show as Karl Lagerfeld presents second collection in the Grand Palais at the Paris Fashion Week

Designer Karl Lagerfeld sent a message to fashionistas in simple black and white on Friday (October 6) as models paraded his latest collection for fashion house Chanel in the Grand Palais in Paris. Under the glass roof of the palace, built for the 1900 World's Fair near the elegant Champs Elysees avenue, models wore mini skirts, mini shorts, tank tops, jackets and skirt suits --- almost all in either black, white or a combination of the two. The large audience, which included film stars and singing moguls, received rare splashes of pink and yellow in the collection as well. Models also carried the handbags and wore the oversized sunglasses that have become all important for profit margins at luxury goods houses. Wearing his trademark pony-tail and sunglasses, Lagerfeld said his short hemlines highlighted beautiful legs but were not meant to put anyone's health at risk. "I hate anorexia for the girls but for the clothes it's good because they are not, like too heavy. Clothes have to be anorexic, not the body," he said, referring to the industry's latest controversy. Madrid last month banned excessively thin models from its catwalks, saying it may cause eating disorders in young women. Lagerfeld, 68, has himself drastically shed weight in recent years. For those who aren't fans of sky-high hemlines, Lagerfeld suggests wearing the items over trousers. When asked whether the collection was a throwback, Lagerfeld said some styles simply have staying power. "Try to remember where Chanel started. She was the first to use sportswear in fashion. In fact she is the mother of al the fashions we have today and it is quite normal to use that because it's quite classic and it's never going to be out of fashion. There's always a new way to handle it," he said. Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel made her mark replacing the corset with comfort and classic casual elegance. The Chanel show was Lagerfeld's second during Paris Fashion Week. The multi-tasking fashion icon, who also shoots fashion photographs, presented clothes for his own label Karl Lagerfeld on Wednesday (October 4). "You can only do this job when you are with it one hundred percent and when it's the most important thing in your life, fashion might just be fashion but it's important, and for me it's my whole life , I've always done this and I hope I will still be doing it for a long time and I think I'm good at it and it's amusing that you can do everything - the photos, the concept, the show, the models. The other designers do all that with many different people but I do it all myself , sometimes I get it wrong but I don't mind that and I get involved in everything and so I can achieve an end result that works its way into the press and the advertisements."German-born Lagerfeld has been chief designer of Chanel's fashion house since 1983. "It's my first fashion show I've ever been to so it was a really pleasurable experience," said British singer Lily Allen after the show.

ITN Source | October 14, 2006

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