Oscar winning actress Cate Blanchett is arguably as impressive on the red carpet as she is on screen. Making hard-to-wear pieces look ever so easy, it should then come as no surprise that Karl Lagerfeld sprung to attention when asked to design the costumes for her latest role in Blue Jasmine.
The Woody Allen directed film sees Blanchett playing the role of a Birkin-clad Jasmine; an Upper East Side New Yorker who spirals into a breakdown once her financier husband is exposed as a fraudster and they lose everything. Yikes! Obvs, she needed some serious garms for the occasion, and who better to ask than Mr. Chanel himself?
"I called up Lagerfeld and I have to tell you, I was astounded," said costume designer Suzy Benzinger. "I sent a note and in two days he shipped out two custom made jackets for Cate Blanchett and with the most beautiful note. And I just thought, 'oh my god,' and he just said 'For Cate, I'd do anything." And swoon.
"When the jackets arrived, I said, 'How could he do this?' It was right during the fashion shows and everything and he turned them around and sent them to me. Cate put it on and it was perfect."
The jacket, spottable in the film's trailer, is a classic white boucle style with navy trim, perfect for what Woody Allen had had in mind. "He wants his films to be timeless," explains Benzinger. "He doesn't want you to look at one of his films five years from now and say, 'Oh, that was so trendy. That was so five years ago'"... And what better for that than some timeless Chanel?