Karl Lagerfeld never stages the Chanel show on a plain old catwalk. There’ve been icebergs, the ocean floor, a supermarket, and this morning in Paris, a recreation of the Rue Cambon, ready for models to take to the streets, so to speak, for a massive fashion demonstration.
With 70s styles that recalled when the Parisian youth, Yves Saint Laurent and his fashion gang included, were often engaged in political marching, Karl’s crew staged a feminist protest complete with pro-women slogans and plenty of pro-women clothes too, including a stampede of comfortable shoes and masculine suits worn with mega confidence by badass women, from young to old.
But if you weren't front row (no, us neither) here's a six smart things to say about a show that's always the most talked about of the fashion month.
**That 70s vibe isn't going anywhere then...
**
First things first, let’s get the important business of the actual fashion out of the way. Like so many labels this season – Tom Ford, House of Holland, and Prada to name but a few – Karl Lagerfeld went with 70s-inspired slouchy, flared suits, psychedelic florals and knee boots on the Chanel catwalk. Of course, this being Chanel there's always a pick ’n’ mix of trends, so there were also silvery-scaled shift dresses, nautical stripes in a nod to Coco and a load of dreamy gold flats.
**There's a reason Gisele is still the highest-paid model in the world
**
The fact she can pull off head-to-toe beige knits, and still look like that, to be very brutal. Of course, this being Chanel, all the other models du jour were in attendance – Cara opened the show, Binx Walton, Kendall Jenner and Edie Campbell strut their stuff in it – but Gisele stood head and shoulders above them all. Quite literally (fun fact to drop: she's two inches taller than Cara).
**Clearly Karl's new celebrity obsession is G-Dragon
**
If a celeb only goes to one show, it’s gonna be Chanel. And Karl’s known for luring in the It-Girls, like Leigh Lezark, Alexa Chung and Poppy Delevingne, who all turned up wearing Chanel. But it was a lad named G-Dragon (new to us, too) who really got the papps going. He looked like Harry Styles in a Chanel jacket, and it turns out that if you're one of his 3.5million Instagram followers, you'll know that he's a one-time child-star-turned-member of K-pop mega band Big Bang – and judging by all the heart emojis in his comments, his followers love him. Looks like Karl's courting the youth worldwide.
**So someone actually bought that Chanel supermarket basket – that someone was Anna Dello Russo…
**
It’s a given that with a show like Chanel, guests will turn up wearing the label – and walking fashion spread and editor-at-large of Vogue Japan, Anna Dello Russo, did just that, and then some. If you were wondering who on earth was going to buy a Chanel shopping basket after last season’s show, here’s your answer.
**Karl Lagerfeld is a feminist now
**
He might have said a few questionable things about women in the past – including 'I don't like [Kate Middleton's] face. She should only show her back' – but Karl’s catwalk this week was wholeheartedly pro-women and the slogans emblazoned not only on protest boards but the odd accessory too, told us so. ‘Ladies first,’ ‘Women’s rights are more than alright,’ 'Be your own stylist,' 'History is her story', the bags screamed and the models shouted, quite literally, as they stormed the catwalk for the finale.
**Was the show sponsored by Apple?
**
Karl was late for his own catwalk show because he was held up at an iWatch presentation pre-show. And he clutched a massive, bendy iPhone 6 when he took to the catwalk for the finale. But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. This is the man who once said of his 'kept woman', cat Choupette, 'she even knows how to use an iPad', and once admitted to having 300 iPods and four iPhones. No word yet, whether he's started an account on Vine.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.