Dress For Wedding | 日記 | Metiers dArt

For 14 years, the designer Karl Lagerfeld made the world his stage when it came to opulent showcases to unveil his Métiers d’Art collections for Chanel, dedicated to celebrating the handwork of Chanel-owned specialty ateliers. There was, for example, the highfalutin rodeo show in Texas in 2013, complete with corn dogs, a drive-in theater and the white-haired designer’s ostentatious entrance in the back of a ’50s-style convertible alongside Anna Wintour, editor in chief of American Vogue; the misty palace illuminated by flaming braziers in Salzburg, Austria, in 2014; and last year, a romantic, life-size homage to Paris built at the Cinecitta movie studios on the outskirts of Rome. So the fact that Mr. Lagerfeld’s most recent Métiers d’Art show was held on Tuesday in the gilded rooms of the Ritz in Paris, a stone’s throw from Chanel workrooms on Rue Cambon, risked making the atmosphere seem a little … quotidian. Yes, the hotel may be among the world’s most luxurious, enveloped in the embrace of a city it has long called home. But in a strange way, it also felt more restrained than the no-expense-spared excess of previous years. The show lasted but an hour before guests dissipated into the City of Light (actually there were three shows, split over an afternoon and evening, and guests were invited to lunch, tea or dinner as models wound their way around laden tables), and the event seemed to suggest that, less than a year after the unexpected departure of Chanel’s chief executive and rumors of heavy hits to its profitability as a result of tumultuous financial markets, the brand had perhaps reappraised whom and what it wanted to represent. In essence: the finest fabric of French culture. The title of the show was, after all, “Paris Cosmopolite.” Indeed, the collection had its roots in the décor of the Paris Ritz. The hotel, on the Place Vendôme, has long been a haven for the fashion cognoscenti, and Gabrielle Chanel — the founder of the fashion house — lived there for almost 35 years until her death in 1971. It reopened in June after four years of renovation, and Mr. Lagerfeld declared from a red-velvet chaise that with the collection he wanted to pay homage to the Parisian ensembles that would not have looked out of place on the royalty, movie stars and members of the jet set who had formed the Ritz clientele Rolodex of yesteryear. “The Ritz has always been an international place, full of elegant people, and somewhere where one could come to see elegant, modern clothes coming and going,” Mr. Lagerfeld said. “I wanted to recreate something of that at this show today, at what I consider the cosmopolitan spot par excellence,” he added, regarding the jewel-encrusted and marabou-tinge classic knitted tweed suits or bouclé jackets that models paraded (some in gradually ascending levels of tipsiness as the day wore on), many with oversize shoulders and neat proportions, or triple belts that wrapped around the waist.   bridesmaid dresses uk | cheap bridesmaid dresses