In the latest Chanel podcast 3.55, recorded two months before Karl Lagerfeld’s death on 19 February 2019, the designer in conversation with Monocle editor in chief Tyler Brule said: ‘I don’t do marketing. I have nothing against it but it’s not my job. I’m not saying ‘this is for this woman, this is for that one’.’’.
Lagerfeld’s historic final Chanel AW19 ready-to-wear show is an example of the creative director’s long held belief in art for art’s sake, not for the purpose of an Instagram feed or marketing campaign. And it’s one of the most important parts of his legacy. In a fashion climate that has fetishised dressing down, all things casual and the Instagram consumer, Lagerfeld has always been more interested in luxury for the sake of it and visual excess. His final show at Chanel proves that this will be a winning formula across the fashion industry, which over the past couple of years has noticeably favouritised a sporty feel.
Held in a recreation of a Swiss ski town covered in snow, ‘Chanel in the Snow’ signalled that elegance and aspiration are what that much obsessed-over Instagram generation are interested in now. Models wore high waisted billowing trousers with matching jackets, dresses adorned with the trademark Chanel trademark camelias, thick and elegant belted tweed winter coats and fuchsia pink trouser suits. Across the AW19 shows it was a similar story, with womenswear collections showing gloriously adult looks by designers including Bottega Veneta, Dries Van Noten and Hermes — clothes that appeal to a more sophisticated customer uninterested in looking casual. Luxury fashion is beginning to dress up again, and this is will be one of Lagerfeld’s most enduring legacies.
He may have been uninterested in marketing but his grasp on branding was rare. Lagerfeld was a natural marketeer, following his taking over of Chanel in 1983 he re-established the house as one of the most significant fashion brands in the world through various branding exercises.
The German designer was always aware of the power in people and how consumers connect to them, bringing in during tenure at Chanel everyone from Keira Knightley and Lily Allen, to Jen Brill and Vanessa Paradis. For AW19, the show was opened by Cara Delevingne, a longtime collaborator of Lagerfeld’s, in a tweed belted jumpsuit. Penelope Cruz, a relatively new brand ambassador, walked the runway in a white ‘snowball skirt’ carrying a single white rose. On the front row, Janelle Monáe, Kristen Stewart, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell watched in awe as a moment of history walked by and a new legacy was secured: luxury as something to be proud of, not dressed down. Or as Lagerfeld quipped on his final recording for the Chanel podcast, “Luxury has to be luxury”.
All images courtesy of Chanel.