Pamela Anderson Frolics on the Chanel Beach
Chanel created an entire beach in the Grand Palais for the funnest show of Paris Fashion Week.
Does any name loom as large as Chanel in the worlds of fashion and luxury? As one editor said before the Tuesday morning show started, “This is already the best show of the week.”
It was certainly the most fun. Karl Lagerfeld created an entire beach in the Grand Palais, complete with waves lapping gently on the sand, tiki huts, and hunky lifeguards. “BEACH WEEK” has taken on a sinister meaning in the past few weeks, but at Chanel, it was a delightful spectacle that distracted us all from the moody gray coldness outside. After the show, the Chanel-clad guests all gathered on the shore and took selfies. Pamela Anderson skipped out from the front row and revisited her Baywatch golden era with a luxury twist, taking off her Chanel heels and prancing in the waves in a perfect white tweed suit.
Lagerfeld is something like a Greek god of seasons, with countless muses swirling in his snow-white head. For him, to say “Fall 2018” is rich enough to bring us a leaf-dappled forest with models swathed in tweeds and a fantastic metallic leaf print that looked like a luxe take on the Real Tree print that’s obsessed streetwear nerds. Here, “beach” didn’t mean bikinis and the lingering threat of shark attacks. No, no: the models held their shoes and wandered through the waves like teen Amphitrites. There were some fabulous babydoll dresses, a nude Chanel skirt suit that every young rapper and Kendall Jenner acolyte should cop, a few cool oversized jacket silhouettes, and a Chanel sun bonnet. Punchy, fresh, young—with just the right Michel Gaubert soundtrack. And Pamela!
It made me think: a million biographies decoding Coco Chanel have been written, but none have managed to capture Lagerfeld, who is Coco’s legacy bearer and interpreter for how the ideas of a woman who stood for—and in fashion, invented—modernity. Walter Isaacson, get on it!
