Shaik, rattle and roll

next models

In 2008, 17 year-old Shanina Shaik was named the runnerup of Seven Network’s unsurprisingly short-lived reality show, Make Me A Supermodel. By February 2009, she had moved to New York, popped up in a handful of shows at New York Fashion Week and started dating US model and reality tv star Tyson Beckford, the co-host of the American version of Make Me A Supermodel (who is currently shooting Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model with Elle Macpherson). The pair had originally met during the filming of the Australian show, on which Beckford played model mentor. Although a contract with New York Model Management was part of Shaik’s prizes, not much was heard from her until November 9 2011, when she appeared in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York, alongside some major modelling names, including compatriot Miranda Kerr. 

Katerina Chang is the bomb

Frockwriter first noticed Katerina Chang at the David Jones show in Sydney last month. As it emerges, it is no surprise that we haven't seen that much of her. Living in Australia for four years, initially studying a marketing degree at the University of Western Sydney, this 21 year-old Taiwanese beauty with Marlene Dietrich cheekbones first walked into the Sydney offices of Chadwick Models in July last year. She has been quietly building a body of work.

First look: Jacquetta Wheeler for Jigsaw Australia Spring 2011

Anthony Cuthbertson is a busy guy. Not only is the Brit import the new creative director of Australian sportswear brand David Lawrence, as it emerges he is also the creative director of Jigsaw Australia (which, like David Lawrence, is owned by the Sydney-based M Webster Holdings). The British high street brand celebrates its 20th anniversary downunder with the upcoming ‘Cool Britannia’-inspired Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection of smart coats and sweet dresses, which launches in store at the end of this month and includes a capsule collection of swimwear, dresses, tops and skirts in Liberty of London’s iconic micro florals. To mark the occasion, Cuthbertson cast English rose Jacquetta Wheeler as the face of Jigsaw’s Max Doyle-lensed Spring 2011 campaign. Spotted by Mario Testino at age 16 in 1998 and named “model of the millennium” by The Face magazine in 1999, Wheeler's 13-year career has embraced advertising campaigns for the biggest names in the fashion business, including Gucci, Calvin Klein, Givenchy, Prada, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Roberto Cavalli. 

Abbey Lee Kershaw falls off her bike

via babes on bikes

Abbey Lee Kershaw is recovering from a "cycling accident" her New York agency has confirmed. “She is fine now” is all Next director Stephen Lee would tell frockwriter when we contacted him this morning, following days of rumours on online model fan sites. Lee provided no other details and nor could Kershaw's Sydney mother agency Chic Management, for whom the accident appeared to be news when we called. Good to hear that she is OK. Bike accidents can be nasty - especially if you are not wearing a helmet (no idea whether this applies here). But it does most likely explain why Kershaw, one of Chanel's current season advertising faces, was a no-show at the brand's Pre-Fall presentation in Paris on Tuesday. Australia was repped at the show instead by Priscillas' upwardly mobile Bambi Northwood-Blyth and Lauren Brown, the second Chanel show in three months for both models, following the Spring/Summer 2011 season in Paris. The accident does not, however, explain why Kershaw missed out on walking last month's Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, after two consecutive years in the show. She attended castings but was just not cast in the final lineup, say our sources. Kershaw has had more than her fair share of injuries. In October 2008, she fell on Rodarte’s runway in New York in a pair of very high Nicholas Kirkwood shoes. Three weeks later in Paris, she fainted on Alexander McQueen’s runway in a tight corset. 

Short black: Bambi Northwood-Blyth also snags Chanel - Spring/Summer 2011

The Australia's Next Top Model judges seemed to enjoy giving flak to some of the shorter contestants on this year's show. In the end, the taller model - Amanda Ware - won Cycle 6. But a lack of runway regulation height (5'6"-5'7") hasn't stymied Bambi Northwood-Blyth's chances of an international runway career. Her Paris Fashion Week started with Thursday's Balenciaga show, moving onto to Loewe and yesterday's back-to-back Ungaro and Giambattista Valli shows. Well she has just added to that impressive Paris show list with no less than Chanel, joining three other Australian models on the French luxury brand's Spring/Summer 2011 runway: Chanel face Abbey Lee Kershaw, Julia Nobis and Lauren Brown. Judging by this video below (thanks to TFS for sourcing), Northwood-Blyth has been working on her walk, which raised a few eyebrows after New York Fashion Week. She's up at around 1.07. It seems the sky may well now be the limit for her.

Vogue shoots live at Chanel

What a blast Australia's first Fashion's Night Out was on Thursday night. Everywhere you looked there were people - many of them apparently also shopping (Ashley Hanson from Uscari in the Mid City Centre told frockwriter her sales were up 200percent). Tried to take in as much as possible, but it wasn't easy with so much packed into such a narrow window and over 450 retailers involved. Particularly enjoyed the Chanel photoshoot in the basement of the brand's Sydney flagship on Castlereagh Street, during which Vogue's fave snapper Max Doyle shot Chic Management's Sarah Stephens and Annika Kaban (above) in the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 collection. According to Chanel Australia's general manager fashion Ian Clark, Chanel did the same last year in London for the first Fashion's Night Out in that city and it had exclusive dibs on the live fashion shoot concept for the Sydney event. People loved it, crowding around to watch Doyle and his team working. Covered a little of it in real time on Posterous but here are some other shots. Have yet to experience a Fashion's Night Out in its native New York, but you can only imagine the vibe and energy. If only retail could always be like this...

Make that The Blonde Kob...

@modelinia

Just yesterday frockwriter mentioned that a number of Australian hair salons are reporting a spike of interest in the new “choppy” longer bob, aka The Kob, sported by Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw (now the world number five according to models.com) - whose long, bohemian locks were trimmed by Chanel for the company’s recent Fall/Winter 2010/2011 ad campaign. Well perhaps those salons should be en garde: snapped a matter of hours ago at a Chanel cocktail party at New York Fashion Week, Kershaw has just died her hair platinum blonde. Yes we know there are far more pressing matters on the global agenda than a model’s hair colour change, but the fashion world does tends to exist in its own bubble. “OMG!!!! Abbey Lee has gone blonde!!!! LIKE BLONDE and looks amazing!!!!!” noted Canadian photographer and blogger Tommy Ton on Twitter – a Tweet, together with this Chanel party snap, above, taken by US model-dedicated news site Modelinia, that is rapidly spreading across the Twitterverse. Kershaw’s hair was coloured by high profile Cuban hair stylist Orlando Pita, Kershaw's mother agent Kathy Ward tells Chic frockwriter, but there are no changes to the style. We're now wondering if perhaps Chanel wanted to keep Kershaw under wraps until the soiree. Kershaw, Chanel's current advertising face and a star of every Chanel 2010 fashion show, did not show up at Tuesday night’s Fashion’s Night Out show at the Lincoln Center produced by Vogue (while compatriots Catherine McNeil, Ajak Deng and Julia Nobis did), even though she was featured in one of the FNO promotional videos.

Chop shop: Salons report a run on Abbey Lee Kershaw's bob

david jones SS1011 backstage

We’ve seen The Pip and The Pob, make way for The Kob – aka The Chanel Bob. That’s the short, choppy bob currently being sported by Australian supermod Abbey Lee Kershaw. LifeStyled editor Paula Joye christened it The Kob in her David Jones show wrap, noting that beyond the Mark McInnes sexual harassment scandal, Kershaw’s do was the talk of the front row at the August 3 show in Sydney, which starred Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Nicole Trunfio as replacements for pregnant Miranda Kerr. “It’s a modern, long bob and I think a lot of the people in the front row have already booked in for an Abbey chop” Joye told frockwriter. “I think this the beginning of the return of the fringe. Kim Kardashian has just cut one. Lea Michele was sporting an extra long one at the Emmys. Leighton Meester, she’s had one cut as well. That long bob and that serious fringe that’s cut from quite far back". So have people in fact been booking in for Kershaw’s look? Update 10/09: Chameleon Kershaw now a platinum blonde.

Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and others reportedly to offer plus size clothing at Saks Fifth Avenue, while France launches a plus size manifesto

karl lagerfeld for V via models.com

It’s been interesting tracking the story of plus sized designer clothing over the past two years. In March 2008, at Fully Chic, we incurred the wrath of some plus-sized consumers after reporting that although Target Australia made up to a size 16 in its Stella McCartney collection in 2007, so much size 16 merch was left on the sales racks Target stopped at a 14 when it came to producing its next collab with Zac Posen. Several weeks later we reported that Australian designer Leona Edmiston was doubling her size range to a 24 – but only in her online boutique. The story triggered a heated debate amongst those who lauded Edmiston's pioneering efforts - and those who claimed the move was “normalising obesity". Last year, Today Tonight took size 16 Melbourne blogger Hayley Hughes undercover into Melbourne’s Chapel Street. She found virtually no merchandise over size 12. Eighteen designers and retailers refused to discuss with the program why fashion's high end actively discriminates against larger consumers by ignoring them, with insiders citing concerns the issue was "bad for their image". So it was with some surprise that we spotted what could be the best-kept secret in the fashion business: a report that Saks Fifth Avenue is about to trial plus sizes from luxury brands including Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce e Gabbana and Fendi on its New York designer womenswear floor.

Abbey Lee Kershaw walks Chanel (again), makes world number 6

chanel haute couture FW1011/getty via daylife

The haute couture shows roll on and overnight, to the best of frockwriter’s knowledge, Abbey Lee Kershaw was the first Australian model to pop up therein – at Chanel. This is no surprise, as Kershaw has spent the past eight months forging a powerful alliance with the iconic French couture house and its German creative director, Karl Lagerfeld. Kershaw closed Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2010 haute couture show in January, opened its Fall/Winter 2010/2011 ready to wear show in March and appears in both the Spring/Summer 2010 ad campaigns for Lagerfeld’s own collection and the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 Chanel campaign. Back in December, during an interview for Australian current affairs program Today Tonight (only a fraction of which made it to air) Kershaw told me that she was moving on from Italian luxury goods house Gucci, with which she had booked four campaigns – although in everything other than the Flora by Gucci campaign, as part of a group of bigger name models. But Kershaw’s star is definitely on the rise. Since December, beyond her Chanel coups, she has appeared on ten magazine covers. Today Tonight asked, could she make it to number 1? Well she's getting closer - models.com just upgraded her ranking to world number 6.

Hollywood's risk takers

reuters via daylife

Just a couple of personal favourites from last night's Oscars. Most of which, frockwriter notes, are already turning up on worst-dressed lists. In a sea of safe, so-so goddess gowns and meringues, however, we applaud their bravura: Charlize Theron, Zoe Saldana and Sarah Jessica Parker in haute couture, respectively Christian Dior, Givenchy and Chanel. Then there was Nicole Richie's quicksilver boho de luxe gown by Lebanese American designer Reem Acra. And the statuesque Kathryn Bigelow, who looked striking in her gunmetal Yves Saint Laurent sheath. Although the latter design was far more conservative than that of Theron and co, when you are the first woman in 82 years to be awarded a Best Director Oscar, who needs haute couture?







all images: daylife

sarah jessica parker/getty
nicole richie/getty
zoe saldana/AP
charlize theron/reuters

Jean Paul Gaultier sponsored by ice creams - New York mag mistakes them for condoms

style.com


Well so far this week at the Paris haute couture shows we have seen Christian Dior downsize its usual big bucks runway spectacle to a low-key presentation in the rooms above the Dior shop – and hack off half the outfits to send models out in their underwear. Christian Lacroix present what may have been his very last collection, after declaring bankruptcy. And now on the closing day of the haute couture schedule, the pièce de GFC résistance: Jean Paul Gaultier's show not only appears to have been sponsored by Streets’ Magnum ice creams, he actually walked down the runway to take his bow holding one. And if that wasn’t absurd enough, then this just-posted report in New York magazine’s The Cut blog, provides the following, hilarious, coda. Evidently Magnum ice creams are not well-known in the US. Because when The Times of London Tweeted that Magnums were being handed out to showgoers – New York magazine assumed The Times was talking about “Magnum condoms".

And didn’t seem to think much of it really. Even though a condom brand sponsoring a presentation of six figure ballgowns isn’t, well, something you see every day. Particularly when it's not your garden variety condom, but a brand of extra-large frangers that are marketed by Trojan.

Things aren’t quite that bad yet but who knows what the Spring/Summer 2010 Ready to Wear season will bring.

Ready-to-wear is one matter. That is, mass-produced, off-the-rack clothes that you can buy in boutiques and department stores.

By the same token however, up until now, you never saw much sponsorship collateral at shows in the big fashion cities - as distinct from RAFW in Sydney and London Fashion Week, where the brands are much smaller. This is because, presumably, the companies behind the big brands a/have the marketing budgets to spend on fashion shows and moreover b/consider that additional sponsorship collateral would only serve to undermine their branding.

Haute couture is a little different.

To begin with, the sample collections are far more expensive to produce. These are hand-crafted, often heavily-embellished garments that will be sold on a made-to-measure basis only. The more elaborate dresses - for example, Erica Packer's Christian Dior haute couture wedding dress - involve hundreds of hours of handwork. Hence the six figure price tags.

With money no object and, theoretically, no practical/commercial restraints on a couturier's imagination, haute couture is supposed to represent the absolute "dream" or essence of French fashion.

Yes, there are super-rich clients who can afford it and who keep the business going (as mentioned on Monday, Chanel reports that 2008 was a record year for its couture division). However haute couture is essentially an image proposition: a glamorous, and terribly expensive, loss leader that is used to promote the more lucrative volume divisions, ie the ready-to-wear, the accessories and of course, the far more accessible fragrances and beauty products.

But while the former president of the ice cream division of Unilever now runs one of the world's biggest luxury conglomerates - Gucci Group's Robert Polet - so far not even Gucci, which is ready-to-wear only, has considered aligning itself with ice creams.

You have to wonder what the very image-conscious Paris shows organising body, the Chambre Syndicale de la haute couture Parisienne, thinks about Gaultier's flagrant Magnum sponsorship - and whether it enhances the image of the struggling haute couture industry, or in fact cheapens it.

Moreover, what does Hermès think about it?

Not only is Gaultier creative director at the French luxury leathergoods brand, last year Hermès increased its stake in Gaultier's own company from 35-45percent. If Gaultier is flush with funds, why did he seek assistance from Streets?

Click here to see the Jean Paul Gaultier collection, which included the week’s omipresent power shoulders, trench coats – including a nifty trench bodysuit – bodycon, fur, Sydney native Alexandra Agoston-O’Connor in a pair of croc overalls and Melbourne native Emily Trimble in a mullet version of the trench. That is, miniskirt at the front, party at the back - a trend also witnessed at Chanel. Given that it means less ultra-expensive, hand-embellished haute couture fabric overall for the dresses in question, perhaps we can also blame this trend on the economic climate.

New York Mag, pls see below for some Magnum comparisons.

A Magnum ice cream:


wikimedia

Not to be confused with a Magnum condom:


allcondoms.com

The Personal Urban Transporter: Chanel's new mobile art

yatzer via chanel

"Bling is over" and the global economic meltdown calls for “a new modesty” in fashion. So Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld told The New York Times on January 15 - shortly after Chanel laid off 200 staff and pulled the plug on the company’s planned multi-city Mobile Art exhibition, which was housed within a spaceship-like structure designed by architect Zaha Hadid. Which is why frockwriter initially harboured doubts about a story currently whipping around tech blogs about Chanel's supposed foray into the Segway market, with its 'Personal Urban Transporter'. As it turns out however, the story is on the money. First spotted in the January edition of Air France's in-flight magazine, the first online image appeared on February 15th, on the BeautifulMag blog, which noted, "By simply leaning in the direction you want to go, you drive your personal transporter with a maximum speed of 20kph through your city. Shopping, sporting and relaxing has never been so glamorous".


yatzer via chanel

The only source provided is Chanel and frockwriter was unable to find any reference to the product on Chanel’s site, with the only Chanel-branded sport items listed being a tennis racquet, skis, snowboard, bicycle and fishing rod.

Frockwriter has just checked with Chanel's Australian PR director, Susie Stenmark, who confirmed that the product has been in the pipeline at Chanel for the past six to eight months and is available via order.

The Personal Urban Transporter functions in very similar manner to the electronic Segway, said Stenmark. Given that the Segway is an established brand name, Chanel's product had to be given a separate name.

Frockwriter is not sure if that constitutes a knockoff, but we'll get back to you.

Meanwhile Chanel's new baby doesn't seem to have gone down too well in the tech blogosphere - which has overlooked the officially sanctioned product name, and insists on referring to the "Chanel Segway".

Writes Gizmodo:

“Chanel Segway is pretty much inexcusable”

Yatzer:

“Will the economic crisis ever affect Mr Lagerfeld?”

And Ecorazzi:

“Chanel Segway May Hint That The End Of The World Is Near”

FYI a Ferrari Segway retails for 7,000 euros (A$14,000).

An embarrassment of riches

chanel haute couture SS09/getty

“Bling is over. Red carpety [sic] covered with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty’”. So noted Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld in The New York Times on January 15th, a fortnight after Chanel announced 200 job cuts (reportedly one percent of its 16,000 workforce). Here are some early shots of the company's haute couture collection that was just shown on Tuesday morning in Paris. Australia's Myf Shepherd stars once again (^), her second haute couture outing after yesterday’s Christian Dior show.

Difficult to call from these first few shots but the backdrop to the show looks to have been a massive installation of white paper flowers.

The white flower theme was echoed in the whimsical millinery, which frockwriter assumes was created by Maison Michel, the 73 year-old Parisian milliner that was acquired by Chanel in 2002, along with several other specialist suppliers, including embroiderer Maison Lesage. (Correction: The millinery was created by Japanese stylist/makeup artist Katsuya Kamo).



chanel haute couture SS09/getty

Had it not been for Chanel, these houses would no doubt have disappeared, like so many others before them, taking jobs, and of course, skills, with them.

According to the above-linked NYT story, the luxury business in France still employs 200,000 people.

It is easy in this dire economic climate to look at these bespoke, hand-made and highly labour-intensive garments, whose upper prices soar into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and scream “obscene”.

But haute couture is about master craftsmanship and it represents the absolute nadir of fashion creativity. Paraphrasing a quote from the late Christian Dior, Dior's current creative director, John Galliano, told style.com yesterday that the job of couturiers “is to make people dream”.

At the end of the day the super rich will always be among us.

And without them, let's face it, we wouldn’t have the pyramids, Rembrandt or Versailles.

Here’s a video of the Christian Dior show from the UK Telegraph:



For millinery enthusiasts, a video on Maison Michel.

And more on the work of Katsuya Kamo, who was most recently showcased in the November edition of London's Dazed & Confused magazine.

Chanel confessions: Karl loves a ballbreaker, Anna downplays her glam

I'm backstage at the Grand Palais just off the Champs Elysees. It's 9.30am and a half hour to the Chanel show - in fact the first of what will be two Chanel shows this season.

It's the first time in fact that Chanel has split its ready-to-wear show into two - due in part to the fact that the staging is little more intimate, I am told, this season.

But due no doubt also in part to the ever-expanding interest in this privately-owned French luxury powerhouse whose sales are estimated to be US$3.3billion. At Chanel's creative helm is of course the seemingly indefatigable and eternally youthful, septuaganarian German designer Karl Lagerfeld.

People are everywhere and it's difficult to move.

There's Gemma Ward having a mascara touchup. There's Iekelienne having more pink blush applied.

There's another model having her hair crimped to resemble merino wool [oops!]. She is reading a Swedish celebrity tabloid called Aftonbladet. There's a table covered in small plastic bags. Inside each bag is a polaroid of a model and I can see one shot of Australian Catherine McNeil - who is, yes, all over these big shows - with her hair combed over her face. Maybe it's a styling idea that got canned. I say that because over on the other side of the room, Raquel Zimmermann sits with what appears to be the finished look: crimped hair that has been brushed out for a shaggy effect, but definitely off the face, with pale makeup and heavily-pencilled uberbrows.

A couple of models are tucking into little bowls of chocolate cocopop things. It looks like they're eating brown polystyrene chips. Good to see that there at least is food here. Last night backstage before YSL Iekelienne was complaining that she was starving but that all the food had gone. Outside in the foyer a humungous refectory table is laid out with food. From the requisite croissants to yoghurt and fruit platters, are also platters of cheese and bowls of pickled onions. Pickled onions for breakfast?

I walk back into the main backstage area and it's all happening. Not the show - just the backstage power posse.

Directly in front of me are Chanel owners, the brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, as well as Chanel president Francoise Montenay. All three seem to be exactly the same height - and come up to my ear. Anna Wintour is also there. The devil's not wearing Prada today but is a shimmering bronze vision in what I am reliably informed is a sable-trimmed, pearl-embellished Chanel haute couture cocktail suit.

The umpteenth Coco's Cabasse wafts past me. Quite seriously, if I see another of these bags, I may puke. A black patent vinyl tote with chain handle, this bag is the "must take" bag of AW0708 [see the "To the Manor bought" blog entry from the SS07 Fashion Season about the Burberry Manor bag] - gifted by Chanel to any fashion editors and journalists who aren't bound by ethics policies at their respective publications. And no doubt also a few who are. It has been everywhere this season. In Australia it retails for $2,100. Unlike the editors of course, you'll have to pay for it.

It's now 10.00am and I'm out front near the stage. There's an entire ice skating rink installation in the centre of the room, with fake 'ice' and snow. Suspended between the rink and the Grand Palais' magnificent domed glass ceilings are a series of 'clouds' fashioned from what looks like scrunched white gauze. Wintour and her hilariously camp offsider Andre Leon Talley hold court front row on one side of the skating rink.

I have been in Wintour's proximity on many occasions this season. For some reason this seems like an appropriate moment to approach her. I move in.

Now I have no idea whether Meryl Streep ever got to met Wintour in person prior to doing The Devil Wears Prada. But having now spoken to Wintour in person briefly, I should say that the withering tone so frequently adopted by Streep's Miranda Priestley character [which is supposed to be based on Wintour] is not too far from the real thing.

Although for the most part quite gracious and enthusiastic, Wintour adopts a withering tone twice. As she 'withers' curiously, she turns her head to one side - as if to express her utter disdain at the questions and to register that that is the end of the matter. On both occasions her British accent also seems crisper than usual. Perhaps she is simply embarrassed.

What is the secret do you think to the enduring appeal of Chanel?
Wintour: Well I think the enduring appeal of Chanel is all to do with Karl Lagerfeld who is this extraordinary human being in that he has such an open mind, surrounds himself with interesting people, he knows and loves culture of all kinds, popular, classical.... and I think it's all reflected in his collections. I mean without Karl, Chanel you know, would not be what it is today.

And he is an interesting case study in himself in that so many of his contemporaries have either retired or have lost their touch. He manages to stay hip.
Karl is eternally young. And he's interested in the future. What he always says to me the minute that a collection is over is, 'It's over'. He goes on to the next and I think that's a great strength.

Did The Devil Wears Prada have much of an impact on you?
Ah..... [withering, lowers voice] not at all.

In terms surely of fashion in film and on television now with that film and programs such as Project Runway you have to admit that fashion is everywhere?
Sure, I mean you know anything that celebrates fashion, whatever it may be, a movie, a television show, a book, online.... you know and I think one of the things that has interested me in the last three years is that so many of the designers are interested in doing small collections for people like H&M and Target. It just means that fashion is available on every level, whether it's the media or at different prices so that's great for the industry.

But there appears to be so much more interest in fashion now. Obviously everyone in the fashion world knows who Anna Wintour is however TDWP no doubt introduced you to a number of people who may not have been familiar with your name.
Well I think it's great for fashion and Amy [Astley] who is the editor of Teen Vogue gave a party just a couple of weeks ago for a young woman named Maria Sharapova, the tennis player. I was amazed at her knowledge of young designers, that she knew designers like Rodarte and Thakoon and I think that's because there is so much more coverage and interest in fashion than there ever has been. And so much more exposure on all levels. So I embrace that.

Do you think it's harder for young designers today to survive?
Well it's always been hard but I think talent always rises to the top.

Yes however they are obviously facing different challenges today.
Yeah but the good ones find partners, they find investment and they find a customer.

What is your definition of glamour?
[Laughs] My daughter.

Do you think you're the most glamorous woman in the world?
[Full wither, lowers voice] Of course not.

It's showtime and the models emerge onto the rink. It's a short, sharp show with plenty of the trademark Chanel glamour tweeds.

This season, any Chanel otaku will no doubt be thrilled to learn that they can kit themself out in Chanel tweed from top to toe - thanks to Lagerfeld's cute effort at, as he later explains, creating "endless" legs via matching tweed boots.

The back of Chanel's new season boot is fastened down the back of the leg with buckles and flaps. It's a kind of glam biker-meets-gladiator look.

The signature Chanel black and white is thrown out the window via a plethora of brightly-coloured tweeds and a series of shirtdresses with long tabard shirttails in bold colours such as turquoise.

The silhouette is long, waists are high and the eveningwear includes cocktail dresses in acid yellow and turquoise, some smart sequinned pencil skirts in silver or gold, teamed with graphic black/white tunic tops and slick strapless bustier dresses worn over skinny pants.

Add to that, some brightly-coloured enamel jewellery and yet more covetable Chanel boots - one pair in the trademark tan reach just over the knee, with a low, square heel and black 'racing stripe' down the outside of the leg.

After the show I run over to join the media scrum waiting for some Lagerfeld comments.

Although this scenario is played out at the end of every major international fashion show, the Chanel scrums always seem bigger than most. But at least they are civilised. Approximately 30 people have swarmed around Lagerfeld and we are packed so tightly together I believe I can feel the pelvis of the Asian woman standing directly behind me sticking into my back.

I am virtually piggybacking one security guard who is trying to shield Lagerfeld from the throng - and an Italian reporter has her arm around his neck trying to keep her balance on the rows of seating between which we find ourselves precariously perched. It occurs to me that you would never be this intimate with total strangers in any other situation.

Lagerfeld is wearing a black woollen peacoat, black pants, a black sweater with white ribbed turtleneck, burgundy Dior Homme sunglasses and silver Chanel mittens with silver discs on the knuckles.

Standing directly behind him at one point I can confirm that he does indeed powder his white ponytail - because I can see the white powder on his black ponytail elastic.

Making his hair whiter than usual is some 'snow' which fell from the clouds at the end of the show. It looks like chunky dandruff. With the white turtleneck, Lagerfeld also looks a bit like a priest - in the process of ministering to his congregation.

Someone moves out and I decide to carpe Karl.

As I flick out my tape recorder, he reaches out and grabs and holds my forearm for the duration of my questions. There is something sweet about it and I am secretly hoping that he doesn't remember that this time last week in Milan, after Fendi, I asked for his thoughts on anal electrocution.

The boots with the straps at the back - they looked like biker boots.
Lagerfeld: We called them spat boots, you know. It was the idea. Because you know if not they have the leg in some street maybe a little warm...

So are they a boot or a spat/gaiter?
No they are boots. Because it wouldn't fit well if it was added later.

We are seeing a lot of 'tough chic' on the runways, first in Milan and now also in Paris. What do you think about the whole idea of tough chic?
Because you know, I like women to be a little bit aggressive.

Really?
Yes, I think it's a good thing. Why not? Because if they're not aggressive, the men try to be aggressive [to] them so everybody can be aggressive. But in a nice way - because to be aggressive is sharp, huh?

Original post and comments.