I’m dismayed by the negative comments when just a short time ago many were full of praise for the genius that was and still is Karl Lagerfeld. Is his time to rest In peace over? It shouldn’t be. Lagerfeld designed beautiful garments and this collection is no exception. Fashion shows are scripted to present the current fashion line not the models. His last show did it brilliantly.
I absolutely love the bright pops of red, turquoise, and purple. The inspiration for a me-made wardrobe built around the little Lagerfeld Chanel style lipstick red wool bouclé cardigan jacket I’m already sewing. I’m trimming it in leather and chain — very “tongue-in-chic” like the man who inspired it.
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What a beautifully written piece. Thank you Vanessa for what you do; we all benefit. Mr. Lagerfeld's final masterpiece is a creative tour de force of beauty on a macro and a micro level.
To the armchair critics and to those who shade Mr. Lagerfeld's last elegiac work, please return to humble civility and refrain from speaking ill of the dead. If you are not capable of that, then feel free to criticize Mr. Lagerfeld's genius when you personally have surpassed it.
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Living in arctic temperatures, snow piled up 5 to 6 feet along driveways and pavements, parking lots hidden from streets by plows moving mountains of snow, long glittering icicles hanging from roof edges, surviving the polar vortex, and pine trees weighed down by heavy snow, I found Karl Lagerfeld's clothing beautiful, his boots practical, and the "je ne sais pas" faces of the models, so right on, and with their purses, totes, acoutements to be a collective response to saying "No" to defeat, and "Yes" to the ways we are living now. Mr Lagerfeld -may he rest in peace- has so magically used the fabrics of Chanel. His clothes are so lovely. Thank you New York Times. Thank you Karl Lagerfeld.
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Best to avoid saying "committed suicide" -- the phrase is embedded with notions of criminality. "Died by suicide" works much better and saves two syllables, while sidestepping stigma.
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Some people criticize Ferraris, some people criticize modern art, some are not OK with avant-garde architecture and some don't like haute couture. Do they actually understand the purpose, the essence of these things ?
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Unfortunately, Karl Lagerfeld’s final Chanel Show missed due to illness. Yup the models are still in a very big funk no doubt. The worth of final Chanel Show and patterns composed of actual crystals is outstanding.
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Fiddle whilst Rome burns and the New York Times will cover it. Glam.
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@J Norris
BUT, I recently read a quote that I wish I could find, maybe someone can help, by one of the Sulzbergers, publishers of the NYT, in which he said, roughly, that the fashion section pays for the war coverage. I've kept that in mind as my eyes roll over coverage of the fashion world.
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@J Norris
Also, fascinating to see how fashion recreates certain tropes during times of duress... the glamorous, androgyne and hyper domesticated feminine, seen as bourgeois now, also had their moment in the 1920s and 30s... it seems that ‘fiddling’ works its way into the collective psyche in the same way again and again. Doesn’t that engage you at all?
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@Jim Greenwood
Thanks for that sliver of hope Jim. I just have a very strong vision that in a not so far off future one of our children picks up a yellowed scrap of some of yesterday’s newsprint with which to light another fire to try to warm his or her own child, catches an eye on the article in the dim candlelight, finds the date on the page and curses through chapped lips under frosty breath;”They knew and they did absolutely nothing different. They knew”.
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@merc
Get real if you’re selling ready to wear!
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I came to see the clothes, sort of. But I mostly came to see if the models had gotten over whatever has made them appear to be, for the last decade or two anyway, among the most depressed people on Earth.
The good news? The clothes aren't too weird. The bad news? The models are still in a very, very big funk.
Oh well, there's always Fall 2019!
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What does it say as we watched Lagefeld's final show with slim and lissom models parading down the runway? How about little more than 'business as usual'?
Lagefeld could have left a mark for others to emulate, showing young models in varying body sizes strut before us as equals in their god-given body types.
But no, instead we got more of the same, the standard display of models, particularly young women, being little more than 'meat on the hoof.'
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