Chanel - Spring-Summer 2018 RTW

The healing power of nature, the need for optimism, the importance of handcraft, the celebratory power of forward-looking fashion: All these things have been constant talking points in Paris for over a week now, but it took Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel to actually bring the vertiginous cliffs and coursing waterfalls of the Gorges du Verdon to the Grand Palais and wrap it all up in a final spectacular word on every point. The scenery—a facsimile of a beauty spot in the South of France—was so naturalistic that a breeze floated along the canyon, blowing off the girls’ clear plastic boaters and setting their extraordinary clothes flowing as they strode on in their thigh-high plastic boots. “Did you feel it?” asked Karl Lagerfeld (rhetorically) afterward. “The molecules from the water, when you breathe them in, it’s very healthy for you! It’s why you feel good in places like this.”