Chanel returned to the Grand Palais scene of the late Karl Lagerfeld's most legendary triumphs for the first time in four years on Tuesday, without a designer but still able to ruffle feathers with its birdcage-themed Paris Fashion Week show. The famed French house turned the refurbished Belle Epoque edifice into a giant aviary, with a white birdcage at its centre to show off a collection festooned with plumes and feathers. Only a day earlier, British designer Stella McCartney had lamented the "billions of birds killed for the fashion industry" after the animal rights campaigner's own bird-themed Paris show.
But there were plumes aplenty at Chanel a favourite of its founder Gabrielle Chanel as it celebrated her fascination with birds and flight. The giant birdcage was also a nod to Chanel's iconic bird on a swing advert from 1992 starring French singer Vanessa Paradis and her black tail feathers. Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough sat on the swing to sing this time.
With the main entrance of the Grand Palais now bearing Gabrielle Chanel's name as a part of a 30-million-euro deal to stage its shows at the Paris landmark, the brand wanted to plant a flag during uncertain times. Without a creative director since June after Virginie Viard who took over from Lagerfeld after his death in 2019 bowed out, Chanel's studio designed the spring summer collection, riffing on some of the label's standards, from its trademark tweeds to lacy flapper dresses and flying jackets. But it.
