Chanel's Metier d'Art 2012. Three French Hens.

French elegance teamed with Indian opulence is how I would sum up the look created by the Chanel Metier d'Art show last week. Guests were seated at a fabulously laid table adorned with onion bahjis and 3 foot towers of roses.

Famous faces in the model line-up included Stella Tennant as pictured below walking with Karl Lagerfeld himself, and mother and daughter combination Yasmin and Amber le Bon.  The line, titled Métiers d'Art, was launched eight years ago to showcase French craftsmanship, then under threat as the number of couture houses fell.
Consequently, the look included Indian-inspired embellishments : bindis, beads, garlands and luxurious fabrics. Models wore flat shoes only and sported a hair style that is claimed to have taken the styling team two full days to complete! 


Items featured included jewelled coats with faux-fur, silk jodhpurs (nodding towards the classic French influence) and gold tweed jackets,  in which the tweed was an embroidered trompe l'oeil. Jackets were teamed with long draped skirts and leather stockings to add a modern feel to it.

Lagerfeld's famous words ; "fantasy is better than reality" completely comes into practice within this beautiful collection.