Editor’s note: Vogue Runway is celebrating the most wonderful time of the year by adding six magical—and newly digitized—1990s haute couture shows to our archive. Chanel’s fall 1997 collection, designed by Karl Lagerfeld, was originally presented on July 10, 1997, in the gardens of the Rodin Museum in Paris.
“This is what couture is all about—a celebration in tulle, lace, beading, and wrapping,” reads the Vogue caption accompanying Peter Lindbergh’s photograph of Trish Goff in a waft-y, jet-beaded gown of layers of mauve and smoke chiffon from Karl Lagerfeld’s fall 1997 couture collection, which referenced fin de siècle style and was inspired by Nordic fairy tales, art, and literature. (The designer returned to the storybook theme 19 years later when referencing the work of Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen at Fendi.) The models wore their hair long and loose like the princess in the pictures of Swedish artist John Bauer.
Lavishly romantic looks—many topped with great swaths of tulle and feathers, resembling upside-down bird’s nests or troll’s tresses, depending on your point of view—were balanced by others that had an almost ecclesiastic rigor, minus any coldness.
