We’re counting down to the Spring 2019 Couture season with a look back at five very haute archival shows. Chanel’s Spring 1999 Couture collection was presented on January 19, 1999, in Paris.
Lightness is the quality that makes Karl Lagerfeld’s couture collections sing, season after season. He gave the concept a literal spin for Spring 1999 by abolishing black from this collection entirely. Chez Chanel this is big news—on par with the designer removing his ever-present sunglasses, which is as rare as snow in June.
There was a quietness to this collection that the neutral and pastel palette contributed to. “Floating tulle and organza perfectly capture[d] the collection’s dreamy mood,” noted Vogue. Grace Coddington channeled that ethereality when she styled Audrey Marnay in a transparent wisp-of-a-dress for the March issue’s Ravishing Couture portfolio.
Maisons de couture have workrooms dedicated to flou (draping) and tailoring. Lagerfeld didn’t ignore the latter, but there wasn’t an ounce of stiffness in the soft, almost sporty, haberdashery he sent out this season. In place of black, metallics were used throughout. Bold accessories offered a contrast to the suppleness of the collection. Small, sculpted gold bags and earrings that were abstract falls of silver hoops inserted a sort of “tech-y” vibe into the goings-on and seemed to signal that as the fin de siècle loomed, Lagerfeld was looking forward, not back. The relative scarcity of Cocoisms meant there was more room for a bit of playfulness, like the triple scoop of sherbet-colored taffeta looks that appeared near the end of the show, worn by Devon Aoki (raspberry), Colette Pechekhonova (blueberry), and Esther Cañadas (lemon). They proved so utterly irresistible that Uma Thurman wore Cañadas’s dress to the Oscars that year, and Vogue featured one of Lagerfeld’s ball skirts on its April 1999 cover alongside a cheery cover line that read: “Here Comes the Sun.”
