Sublime is the word that comes to mind when looking at images from Karl Lagerfeld’s Spring 2001 couture collection for Chanel. It’s one in which he achieved a perfect balance between past and present; the models looked at once fresh and modern and like drawings that had come to life from the pages of 1930s Vogue. Proof that there really can be a timelessness to classic design.
Shown in the days before Chanel was doing film-worthy mega-sets, the arrangements were unfussy—walls painted in degrade tones of blue, reminiscent of a Riviera sky, with a huge gilded chain running along the base of wall—and the clothes were more powerful shown in such simplicity. To Hamish Bowles, the chain, a sort of super-sized version of the kind sewn into Chanel jackets to keep them in place, was “emblematic of the strong links between this collection and the legacy of Coco Chanel.”
The chain also lent a sort of nautical aspect to the goings-on, which was quite fitting; Mademoiselle, a sun-lover credited with popularizing the tan, was famously photographed in a striped Breton top at her summer escape, circa 1929
Having set the scene, Lagerfeld proceeded not to the sea, but in a wonderfully breezy direction. For evening there were incredible dreams of dresses to choose among, some restrained, almost boyish looks in black and white, and others more voluminous in the pastel colors of macaroons.
The innovation over which editors spilled most ink, though, was the designer’s rethink of the house’s signature cardigan suit—the piece that became the anchor of the second chapter of Coco’s career. “A Chanel jacket is cut like a glove, so slender it tucks inside a skirt,” reported Bowles. “Karl is all about paradox,” Amanda Harlech had told him days prior to the show. “The line is ‘safe,’ but it’s got edginess in the details.” Details including fabrics sequined in Ottoman patterns, and skirts embroidered with a constellation of glittering sequins. “True to Lagerfeld’s delight in contrast,” Bowles noted, “these confections will be juxtaposed with mannish details: A pleated blouse will form the body of a tweed suit; the wedding dress will get a shirt and tie.”
That wedding look, with its tucked and beribboned skirt that could have been painted by the 19th-century French artist James Tissot, was worn by Devon Aoki in the show, and later photographed in the Chanel Haute Couture atelier on Bridget Jones star Renée Zellweger, who modeled the collections for Vogue. As memorable as that sitting was, it wasn’t Zellweger who made this collection one for the history books; the credit for that goes to Jennifer Lopez who daringly wore the look modeled by Carmen Kass to the 2001 Academy Awards.
Seemingly a paradigm of simple elegance, the dress had a voluminous oyster-colored ball skirt that was topped with a greige off-the shoulder chiffon top. Some members of the press were delighted to notice that it wasn’t opaque. Instead of pearls, Lopez accessorized the looks with megawatt diamonds (including chandelier earrings from Fred Leighton) to complement her star—or should we say étoile?—power.
