Oh hi, it's fashion week again.

They should start serving CC stamped peanuts at the Chanel shows.  What hoopla!  The invite had a sketch by Karl of a polar bear, and then the set included a couple of whopping icebergs (imported from Sweden).  Karl’s Dr. Zhivago princesses walked on the sop of the iceberg’s melt, trailing long coats and making a wake with their fur boots.  While the icebergs were real, the fur apparently was fake.  At the end Karl minced around to “Say Captain, Say Wot”!   I thought that was a riot. (I suppose I should say: wot a riot.)

Afterwards, I headed up to Paris 8 at Saint Denis for a littérature comparée class.  I haven’t mentioned this previously on the blog, but I’m working on a master’s degree in literature.  We were studying travel diaries (récits de voyages) and Levi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques.  How did Tristes Tropiques change the field of the travel diary in 1955?  By postulating the death of exoticism, the end of travel, and the deconstruction of otherness – all this without abolishing the possibility of the travel diary.  The first line is “Je hais les voyages et les explorateurs.”  I came home from class to read Cathy Horyn’s review of the Chanel show:

“The Ice Hotel in Sweden provided inspiration. When asked backstage if he had ever visited the hotel, Mr. Lagerfeld, dressed in a Dior peacoat and bleached jeans with a vintage Cartier stickpin in his black tie, shivered and said no.”

Chanel F10 Finale from coquette on Vimeo.