La Coquette

Some of us "back row spectators" prefer the term "seating challenged," okay?

I know this is a couple of weeks old, but Bill Cunningham agrees with my fashion week prediction that Chanel is when people trot out their best outfits!  He also made a fun commnetary on how many people photograph the shows these days (people like, umm, myself), likening the camera zoom to binoculars.  Love it. 

Paris is enjoying a new belle epoque. The fashion shows have replaced the races as the fashionable promenade. Two weeks ago, 3,000 stylish guests gathered in the Grand Palais for the Chanel show. Spectators in the back rows had to use digital cameras to zoom in on the models, as the 1912 ladies, below, used binoculars at Longchamp.

Let’s be meta, shall we ?  Here’s a pic I took of Bill Cunningham in action, just after Chanel, while he was shooting some of the looks in the New York Times story.

What I love most about watching Bill work, is that while his carriage shows all of his 80 plus years, his face constantly has an expression of gleeful tranquility, like he’s having a ball.  No old man grimaces, not even when he fumbled with his camera settings. Everyone around me commented on how happy he looked. 

Moving Nina Ricci, Uplifting Lanvin, and Crazy, Fun Vuitton

The supers are coming to take you away!  No, not to the funny farm, but to check out my coverage of yesterdays major shows on Chicago mag.com.  Sofia Coppola sightings, a crowd stomping, ice-cream eating Lanvin show, and Stephanie Seymour as a nurse.  Alber Elbaz believes you're really not going to want to miss this.

Don't you be shy about leaving comments.  Alber loves feedback.  Especially when his show is this good. 

Chloe kicks short tent dresses to the curb (yay!)

Chloe is young, Chloe is young, Chloe is young. 

Chloe is no longer as girly-pretty as she was in the old days, but neither is she as harsh as last season, when Paulo Melim Andersson came to the helm for the first time and stomped all over the bows and Peter Pan blouses. 

A lot of people I talked to didn’t like the Chloe show today.  Too transparent.  Too young for the price.  Too fluid and unstructured to flatter.  I liked it.  In some of the long, floaty looks, there was even some similarly to another debut collection of last season: Nina Ricci.  A more streetwise version, of course. 

I don’t long to buy it all in the covetable, this-will-become-a-collectors-item way that I did when Phoebe Philo was designing.  I just want to try and imitate a few of the silhouettes.  For instance, I would like to be tall and thin enough to have a nightgown with a cardigan thrown over look this chic. 

I always like the energy at Chloe,

but the girls walk so fast, it can be hard for my camera to focus.

The fabulous purple, navy, teal combo.  Fresh, right?

Transparent pants, or "shants" as Susan calls them, strike again.

I want to wear something exactly like this outfit below.  It is perfect. 

Sorry to gush, but I didn't expect to like this show at all.  Surprises are always lovely.  And so rare.   

And now mesdames et messieurs, apropos of nothing (on so many levels) the ubiquitous Courtney Love, on her way to sit with Ludivine Sagnier.

I'm in love with this song, by French singer Soko

Video sent by Efourmont

This is from the Stella McCartney show.  Fantastic article in the New York Times about putting this show together.  (And the song is called "I'll Kill Her" by the way.)

That Voodoo That You Do So Well

Ah, Chanel.  Coco Rocha wants you to check Chicago mag’s website to see what I have to say about today’s show.  And also, the ubiquitous gum chewer Kanye West.

When Sasha Smiles

Stella McCartney keeps it real, asking the models to look happy on the runway.  Most of the models complied, albeit with a slight air of fatigue, like Jessica Stam below.

Sasha didn't exactly, and I wish I had a picture of this.  She didn't just smile this morning at the show, she grinned.  Manically. 

Sasha seems particularly bouncy and energetic this season, all swishing hips and goofy-eyed looks.  Did she get sick of being called an android?  What happened to the famous death stare?  Is Sasha on Prozac?