Behind The Scenes At Chanel’s Dubai Extravaganza
We have no idea how Karl Lagerfeld will top his latest Chanel show: in a custom-built pavilion on a man-made island belonging to the prince of Dubai. The moon?
The lavish, over-the-top extravaganza, with celebrity guests, Saudi princesses and a performance from Janelle Monae, was all in aid of showing the new Chanel Cruise collection.
And we’ve got all the gossip from behind the scenes of the massive, once-in-a-lifetime show.
The decor? Chanel-themed, darling – in a glass, white-and-gold pavilion lined with artificial palm trees and studded with sunken white chairs for guests to gaze up at the passing models.
There were even conjoined C’s on the latticed walls.
The whole pavilion took two months to construct, but Lagerfeld thought it was worth it. “It couldn’t be some basic show in a hotel,” he told Women’s Wear Daily.
Gesturing to the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, he added: “With the highest building, I thought there was a reason to show the highest fashion.”
And according to Lagerfeld, there was nothing on the island beforehand.
“We built everything – toilets included. I think these islands in the middle of nowhere are quite poetic.”
Guests including Tilda Swinton, Vanessa Paradis (who said she was looking for some tour outfits), Dakota Fanning and Frieda Pinto were taken to the event in beautiful local boats at the sun set, and stayed for a party afterwards with a huge Eastern spread of foods.
With all the lavishness, the clothes were almost an afterthought – but the clothes were rich and Eastern-flavoured, with harem pants, gold accents and pearls, and heaps of lush, Islamic tile-inspired florals.
So what’s next for Chanel?
The rumour is that the next show, in December, will be in Austria. High on a hill with a lonely goatherd, perhaps? We’re hoping for high-fashion lederhosen…
What do you think: fantastic fashion or too over-the-top?
Images: Chanel’s 2015 Cruise show in Dubai, images courtesy Getty.
Cindy Crawford: “I Was Told To Remove My ‘Ugly’ Beauty Mark'”
It turns out that Cindy Crawford was told to remove her now-famous beauty mark – by her own sister.
The reason? It was on the wrong side of her face.
“Apparently, if it was on the right side it was a beauty mark, and if it was on the left it was an ugly mark,” Crawford revealed to the press this week.
The only reason that the famous mole remained, it turned out, was a saving piece of advice from the supermodel’s mother.
“My mother always said, You know what your mole looks like, you don’t know what the scar is going to look like.”
But Crawford still isn’t sure she made the right choice.
“It’s the thing that made people remember me, and it made a lot of women who also have beauty marks identify with me,” she mused. “They set you apart.”
And if she had the chance again? “Honestly, though, if I was designing my face from scratch I don’t know if I would have designed it with the mole.”
Crawford has been in the news lately for reasons unrelated to her own face. She and her husband Randy Gerber were apparently the very first people to know about George Clooney’s enagement to Amal Alamuddin: the news leaked after the four were seen toasting it over dinner.
We bet Cindy’s giving Amal some killer beauty advice.
Image: Cindy (and her iconic mole) in Italian Vogue in the 1990s.
La Perla Courts Controversy With ‘Too-Thin’ Mannequin
La Perla has had to remove a mannequin with visible ribs from its stores, after complaints from customers and angry Instagram photos went viral.
The offending mannequin was accused of promoting an unhealthy body image for young women.
The mannequin, in the window of the New York Soho store, has now vanished, but it prompted some soul-searching in the La Perla team.
“The mannequin photographed has been removed from the store and will not be used again at any La Perla boutique,” the label promised. “We are in the process of redesigning all La Perla stores… and the mannequins that are currently displayed in our US stores will no longer be used.”
But was this the correct response?
The Lingerie Addict, one of the most popular lingerie-focussed blogs worldwide, doesn’t think so.
“There’s nothing inherently offensive about a ribcage,” Cora Harrington, the blog’s author, said. “Some women have visible rib cages. There’s a very wide range of healthy and normal for women’s bodies…. I wish that, instead of removing the mannequins entirely, La Perla saw this as an opportunity to diversify the sizes of the mannequins they use in their stores.”
But there’s no sign of that on the horizon. What do you think: too thin or a storm in a D-cup?
Image: the La Perla mannequin.
