Backstage at Chanel Haute Couture, Fall 2012. Image courtesy of Chanel.

A diverse crowd that included Diane Kruger, Alexa Chung, Sofia Coppola, Laetitia Casta and Clémence Poésy turned up for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel Haute Couture Fall 2012 show. As guests milled around the Grand Palais, they stopped to have their photo snapped in front of a painted frame (like the cloud-printed sheath you posed in front of for high school photos, just a million times cooler), which set the stage for Lagerfeld’s “New Vintage” collection.

The set for the Chanel Haute Couture show was also characteristically over-the-top. According to WWD, the collection was shown atop a double stairway and had a luxe garden party vibe. White camellia-topped trees and white wicker furniture lined a path of Chanel silk that wound its way to the staircase. A sky mural—which reportedly took over three weeks to make—served as the perfect backdrop for the collection and transformed the Grand Palais into an ethereal wonderland.

The main standout in my mind however, was the sweet-meets-strong look that Chanel’s Creative Director Peter Phillips created backstage. Phillips contrasted rosy doll-like cheeks (Chanel Joues Contrast in Rose Initial, out this fall) with a striking metallic eye that evoked an innocent but don’t-mess-with-me vibe. The retro-inspired eye was kept modern by mixing chrome and silver shadow with a light beige eye liner. Phillips used the beige liner (Chanel Le Crayon Khol in Clair) on the lower waterline to help brighten the eye area and minimize any redness.

To create the glam-rock eye at the Chanel Haute Couture fall 2012 show, Peter Phillips used:

• Chanel Ombre Essentielle in Furtif (from the fall 2012 collection
• Chanel Stylo Yeux Waterproof Eye liner in Noir Intense (from the fall collection)
• Chanel Le Crayon Khol in Clair
• Chanel Inimitable Waterproof Mascara
• Chanel Recourbe Cils de Chanel

For more fashion week highlights, read on!

When I travel, I like to bring along a book that’s set in the city I’m visiting. For the recent fall/winter collections in Paris, I chose Adam Gopnik’s collection of essays entitled Paris to the Moon. The book, which is based on his experiences living in the city from 1995 to 2000, is an eloquent and touching mash note to Paris.

The night before I was to tour three ateliers that work with designers who create haute couture collections, I read Gopnik’s piece “Couture Shock.” In it, he recounts in a playfully bemused manner his foray into fashion’s rarefied couture week. At the Christian Lacroix show, Gopnik admits he was “settling in for a good long bath of contempt” when Linda Evangelista appeared on the runway wearing “the ugliest dress” he’d ever seen, but as the show unfolded he coyly hints that something began to happen. By the time Karen Mulder appeared wearing a silver lace dress with an iced-pearl bodice, he’d been seduced.

“It’s all too much, and that’s where the loveliness—the couture moment—begins,” he writes. “The clothes are extravagant and unreal, but they don’t seem camp. They don’t seem artificial or out of this world, just symbolic of a common human hope that the world could be something other than what it is—younger and more musical and less exhausting and better lit. It proposes that the little moments of seduction on which, when we look back, so much of life depends could unfold as formally as they deserve to, and all dressed up.”

While the haute couture designers envision the collection, the artistry behind the fanciful embroidered and feathered embellishments is what often seduces us. In our June issue—which will be on newsstands on May 14—I write about my behind-the-scenes tour of the famed Lesage, Lemarié and Massaro Chanel-owned ateliers. Our art director flew to Paris to shoot Canadian model Tara Gill wearing exquisite pieces from Chanel’s Métiers d’Art Bombay-Paris collection, and the photos will accompany the piece. Chanel launched its pre-fall Métiers d’Art collection in 2002 to showcase the couture-style craftsmanship of its ateliers. I’ve posted a sneak peek of some behind-the-scenes shots from the shoot. (We’ll post the stunning cover in a few days!) Trust me, you’ll be seduced.

What role, if any, do you think couture plays in fashion today?

It was fitting that my first and last Paris Fashion Week events were with Canadian designer Nicolas Andreas Taralis. It’s the sort of symmetry that Taralis—and I, for that matter—finds rather poetic. My first encounter with the now Paris-based designer was at his runway show. In an earlier blog, I talked about the collection’s hand-tailored rigour and how its monk-punk, karate-chic looks featured classic gi and obi detailing.

When I met up with Taralis on Friday morning at his showroom, I had a chance to take a closer look at both the designs and the designer. In person, Taralis is very much a reflection of his work: sombre, thoughtful and layered. (That was even before I knew his favourite musician was Ben Frost—a master of minimalist, post-punk, black metal and noise.) Before launching his own label a few years ago, Taralis studied under Helmut Lang, worked with Hedi Slimane and was, for a time, head designer at Cerruti.

I opened our chat by asking him about his inspiration for the collection. This line of questioning typically moves a designer into a storytelling mode—not so with Taralis. “I’m actually rather matter-of-fact about the whole thing,” he said. “You won’t hear stories about my inspirations. There’s no muse. It’s mostly intuitive and emotional; it’s not directly inspired by anything. At the most, I’m quite interested in Asian aesthetics—particularly Japanese. There’s a purity there that is very interesting to me. I have an appreciation for straight, strict lines, harmonies and symmetries and angular and rectangular shapes—it’s something very natural for me.”

Find out what new design Taralis introduced into his work this year, and get a glimpse into his head with our Proustian-inspired questionnaire. Given that he’s known for his use of black, his association with the colour pink may surprise you. Read on!

Read the rest of this entry

I was minding my own business at the opening of the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibit in Paris, when suddenly I found myself in the middle of a full-on French air-kissoff with Hamish Bowles, Vogue’s editor-at-large, and a gaggle of Botoxed, pinched and pulled society ladies. I wasn’t actually the one doing the social cheek-to-cheek dance; I was the one being pushed aside so that the “love-ya-mean-it” ritual could take place. The scene at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Wednesday night was New York chic meets Parisian cool. Everyone from Lee Radziwill to Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow to artist Takashi Murakami, who collaborated with the house for a line of handbags in 2003, were there to pay tribute to the man who has dressed—or worked with—them.

So, what was the exhibit like? And did I kiss-kiss with Sarah? Click here. Read the rest of this entry

Paris closed out the “Big Four” fashion-week shows with international trendsetters displaying true Parisian chic throughout the entire week. Stylish accessories and attention to details were on everyone’s fashion list this season.

THE GIRL: Ceylan is a fashion editor at Turkish Marie Claire and a blogger on www.thestylebyme.com

SPOTTED: Jardin des Tuileries.

HER STYLE: Haute minimalist.

WHY WE LOVE IT!  The sophisticated monochrome look is rich in textures in a VSP of Vespucci wool and leather coat, VSP suede pants, VSP boots and Marc Jacobs clutch.

Click here for the French spin on being a mod eclectic. 

Read the rest of this entry

Chanel’s fashion show is one of the highlights of Paris Fashion Week. The fashion style setters always save their best for Karl. This year, regal flair was in the air at Le Grand Palais as everyone made their way through the dramatic entrance. Here are some of the best looks from that morning:

THE GIRL: Ana is a handbag designer at www.analeena.com

SPOTTED:  Le Grand Palais, Rue Winston Churchill before the Chanel show.

HER STYLE:  Cavalier chic.

WHY WE LOVE IT!  The Alaia feminine-waisted coat is beautifully accessorized with the cardinal red fur boa and Analeena crocodile handbag.

What other chic-lets caught Nicole’s eye. Click here.

Read the rest of this entry

If the Mad Hatter and characters from Downton Abbey took a Louis Vuitton train ride, they’d end up in Alice in Fashion Wonderland. #pfw

All aboard! The Louis Vuitton train rolls in. Image courtesy of ImaxTree.com

That was my tweet seconds after the Louis Vuitton show closed earlier this morning in Paris. Marc Jacobs had taken the assembled crowd on a creative and wild ride that began the moment the vintage replica steam engine, which was built especially for this show, chugged into the tent. Inside the car sat the most fashionable train patrons one could imagine. “The passengers have a chequered past,” read the show notes. “They arrive, with a vast amount of baggage, from a journey begun somewhere in the countryside travelling to this grand edifice in the city. They are met by smartly uniformed baggage handlers, hired and attired by the station company today: Louis Vuitton.”

What were these posh patrons wearing? Click here. Read the rest of this entry

For Todd Lynn, “new” is so…last millennium.

That ethos informs his current showcase, on display at the London Showroom during Paris Fashion Week. Lynn spent some time with me, reviewing his collection and talking about his fashion, his furs, his fabrics and the inspiration he finds in the works of a Norwegian artist.

1. The Dress:  Lynn worked on this in collaboration with London jewellery designer Shaun Leane. “Shaun is the jewellery designer who started working with Alexander McQueen. All those showpieces—he did them. This is actually very light. It’s nylon, done with a 3-D printer, and then it’s metallized after. So, it is not cheap!”

Image courtesy of ImaxTree.com

What’s Lynn’s take on celebrities and fur? Read on.

As we check in with the Greta Constantine team, the Canadian design stars are locked out of their Paris studio apartment. Read their first dispatch here.

Chère ELLE Canada,

We were locked out. No documents, no change of clothes, no toiletries. And most challenging of all, seulment un petit peu de français. We were however, armed with 10 hours of sleep across four people and sore feet (those cobblestones can do some damage!).

The hotel beside our apartment was fully booked. The manager did, however, let us use the washroom. A few blocks north, the large bright word HOTEL — we love when French words resemble English words — shone from a distance. We found our next best option (or last resort, depending on how you look at it).

There were two rooms, 205 and 311. Together they were 350 square feet and suddenly, the absence of a shower curtains didn’t seem to matter. Knowing that a few blocks away, the city’s premiere fashion editors, buyers, designers, and models were celebrating the start of Paris Fashion Week didn’t faze us.

The hotel did, however make a phenomenal breakfast baguette. It was so good that Stephen smuggled one of them so that he would be able to find his way back, should we ever get locked out again. He’s our very own Hansel.

Read the rest of this entry

Whether the style mavens met on the right or left bank of the Seine this weekend, their looks were impeccable. The overcast skies didn’t dampen the fashion scene. Here’s who caught my eye.

THE GIRL: Caroline is an executive fashion director at Tank Magazine.

SPOTTED: Jardins des Tuileries.

HER STYLE: Uptown girl with an edge.

WHY WE LOVE IT!  The meticulously paired lace-detailed Burberry trench, Louis Vuitton shoes and cool Alexander Wang sweater give this look an unexpected edge.

Need some more streetstyle fashion inspiration? Click here.

Read the rest of this entry