Chanel’s Pink Tuesday

The biggest news at Chanel were the black ballerina flats worn throughout the show. With pointy toes, they were held to the foot with a transparent back strap, the lightest  foot-covering imaginable. How smart Karl Lagerfeld is to pick up on how young girls, at least in Paris, are dressing these days, in a deliberate step back from the “Eiffel Tower” look, as he calls it. Taking a portrait of Chanel by Marie Laurencin as his inspiration, Lagerfeld lightened, softened, and took a few years off Chanel in this collection, where almost every dress, and even the Chanel suit, was worn over skinny sequins, or faded denim leggings. The softness extended to transparent lace, iridescent embroidery, and a childlike, drop-waist silhouette. The only problem with this is that Chanel is known for the sharp and linear and so all the softness—the billowy skirts belted with a sash, those transparent beaded T-shirts, and the extra dose of powdery pink—are a bit gamine for the old girl.