Hedi Slimane or J W Anderson? Who is closer to Karl Lagerfeld genius approach?
Lagerfeld once said "What I do Coco would have hated. The label has an image and it's up to me to update it. I do what she never did. I had to find my mark. I had to go from what Chanel was to what it should be, could be, what it had been to something else." He never looked at the past. He always had an explorer attitude.
The Celine by Slimane and the Loewe by Anderson are so far some of the most interesting Paris shows of this season. Slimane, well supported by LVMH, re-shifted his vision to around a Celine French chic woman. He plunged into the Parisian mood of Saint Germain in the 70s creating a collection of items that your cool auntie could have worn feeling powerful. A Vintage Contemporary feeling from a designer who is well skilled in creating very sellable collection diving into the past and re-editing in a classy way. Anderson is able, more with a Karl Lagerfeld approach, to invent moods and collections from his vision instead from the past. They share the same explorer attitude. One looking at the rear view mirror. The other with an original aesthetics. One more focused, the other one more eclectic. Who is closer to Karl? We are lucky women, anyway. And probably happy clients.
Susanna Nicoletti is a Senior Marketing and Communication professional and Advisor in the Luxury and Fashion Industry