Chanel's Mane Event. The Winter 2010-2011 Haute Couture Show.

The newest haute couture collection from CHANEL premiered July 6 at the Grand Palais in Paris. The collection was filled with rich brocades, luxurious sequins, ruched boots, new longer length dresses, some seriously puffy sleeves, tousled hair and lions. Yes, Lions.

One of Karl Lagerfeld's most sumptuous and elegant collections to date, the Chanel show and collection were punctuated with multiple appearances of the King of the Jungle.



The set in Paris, designed by Stéfan Lubrina, had an enormous statue (reported to weigh 8 tons) of a Lion through whose giant paws the models strutted Karl Lagerfeld's latest looks. You can view a video of the construction of the set here.




The set was based on this marble statue:


Lion heads adorned the invitation, the press kit, some of the jewelry, some of the gowns and even were embedded into some of the fabrics.

The invitation:

shooting the press kit:


A Chanel gown with sequined lions:


Chanel dresses with Lion head accents:


and on the jewelry:

Even the groom in the the finale donned a giant lion head:




A video of the fashion show:


To see the entire Chanel Winter 2010.2100 collection go to the Chanel site.

Tattoo Artist Scott Cambell Designs Bags & Inks Models For Louis Vuitton

Gucci has already introduced a Tattoo-inspired collection of handbags and Chanel introduced their temporary tattoos, so it's no surprise that luxury brand Louis Vuitton has jumped on the tattwagon.

The LVMH company has collaborated with artist and tattoo master Scott Campbell to design some men's bags for the Louis Vuitton 2011 Spring Summer Men's collection. In addition to the leather bags which feature tattoo-inspired images, Scott Campbell also decorated the runway models for the show with temporary tattoos in the form of LV logos and with the same dragon and flourishes he used as imagery on the bags.

The Bags:



detail:






detail:


The Louis Vuitton Tattoos
The tattoos that graced the model's necks, arms and legs are the same designs as Scott incorporated into the leather bags for Louis Vuitton:







Scott, who has received much online attention for his cut-up currency art, is personal friends with Marc Jacobs, the fashion designer and Creative Director for Louis Vuitton. Jacobs sports several of Scott's tatts (both Marc and Scott have his "Bros before Hos" tattoos), so it's no wonder he chose him to design a few pieces and ink the models for the show.


above: Marc Jacobs of Louis Vuitton and artist Scott Campbell backstage at the runway show

Louis Vuitton
images are courtesy of the artist, ilvoelv.com and, with runway photos by Monica Feudi and Gianni Pucci for Style.com.

Folk Gets Funky & Peasants Are Pretty In John Galliano's Latest Collection

Fashion designer John Galliano has just shown his Fall/Winter 2009 RTW collection and, in typical Galliano fashion, it's quite fantastical. The line has a distinctively Baltic bent to it as it mixes brocades, embroidery, cashmere, coins and wild shoes to culminate in a Russian folkloric (and I swear I see a little Flemish in there), but fashionable style. Although it's a "ready to wear" line, as opposed to haute couture, I don't think you'll see many people sporting these in your local grocery store.




above: John Galliano talk about his collection

As is his style, everything is considered from head to toe, literally. The headdresses harken back to historical ethnic inspiration from both religious and royal realms. And the shoes? Well, the shoes are wild, as you will see.



Layered materials punctuated with everything from rosaries as accessories, cog-like hardware, metallic threads and pom poms on the shoes distinguish this collection.



White mascara on the models with lips painted a la clara bow contribute to the unusual, but appealing overall look.



I've rounded up enough photos to do a post on just the makeup and hair, just the shoes OR just the clothing... but nothing does justice to Galliano's creations like seeing all the parts together as a whole.

Get yourself a drink and settle in. I've got a lot of photos here.

The Clothes:
















The Headdresses and Make-up:










The Details:











The Shoes:







and of course, the designer, the inimitable John Galliano:

John Galliano

The photos in this post are courtesy of both John Galliano, The AP and Style.com. The full length runway photos were shot by Marco Madiera and the close ups of the details and models were shot by Don Ashby & Olivier Claisse.