Matthieu Blazy showed his second haute couture collection for Chanel at the Grand Palais - a fairy-tale garden with giant beanstalks, drawn from a storybook found in Gabrielle Chanel's apartment.
- Matthieu Blazy showed his second couture collection for Chanel at the Grand Palais on 7 July.
- The staging was a fairy-tale garden with giant beanstalks, from a storybook out of Gabrielle Chanel's apartment.
- The calendar is official (FHCM); the show description follows an AP report, syndicated - one source, not two.
Couture week in Paris is where an industry shows what it can still do by hand.
This week is a heavy one: Pierpaolo Piccioli shows his first couture collection for Balenciaga, Duran Lantink debuts at Jean Paul Gaultier. Three houses, three new hands - within two days.
For me, the quality is right here: couture is the one place in fashion where the production process is the value itself. It doesn't get optimized, outsourced, or generated. That's why it's also the most honest gauge - you can see exactly how many hours of human attention went into the garment.
I should add a caveat, too: the description of the show itself comes from one agency, Associated Press. It's reprinted in many places - one source, not two. The calendar is official; the staging - from a report.
In a year when everything gets generated, the most expensive clothes in the world are still made by hand, and their stage comes from a book found in someone's apartment. It's not nostalgia. Just a different answer to the question of what's worth being expensive - and why.