Moving on from its Austrian inspiration for Pre-Fall 2015, Chanel's haute couture view of the coming spring-summer 2015 is distinctly storybook – but with midriff-baring outfits proudly declaring that "the stomach is the new cleavage".

One of the tentpoles of the haute couture shows this week in Paris, the Chanel event held in the capital's glass-roofed Grand Palais attracted a slew of international celebrities including Kristen Stewart, Kris Jenner,Vanessa Paradis, G-Dragon, and Dylan Penn.

They watched a parade centred on a set-piece worthy of a fairy-tale conservatory: a grey artificial winter jungle with grey flowers that mechanically blossomed to life when "watered" by an obliging team of male model gardeners.

Orbiting that shrine to tropical spring came the models: flower children in gossamer-light pinks and coral and blues and reds, some topped off with wide-brimmed hats, many wearing black sock-shoes.

The refrain throughout was a belly-baring look evoking a 60s free-love wardrobe for carefree teens. An easy look for the nymph-like models to carry off.

For wealthy earth-bound Chanel customers, however, some serious abdominal work will first be in order, as designer Karl Lagerfeld himself admitted after the show that "the new cleavage is the stomach."

"The upper part" -- here his half-gloved hands describe a bosom far more generous than those on the waifish models -- "everybody did it.

"Now we go a bit lower, and it (the stomach) is even more difficult to keep in shape."

For the show, Lagerfeld also enthused about the petal prints -- that perennial springtime reference. "It's a kind of flower woman -- I don't want to say flower child -- of the 21st century," he said.

He also explained the pop-up storybook theme that ran through the show. "For people who don't like to read, which is not my case, pop-up books are the best," he said.

 

(Source: AFP Relaxnews; Photos: Chanel)

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