Thursday, January 24, 2013

Regarding flowers and trees

From Tim Blanks' review of the Chanel Spring 2013 Haute Couture collection:

Karl Lagerfeld can't move mountains just yet. Today, he had to settle for a mere forest, shipped into the Grand Palais tree by tree. His guests wandered through the woods till they happened upon a classical amphitheater. "Neo-classical," Karl clarified. He was dreaming of Weimar, sylvan hub of German Romanticism in the late eighteenth century, home to Goethe and Schiller.

Moved some trees? He's in good company. The film director F.W. Murnau (of the other Weimar) also had a predilection for freighting foliage. From Bronwyn Cosgrave's Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards:

Murnau was an uncompromising perfectionist. For one scene in Sunrise, he insisted a species of deciduous tree be transported hundreds of miles from Lake Arrowhead to the Fox Hollywood lot, where three hundred Mexican laborers glued new leaves to its withered branches. Once erected on set, it so displeased Murnau, he insisted more new foliage be manually applied while swarms of salaried extras hung about waiting for their cue. 

Those crazy Germans!

Seriously though, the Haute Couture collections are so aggressively flora-oriented this year. For me a lot of it borders on being saccharine and I'm not sure that I love it. What I do love is the return of gentle bubble and tulip hems.

Chanel:


Armani Privé:


Christian Dior:


Utterly (but not too) sweet.

No comments: