Chanel Cruise 2018

At a time when fashion had almost turned its back on the so-called cruise collections, the designer spun the ship’s wheel the other direction. Karl Lagerfeld thus transformed Cruisewear into a line that anticipates the warmer days to come, a completely renewed wardrobe, never stuck to the previous one or the one to come. A collection in its own right, with its own story, its own identity, its own inspiration, quick to nourish desire and to brighten the gaze. A collection that embodies travelling in all its forms, real or imaginary, temporal or historic, and that he wanted to land all over the world, like a magnificent postcard: New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Venice, Saint-Tropez, the Cap d’Antibes, Singapore, Seoul, Cuba and even Versailles in the XVIII century and Paris, metamorphosed into the epicentre of Ancient Greece. To dream, to let the imagination float away on a reinvented tweed, a diaphanous lace, a colorama imbued with sunshine, sublimate women in a little black dress… Isn’t that ultimately what fashion is all about? Is it not for this reason, among others, that CHANEL, is like no other and will always be CHANEL? It’s almost anchors away, so we wish you a bon voyage and a beautiful Cruise.

In this collection, infused with navy spirit, the iconic jacket, fastened with La Pausa stamped buttons; larger jackets hide tweed mini-skirts beneath them. Tweed outfits have rounded, voluminous shoulders and are worn over skater skirts. The suit is back adorned with flat pleats, accompanied by a little skirt, carrot-leg trousers or Capri pants. Dresses in tweed or cotton poplin have an accentuated high waist and are finished with smocking. Crop tops in crêpe de Chine printed with cruise liners and wind roses are coupled with fluid trousers. Long lightweight coats in cotton are embroidered with escaping multicoloured threads, echoing the streamers thrown down to the dock at the moment of departure.

When not inspired by the traditional sailor tops, stripes plunge vertically over blouses and skirts in poplin embellished with round porthole-like patterns. We find them on wide-cut trousers coupled with sweaters emblazoned with the ship’s name, La Pausa. Flat pleats, blazers, suits, soft trousers, pyjamas, stripes, little knits: the codes of the Cruise collection are all reunited and infused with details that change everything: a rounded and voluminous shoulder, a hem shortened to the extreme, sequin embroideries mixing cork, fabric, pearlised PVC and tin can metal, as well as the most unexpected materials. PVC thus appears on dresses and tweed outfits. Bound by blue, red, pink and white feathers, it brings little strappy dresses to life. It also features on a suit woven from multicolour threads in the style of a tweed.

Berets, round sunglasses, precious cuffs, fingerless gloves, sautoirs and beaded belts accessorise these silhouettes bursting with freshness. The bags in whites, blues and pinks, have also set sail: the largest are supple and swathed in net-like rope, others are held with rope straps and the saddle bags are beach-ready in printed waxed canvas. The BOY CHANEL becomes a satchel and is worn high and straight, returning in a leather printed with sharks’ teeth. CHANEL’s GABRIELLE bag is adorned with exotic leather in sunset hues while the new CHANEL 31 bag comes in silver leather or as a small two-tone clutch. Between the sequinned evening clutches, Karl Lagerfeld has fun slipping in lifebelt minaudières in which multicolour camellias float.

For the evenings the proposal brings pleated dresses in crêpe de Chine or printed chiffon, and a long sheath dress buttoned all the way, with ruffles sharpened like watery blades. Crop tops and their godet skirts in black fishnet or navy and white crochet revisit the sailor spirit, while the skirts also lengthen into long dresses in black and white entirely sequinned stripes or in a speckled tweed. Backs are nude, on the dresses worked with tails draped from the bust to the lower back, and on the sheath dresses in mesh fishnet embellished with aqua, white and coral sequinned chevrons. A final sheath dress, with a wide belt, is completely sequinned and hand painted with “waves of love and the sea”, as described by Karl Lagerfeld.