Chanel revises the classics, and Saint Laurent indulges its appetite for spectacle.
The title might make you ask: What is wrong with Beige?
The answer is simple.
There is nothing wrong with beige. The trouble starts when an entire wardrobe looks like the same interior designer has approved it.
…After seasons of discreet dressing, the formula becomes familiar: immaculate tailoring, tasteful neutrals, accessories whose prices require specialist knowledge to recognize. Beautiful clothes, certainly. But somewhere along the way, having good taste began to look suspiciously like having the same taste.
This year, Paris is offering a few alternatives:
At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy is finding room to maneuver inside a formidable inheritance.
At Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello puts glamour back on public display.
What connects them is a renewed interest in the person wearing the clothes. She might want to look grand, peculiar, casually disheveled. She might even want to change her mind.
Chanel: An Heirloom With Other Plans
A house as recognizable as Chanel has an unusual problem: everyone knows what it should look like before the first model appears.
Tweed. Pearls. Two-tone pumps. The vocabulary is so established that even a new collection can arrive with the familiarity of something remembered. Blazy’s task is to make those references feel discoverable again.
His approach gives the classics some breathing room. Changes in proportion and texture interrupt the expected picture without losing its outline. You recognize Chanel, then look again…
That second glance matters.
Heritage can make a garment desirable, but it can also dictate how someone imagines wearing it.
A jacket becomes “a Chanel jacket” before it becomes part of her wardrobe. Here, the familiar codes feel less ceremonious, easier to imagine entering a life beyond the carefully styled photograph.
…And if there’s one place where Chanel’s classics are having a little fun, it’s below the ankle.
The Two-Tone Pump Gets Restless
I’m most convinced by the shoes. Chanel’s two-tone pump has always had the precision of a strong signature: concise, recognizable, and hard to improve.
Animal prints, metallic finishes, and unexpected color combinations give it a different rhythm. The established shape holds everything together while the surface does the experimenting.
These are the shoes I would build an outfit around: a plain dress, an ordinary pair of trousers, something already in the closet.
Their appeal is how quickly they could make those clothes feel newly considered.
But a small change isn’t the only way to wake up a wardrobe. At Saint Laurent, the invitation is to make an entrance.
Saint Laurent: Glamour Requires an Audience
Vaccarello understands something the discreet-dressing years tended to overlook:
Clothes can change how you occupy a room.
At Saint Laurent, commanding shoulders and dramatic silhouettes give the body a deliberate presence. Gold catches the light. Leather adds weight and tension. The clothes suggest someone who has considered her entrance and sees no reason to pretend otherwise.
There is pleasure in that level of preparation…
We have become remarkably invested in making style look accidental, as though admitting effort would spoil the result.
Saint Laurent allows the effort to show. The silhouette is constructed. The finish is conspicuous. Getting dressed is part of the occasion.
Gold Leather, No Occasion Necessary
The gold leather makes that proposition especially tempting. Leather carries familiar associations with utility and toughness: A metallic finish pushes it toward spectacle.
Together, they produce something more interesting than either quality alone.
I like the impracticality of it.
Think about this for a second.
Where would you wear gold leather? The question is almost part of the purchase. It requires you to imagine a more eventful version of your wardrobe
…and perhaps your evening.
You don’t have to buy the gold leather to borrow its attitude.
Good Taste Can Take a Night Off
The most useful thing to take from Paris might be permission to stop correcting every outfit.
Keep the strange shoes. Try the eccentric gold leather before deciding you have nowhere to wear it. A wardrobe can be impeccable and still tell you very little about its owner.
After all, Carrie Bradshaw never waited for a sensible occasion to wear an extraordinary pair of shoes. And perhaps that’s the point.
The best clothes aren’t necessarily the ones that make the most sense. They’re the ones that make getting dressed worth the wait.