Leave it to Karl Lagerfeld to achieve the unexpected and the spectacular.

It appears that each Chanel show is outdone by the next and this latest example was really something extra special.  For Resort 2017 Lagerfeld chose the intensely beautiful cityscape of Havana;  a locale at an historic turning point in international relations, and a collection that was relatable, wearable, exquisitely made, and joyfully youthful.

I visited Havana with a friend when I was living in Jamaica and we really felt transported back in time.  The people were vibrant and full of life and eager to make us feel welcome.  As tourists we visited all the touristy places including all the Hemingway hangouts but we also met locals who told us where we could find a very good authentic Cuban (off the beaten path) restaurant which we loved. Cuba held more allure for me since becoming friends with a close relative of Che Guevara; someone I met overseas. It was an amazing experience and one I will never forget.  Of course the Mojitos were the absolute best.

The Chanel Resort Collection 2017 – May 2, 2016 (my picks from a ton of photos)

The American fashion press who flew into Cuba for the Chanel Resort show landed two hours before the first U.S. cruise ship to have docked in Havana in nearly 40 years. The passengers of the Adonia had no idea what to expect when they set foot on the dock; in the event, they were surrounded by crowds of Havana residents, high-fiving greetings. The historic thawing of relations between the Castro regime and the United States was palpable, a warmth that was stoked to fever level.

Seven hundred guests of Chanel were taken to the open-air street show in a multicolored convoy of the city’s open-top Buicks, Cadillacs, and Oldsmobiles. The owners tooted their horns through the streets of Old Havana, while people came out to line the streets, crowd dilapidated balconies and rooftops, wave and laugh. It could easily have gone the other way—who knew there could be such a welcome in a poor, communist country for a super-luxurious brand and the wealthy women who wear its finery? But it was the people of Cuba who set the atmosphere running—a sense of exuberant excitement that involved everyone from the models to the normally impassively unimpressible members of the press.

With guests sitting on park benches in the open air of the tree-lined Paseo del Prado, the models strolled naturally in flat brogues, flip-flops, and slides. Here was Chanel at full range—black spencer jackets over wide-legged cuffed pants; “debutante” dresses with swirly skirts hitting calf length in lace or organza; skinny long tube dresses in macramé or tattered tweed; huge floaty dresses, neatly belted, in ’50s car prints. The Chanel embroiderers had pulled out all the stops, decorating sleeves with dense layers of tattered fabric (a subtle homage to Hispanic ruffles, surely) and sequin-encrusted little dresses in the peachy-pinks, lemony-oranges, and greeny-blues you see in every direction in Havana.

It was Chanel that started the new lark of traveling Resort shows—immersive summertime trips to evermore far-flung locations—and Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci have been joining in. Occasionally, it has to be said that descriptions of spectacular locations can overshadow collections that aren’t so worth writing home about. But with this show, Karl Lagerfeld achieved it all.

 What made it work, in essence, was the easy styling, with T-shirts and flats, a casual attitude that the models clearly felt happy in—so happy that the end of the show broke out into an anarchic kind of carnival where the girls and the audience and the local band all got mixed up together, dancing.

Simply Fabulous!

Source: Vogue Runway