Though calling anything 'cool' nowadays is something of a death knell in the style stakes, there aren't any other adjectives that fully do justice to Chanel's A/W 2010 show.
The spectacle, which took place at the Grand Palais this morning, was housed in a hermetically sealed 'glacier' box in subzero temperatures, constructed to resemble a slice of the Arctic Circle in the middle of Paris.
Last season when Karl Lagerfeld commissioned a farmhouse for the catwalk the fashion critics spoke of Chanel's new eco collection and it's likely many will assume Lagerfeld is making another big eco statement – this time about global warming. We're more of the opinion though that the man just knows how to put on a show - the biggest and boldest of the season that is - and luckily Chanel have the resources to turn his dreams into reality.
Inside the 5,300-metre squared box, the runway was painted with a trompe l'oeil effect, giving the impression of deep, glacial ice underneath. This was topped with a shallow layer of water. Chanel had also hired 35 ice sculptors who, over the course of 6 days, hewed 240 tonnes of 'snice' (frozen snow-ice, if you're unfamiliar with the term) into a dramatic icescape, reaching 8.5 metres at its highest point. Models donned special transparent Chanel galoshes to wade through the watery catwalk and pace around the Iceberg.
Despite a far from Spring-like temperature on the streets of Paris, Chanel's spectacle was as impressive and fitting a showcase for an Autumn Winter collection as possible to imagine, short of shipping the whole show to the ailing icebergs of Antarctica themselves. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Lagerfeld though is that he doesn't just know how to stage a hell of a show – first and foremost he delivers a consistently strong collection – production is merely the tip of the iceberg…
The catwalk was housed in a hermetically sealed ‘glacier’ box in subzero temperatures
Inside the 5,300-metre squared box, the runway was painted with a trompe l’oeil effect, giving the impression of deep, glacial ice underneath
Chanel hired 35 ice sculptors from around the world to create the spectacle
Over the course of 6 days, the sculptors hewed 240 tonnes of snow into a dramatic icescape
The surface of the runway was coated in a thin layer of water, reflecting the icebergs above
At its highest point the landscape reached 8.5 metres tall
Models donned special transparent Chanel galoshes to wade through the watery catwalk and pace around the frozen set
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