The Collection
This collection is the most famous one of Chanel in 90s. It has been compared to 1971 Scandal collection of YSL for its provocativeness and association with kitsch.
Colorful, bright, and bold collection was a perfect representation of Karl Lagerfeld’s vision of Chanel. Despite the brand’s association with good taste, he liked to create a mixture of extreme chic and luxury with bold and oversexualized looks.
The collection was screaming provocation, with platform shoes on extreme high heels, unbuttoned jackets, and miniskirts with high splits – revealing matching tweed underwear, transparent knits, sparkling bikinis and so on. This type of collections changes the perception of taste in all layers of societies. When previously open and sexualized looks were associated with low class, and poor quality of clothes, collections like 1971 Scandal, 1995 Chanel Ready to Wear revolutionize fashion by widening horizons and creating inclusivity.
Layered Chanel pearls, elegant tweed jackets decorated with classic Chanel broches, black and white suits symbolize the class and high taste that luxury fashion brands bring to the table.
This collection remains one of the most famous vintage collections: pre-owned items from it are sold across the web, some of them costing hundreds of thousands of US dollars.
The Structure
The collection was very large – consisting of 171 looks in total but also very structured and optimized. There were a lot of variations of the same looks in different colors and same looks with minor twists. It was very practical as a ready to wear spring summer collection.
This shows just how much fashion shows and collections have evolved nowadays. The structure of the collections was simpler and more repetitive just a few decades ago. As luxury brands evolved and their collections became more representation of craftsmanship and shows turned into art experience from simple catwalks
The collection was also very branded, you could see double C’s embedded to accessories, belts, scarfs. This was a sign of luxury fashion entering the mainstream fashion, the sight of double Cs were also part of items like beach bags and scarfs that were relatively more affordable and increased brand presence across the society.
At the finale of the show Lagerfeld brought up the famous photo of Madame Chanel. It is a tradition for luxury brands to pay tributes to the establishers of the fashion house in different ways. The tributes are paid with different ways, such as: repeating some of the ideas from previous collections, taking inspiration from different themes, personal details and touches etc.
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