2002 S/S Ready-To-Wear - Idea

KARL LAGERFELD's genius at Chanel lies in his ability to reinterpret the house's classics season-after-season. For spring/summer 2002, the double-C logo was boxed in red and emblazoned on the sleeves of powder blue leather biker jackets and on the bottoms of zip-up trousers, accessorised with matching Chanel helmets and motor-cross stop watches, which nestled amid strings of pearls around the models' necks. The two-tone shoe came in the form of a red and blue baseball boot, and quilting, more commonly associated with Chanel bags, was deployed on soft blue padded box jackets and sporty shorts, piped in red, or on black leather boots, which were strung around the ankle with a miniature version of the famous gold strand belt. The legendary tweeds were still breathtakingly chic: slim, softly waisted jackets with narrow sleeves and beautifully round collars appeared in bobbles of pale grey or pink (devoid of their matching skirts), while black and white versions were lengthened into coatdresses.

Chanel's penchant for black and white was played out again in camellia flat-caps, white cardigans with hems that were broadly cross-stitched in black, and white shirts that peeped at collar and cuffs from under black-lapelled, fitted jackets like riding pinks. Lagerfeld subscribed to a number of more wide-spread trends, too, sending out multi-coloured stripes on straight skirts, putting frills on cotton shirt bibs and black cocktail skirts.

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