The Chanel Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2015/16 show which opened at the Grand Palais in Paris on July 7th took its inspiration from an Art Deco casino, complete with fruit machines and card tables.
As you might imagine, the show was heavily branded – to hit the jackpot on the fruit machines, you needed to line up three Chanel ‘double C’ logos, while the poker tables were personalised too.
In the absence of a ‘front row’ as you would get at a catwalk show, the VIP guests were instead invited into the room first, and seated around the gaming tables in the centre of the room.
Designer Karl Lagerfeld was the genius behind the casino-style setting, having previously staged shows in which the Grand Palais was transformed into an underwater scene and an ice palace.
But this is perhaps his most striking effort yet, capturing the Art Deco era while setting a perfectly ‘haute couture’ scene with muted lighting to cast everyone in their best light.
Regular guests were seated around the edge of the gaming floor, with the big-name celebrities at the card tables in the centre, and the Chanel-themed fruit machines flanked the main doors on an elevated perimeter circle.