No, you won’t be seeing the celebrities who add sparkle to Fashion Week in Paris. But organizers of the Chanel Fall-Winter 2006 ready-to-wear show at the Renaissance Hotel Sept. 7 are promising many of the same elements seen by Sting and Simon Le Bon at the Grand Palais last March, including a 95-foot catwalk and top models from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Produced by Saks Fifth Avenue, the show benefits the education programs of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
Dixie Lee Davis, director of the Fifth Avenue Club at Saks Fifth Avenue’s Beachwood Place store, says the opportunity to experience an authentic runway show — an affair generally staged in the world’s fashion meccas for the press, retail buyers and top clients — is indeed a rarity.
Local fashionistas can expect to see a range of day and evening ensembles, primarily in black with touches of white, cream and soft pink. Joseph Boitano, senior vice president and general merchandise manager for Saks, notes head designer Karl Lagerfeld’s experimentation with proportions — long jackets and even longer, ankle-skimming chiffon blouses over short skirts, for example — and separates-driven evening wear. “You can wear [the collection] in a very traditional way, or you can wear it in a more avant-garde, hip way, depending on how you put it together,” he says. Accessories include over-the-knee boots in white snakeskin, an oversized bag and black-satin ribbons tied in long hair. Together, they lend what Chanel executive director of public relations Gretchen Gunlocke Fenton calls “a ’60s girlishness” to the show.
Tickets, which begin at $300, include after-show entertainment by British RandB singer James Hunter, cocktails and dessert. For more information, call (216) 515-1201
