If you start an in-depth research about architecture and fashion you will find amazing connections – from construction principles to decorative surfaces. Sometimes this connection develops into a perfect collection or a collaboration between an architect and a fashion designer; at others it simply doesn't. But the fashion/architecture connection never turns into a temporary yet real urbanistic intervention. Well, until yesterday.
Karl Lagerfeld unveiled yesterday Chanel’s Cruise 2015 collection in Dubai. Despite the usual grand and magniloquent words about this extraordinary event, the looks - including layered tunics, translucent kaftans on trousers, and bare-shoulder dresses matched with boucle jackets with tails prevailing - were crossovers between the '70s and the One Thousand and One Nights, with some Paul Poiret's Orientalism and exoticism and Marisa Berenson's carefree style thrown in. Imagine the Ballets Russes going to a desert-based version of Studio 54 and you get the idea.
The harem pants in gold lamé or in an unflattering voluminous version in a billowing fabric were the worst idea, followed by the routine appropriation of the keffiyeh pattern turned for the occasion into Chanel's tweed (the looks respected local dress customs, so they probably decided that appropriating the keffiyeh was not a bad idea ater all, but something tells you that Palestinian nationalists won't be totally happy about it, considering that you can now find this symbol of resistance in different incarnations - from the cheap keffiahs from High Street retailers to luxurious tweed versions...). Accessories included Aladdin's slippers, C-shaped moon brooches and a transparent or quilted jerrycan-shaped bag used as a kitsch reference to oil.
There were some designs with architectural hints: the closing outfits with a beaded silhouette of futuristic Dubai, for example, and a series of pieces featuring dense graphic motifs and embroideries inspired by Arabic paving stones and tiles from the 11th and 12th centuries that - Lagerfeld highlighted - weren't really modified as they looked modern enough.
Lagerfeld's imagined and fictional vision of the Orient - as fake as the Scottish extravaganza brought to Linlithgow castle two years ago - was somehow less interesting when you consider the architectural impact of the show.
Dubai is home to the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, and it is well known for the Palm Jumeirah artificial island. Yet, rather than opting for your average luxury hotel, Lagerfeld decided to hold the show on an island and managed to do so with the support of the local government helmed by the constitutional monarch of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Privately owned by Sheikh Hamdan, the hereditary prince of Dubai, The Island was until two months ago a barren stretch of sand off shore from Dubai's Jumeirah beach. Then Chanel came, built a rectangular hangar covered in what looked like traditional Islamic fretwork but was actually a composition made of thousands of interlocking double C's, and added palm trees and cactus plants, Bedouin tents and rugs - an intervention in which Nouvel's Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris was combined with a Chanel boutique.
This is the sort of spectacle that works on social networks, like the giant art fair/modern gallery or the supermarket-themed sets that fascinated editors during the latest editions of Paris Fashion Week. Yet, though the Chanel props on The Island will be dismantled in a short time, Chanel's physical expansion will continue on a local level.
Dubai is striving to turn itself into a local and global fashion hub and Chanel is feeding off its ambitions. The fashion house opened a boutique in the Dubai Mall in 2009, followed by another shop in the Mall of the Emirates last year, and a shop-in-shop at the Level Shoe District, the world’s largest footwear store, in 2012. A fourth Chanel boutique is expected to open in 2014 at Dubai International Airport, for the joy of all shopaholic passengers. The company also hopes to increase the number of its couture clients in the Middle East.
Yet behind the fashion and architectural fantasia, behind the geographically inaccurate and fictionalised Arabia generated by Western desires, behind the glitter and the glamour, Dubai with its futuristic skyscrapers stabbing the sky is still trapped by ambiguity.
The liberal and free, tolerant and futuristic luxurious wonderland for expatriates in search of perennial sunshine and wealthy locals is also a place where immigrant workers are exploited as labour force, a theme highlighted by a few journalists (such as BBC's Ben Anderson), documentaries and videos.
As the luxury and sunshine remain therefore a mirage for too many people, you wonder if also Chanel's architectural intervention on The Island was the result of slave labor. We will obviously never know.
What's for sure is that, from now on, the mark powerful fashion houses expanding in the Middle East will leave on the local population will not be confined to style issues, but will extend to space with architectural interventions including not just permanent stores and boutiques, but also temporary structures for events such as catwalk shows.
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