You didn't need a degree in archaeology to spot the main inspiration for Chanel's Métiers d'Art 2018/19 collection, showcased yesterday at The Met Museum in New York, yet it would have helped if you had visited the museum's "Jewelry: The Body Transformed" exhibition (until 24th February 2019).
As seen in a previous post, the exhibition features an extensive section dedicated to beautiful Egyptian pieces, including broad collars made with colourful faience beads, funerary jewelry and golden sandals and toe stalls that belonged to the funerary accoutrements of an Egyptian queen of Thutmose III. Karl Lagerfeld borrowed the colours, shapes and motifs of some of these pieces and incorporated them all in the 17th "Metiers d'Art" collection for the French fashion house.
The annual show, taking place in a different city each year, is a runway but also a celebration of the 26 maisons acquired by Chanel through its Paraffection subsidiary and producing a variety of pieces including gloves (Causse), millinery (Maison Michel), goldsmiths (Goossens), cashmere (Barrie), pleating (Lognon), feather and flower adornments (Lemarie), embroidery (Lesage), costume jewelry (Desrues) and shoes (Massaro).
The set was part of the collection inspiration as the show took place at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Built by the Roman governor of Egypt, Petronius, as one of many Egyptian temples commissioned by the emperor Augustus, the imposing sandstone building was completed in about 10 B.C.
It was dedicated to Isis and Osiris, as well as two deified sons of a local Nubian ruler - Pediese ("he whom Isis has given") and Pihor ("he who belongs to Horus").
The temple is partly decorated with reliefs: along the base there are carvings of papyrus and lotus plants; over the temple gate as well as over the entrance to the temple temper there are depictions of the Winged sun disk of the sky god Horus represent the sky. On the outer walls, Emperor Augustus is depicted as a pharaoh making offerings to the deities Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus.
The structure was dismantled and given to the United States by Egypt in the '60s, in order to save significant sites from being submerged by Lake Nasser following construction of the Aswan High Dam. It was awarded to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967 and installed in The Sackler Wing in 1978.
The show opened with variations and reinterpretations of Chanel's tweed jackets made with strips of tulle, sequin, and metallic ribbons and at times characterised by a boxy shape echoing the architecture of the temple behind the models.
Skirts were also altered to create a sort of shendyt, the wrap-around garment donned by men in Ancient Egypt that can be easily spotted in hieroglyphs (the same trick was applied to the hems of tops and sweaters).
Ankle-length dresses in white gauze or heavily embellished and decorated with sequins and gems pointed instead at robes in sheer fabrics or white linen favoured by Egyptian women and at Cleopatra's fitted straight sheath, also known as kalasiris.
As the runway progressed the Egyptian inspiration was re-adapted to modern times and combined with New York styles: denim garments were decorated with Egyptian symbols, while lurex sweaters with geometrical shapes in bright and vivid colours matched with metallic trousers pointed at '80s fashion and pop videos (think The Bangles' 1986 hit "Walk Like an Egyptian").
Egyptian ierogliphs then transitioned into graffiti that were turned into graphic decorative elements: the best ones were actually motifs drawn from the Memphis Milano group (Lagerfeld used to collect their pieces), while French artist Cyril Kongo provided gold graffiti.
There was still a historical reference here, though, since, in the 19th century, graffiti were left on the walls of the Temple of Dendur by visitors from Europe, among them the British naval officer and later Rear Admiral Armar Lowry Corry (see "A L Corry RN 1817", at eye level to the left as one enters the temple) and Italian egyptologist Girolamo Segato.
The knitwear pieces that preceded and followed the graffiti designs were particularly intriguing as they tried to recreate Egyptian motifs and jewellery via sequinned embroideries: among the best pieces there was a golden jumper with a jeweled collar imitating the broad collars made with colourful faience beads included in the "Jewelry: The Body Transformed" exhibition. The design was modelled by Pharrell Williams who impersonated a sort of urban Tutankhamun in golden trousers.
The dresses with coloured gems and in multipatterned colourful waving motifs were instead directly linked to the polychromatic designs of the temple that can currently be admired in the projected animations on the temple beige façade as recreated by the museum curators.
Among the most striking effects created by the ateliers there were camellias and lotus flowers embroidered on jackets or forming large collars, pleated elements and above all Egyptian tomb paintings rendered with dyed feathers.
Here and there in the final evening dresses (some of them characterised by stripes reminiscent of the death mask of Tutankhamun) there were quite a few Art Deco echoes. They were actually historically correct as, after Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, Egyptology became rather popular in fashion, interior design and even on the big screen with films such as Cecil B. DeMille's "Cleopatra" (1934).
The accessory offer in this collection featured a variety of brooches, necklaces and bangles, but also gold sandals and thigh-high boots with heels encrusted with pearls, gold brimmed hats and striped pyramid or scarab-shaped minaudières, bejewelled belt buckles and golden hats by Maison Michel.
Alligator and python pieces were instead replicated as Chanel recently announced on the eve of the show that the brand will no longer be working with crocodile and exotic reptile and stingray skins.
As a whole the collection was an interpretation of Egypt (with some Art Deco references and sci-fi notes added...) filtered through Karl Lagerfeld's imagination. Beyond the magnificent styles and painstakingly crafted looks there were moments, though, when the extravaganza tinged with darkness.
If you stopped to think, you took the scene in and considered how the show included elements inspired by an ancient civilisation and took place in front of a Temple that had been disassembled, transported to another country and reassembled in a museum, you'd realise how much we have stolen and appropriated from other civilisations, and remixed, recreated and adapted for our (supposedly modern) times.
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