Chanel's Re-Birth
Well, Paris Fashion Week 2020 has come and gone, and I didn't blog about it. That's not to say that I wasn't paying attention, however, and I must say, the Chanel show really blew me away. I have a huge soft spot for Chanel. She was the first designer I really learned about, it's an accessible brand if only for fragrance and cosmetics, and Karl Lagerfeld passed away during my first real job in fashion when I worked at Saks Fifth Avenue as a style advisor.
This is Chanel's second collection to be shown after the death of Lagerfeld (the first for the fall/winter season), and I love the direction that his right-hand and now new artistic director Virginie Viard has taken. For the first time watching a runway show, I actually could imagine myself in the pieces, and the way they would feel on me and the beauty that I would feel in them. A part of this visualization also has to do with my new-found confidence and knowledge acquired by working at Ted Baker, and also having a new male model friend who works there as well and who inspires me. And while Ted's uses the same silhouettes and fabrics season after season, this has truly been my first experience wearing luxury fashion, other than a few random pieces that I was able to purchase during my time at Saks.
As much as I wanted to model in high school (more than being an actress or dancer), I knew I had no real business (literally) in the industry. Despite not being "good enough" in appearance or wealth, and not being allowed to wear "name brands" growing up (which I now know was not to set me apart but simply that we didn't have money), I was so intimidated. Now I recognize that fashion is an elite industry, having started in the 1800's catering only to the rich in private salon shows, and the models, the ideal body type to show the clothing the best, are anything but common. I had not, and still largely in part, felt that I didn't belong anywhere near fashion, despite my livelihood often being from selling clothing.
Indeed, I was never alien to clothing. The first chore I ever learned was how to do laundry, iron, and sew on buttons, and since I was a teenager I worked in ladies' wear departments. But it wasn't until I landed my job selling clothing at Saks that I began to educate myself, to ensure the success of my work. Shifting from sales associate who was more responsible for picking up clothes off the floor and opening up fitting rooms, to needing to suggest high-end fashion pieces and close sales, was monumental for me, and sometimes I still have no idea how I got that job.
As noted in previous articles, my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to learn how to become a professional seller, and who helped educate me on the industry so that I could start this blog (and that relationship ending being a big reason why it's lapsed and I managed to miss writing about Fashion Week, coupled by its anticlimactic setbacks due to many parts of Europe being self-imposed quarantined until we get a vaccination from the devastating coronavirus).
But as the aficionados say, and what I am amazingly now saying, I have been inspired by the shows, and am ready once again to self-educated myself, and possibly get back to writing more professional grade articles, as always intended under my self-labelled representation, Carly Blackwell Media.
Thank you for reading.
Carly
This is Chanel's second collection to be shown after the death of Lagerfeld (the first for the fall/winter season), and I love the direction that his right-hand and now new artistic director Virginie Viard has taken. For the first time watching a runway show, I actually could imagine myself in the pieces, and the way they would feel on me and the beauty that I would feel in them. A part of this visualization also has to do with my new-found confidence and knowledge acquired by working at Ted Baker, and also having a new male model friend who works there as well and who inspires me. And while Ted's uses the same silhouettes and fabrics season after season, this has truly been my first experience wearing luxury fashion, other than a few random pieces that I was able to purchase during my time at Saks.
As much as I wanted to model in high school (more than being an actress or dancer), I knew I had no real business (literally) in the industry. Despite not being "good enough" in appearance or wealth, and not being allowed to wear "name brands" growing up (which I now know was not to set me apart but simply that we didn't have money), I was so intimidated. Now I recognize that fashion is an elite industry, having started in the 1800's catering only to the rich in private salon shows, and the models, the ideal body type to show the clothing the best, are anything but common. I had not, and still largely in part, felt that I didn't belong anywhere near fashion, despite my livelihood often being from selling clothing.
Indeed, I was never alien to clothing. The first chore I ever learned was how to do laundry, iron, and sew on buttons, and since I was a teenager I worked in ladies' wear departments. But it wasn't until I landed my job selling clothing at Saks that I began to educate myself, to ensure the success of my work. Shifting from sales associate who was more responsible for picking up clothes off the floor and opening up fitting rooms, to needing to suggest high-end fashion pieces and close sales, was monumental for me, and sometimes I still have no idea how I got that job.
As noted in previous articles, my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to learn how to become a professional seller, and who helped educate me on the industry so that I could start this blog (and that relationship ending being a big reason why it's lapsed and I managed to miss writing about Fashion Week, coupled by its anticlimactic setbacks due to many parts of Europe being self-imposed quarantined until we get a vaccination from the devastating coronavirus).
But as the aficionados say, and what I am amazingly now saying, I have been inspired by the shows, and am ready once again to self-educated myself, and possibly get back to writing more professional grade articles, as always intended under my self-labelled representation, Carly Blackwell Media.
Thank you for reading.
Carly
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