Dress

In his book The Language of Fashion, philosopher Roland Barthes describes Gabrielle Chanel as an author who successfully utilized clothing to cultivate the “authority and the panache of a writer of the classical age.” In 1983, twelve years after Chanel’s death, Karl Lagerfeld assumed creative directorship of the house. Over a period of thirty-six years, he followed in the path of the founder, distilling the heritage of the brand to a basic lexicon, which he continuously explored with originality and humor. Among the key iconographic elements he deemed essential was the ubiquitous quilted handbag that was introduced by Gabrielle Chanel in 1955. Lagerfeld consistently reimagined the accessory itself and also employed aspects of it as a motif in clothing. Here, the handbag has been embroidered across the left hip of the dress in a glimmering trompe l’oeil blanket of sequins and beads. In an amusing gesture, the purse is not solely decorative, but contains a cleverly concealed and functional pocket.