Accessori
The Chanel Boot
Gabrielle Chanel wanted the two-tone pump to be such that women could say, like her, “With four pair of shoes I can travel around the world.” Thanks to this 1957 creation, Mademoiselle’s silhouette became “the height of elegance”. With a strap across the heel, the slingback pump has become a timeless accessory at CHANEL and a classic that Karl Lagerfeld paid tribute to in the Fall-Winter 2015/16 Ready-to-Wear collection. The designer also seized upon the ballerinas, showing them as early as the Spring-Summer 1984 Ready-to-Wear collection, and from then on in dozens of different materials and variations. Since his arrival at CHANEL in 1983, Karl Lagerfeld has also regularly featured boots in his collections, drawing on a key element from Gabrielle Chanel’s own wardrobe. For although she never included them in her collections, she herself wore them in all circumstances.
And what could be more logical for the lover of horses, accomplished rider and racecourse enthusiastic that she was? In the 1920s at Eaton Hall, the home of the Duke of Westminster, she would wear boots to stroll around the castle grounds and when she rode there. From then on Mademoiselle would make them her companions in the countryside as much as in the city. From 1958 she would wear her tweed suits with boots and she enjoyed seeing her favourite model, Marie-Hélène Arnaud sporting them too. In 1966 Women’s Wear Daily discussed her ‘motorcycle boots’, produced by Massaro, who in order to give them more flexibility, cut them from a felt that was exclusively blue, almost black, or sometimes white and blue. “My ankles swell a little and with these boots, you can’t see a thing! One day we’ll do them for the collection,” Gabrielle Chanel confided to Raymond Massaro.
While the boots remained reserved for her own daily life, Karl Lagerfeld has honoured them regularly over the seasons. The motorcycle look of Mademoiselle’s boots crept into the Fall-Winter Ready-to-Wear collections of both 1991/92 and 1996/97. They made an appearance as never-ending thigh boots in the Fall-Winter 2005/06 Ready-to-Wear and the Paris-Byzance 2010/11 Métiers d’Art runway shows. They came in rubber for a rain boot version at the Fall-Winter 1994/95 Ready-to-Wear collection and in a faux fur for the Fall-Winter 2010/11 Ready-to-Wear collection. They were cut to mid-calf in two-tone leather – of course – for the Spring-Summer 2006 Haute Couture collection and were as supple as socks for the Spring-Summer 2014 Ready-to-Wear. Chained, laced up to the knee, embroidered, embellished with bows or grosgrain ribbons… season after season, the boots express all aspects of Karl Lagerfeld’s creativity.
For the Fall-Winter 2017/18 pre-collection, the CHANEL boot adopts an urban look. Two-tone, ultra-chic, it steps out in suede and satin. Elegant and comfortable, it stops prudently at mid-calf. At this point the signature Gabrielle Chanel, subtitled Coco appears engraved in the skin. A sophistication emphasised by the colour duos: the satin toe cap, always black, is accompanied by a suede calfskin in beige, teal, burgundy, midnight or royal blue, aubergine, deep or brick red and grey. Just one exception punctuates the line as a monochrome black version.
Karl Lagerfeld pursues the metamorphosis of the CHANEL boot with the Fall-Winter 2017/18 Ready-to-Wear collection. It is ready to conquer outer space on a low, slightly bevelled square heel. Its squared toe cap is swathed in patent leather or Lurex while its sparkling fabric shimmers like a constellation of diamonds in the CHANEL galaxy.
Whether understated or elaborate, the CHANEL boot carries within it all the precision of a line as well as a timeless allure.
Cretis: ©Chanel
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