Last week, Karl Lagerfeld, Creative Director of Chanel presented his Métiers d’Arts Fashion Show in Dallas, Texas.  Why Dallas? It was the location of when Neiman Marcus honored Coco Chanel in the 1950s with The Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in The Field of Fashion.  Lagerfeld would also receive the same honor by the department store in Dallas.  Along with being honored with various fashion accolades, Lagerfeld has the ability to create new and innovative collections; he designs at least six Chanel collections a year with Ready-To-Wear (RTW), Haute Couture, Pre-Fall and Resort (Métiers d’Arts).

Chanel spokesmodels Ashleigh Good, (who opened the show wearing a camel tweed skirt suit with color-blocked cowboy boots in orange and terracotta) and Saskia de Brauw were newly platinum blonde for this fashion show.  Supermodels Stella Tennant, Joan Smalls, Heather Marks, and Texas-native Erin Wasson walked in the show.

While you look through the collection there is a theme of “Cowboys and Indians”, “Annie Get Your Gun”, and “Dances With Wolves”. Accessories throughout the collection included Chanel logo white feather worn in models hair, leather gloves, cowboy hats and boots.  It was Texan Americana Cowboy mixed with Parisian Chic.

Kristen Stewart, new spokesperson for the Paris-Dallas Collection was one of biggest starts at the show. Legendary supermodel, Lauren Hutton, Zoe Kravitz, Dakota Fanning, and Lily Collins were among the fashion elite in attendance of Lagerfeld’s Texas Adventure.

Each year, Chanel presents two Métiers d’Arts Collections during the Pre-Fall and Resort Collections in December and May.  These collections are themed around a city that brings inspiration for the designs that Lagerfeld creates. However, there is something special about Chanel’s celebration of an international destination and it’s culture. It almost feels like Lagerfeld is taking the temperature of where is the new hot city.

In 2008, when Lagerfeld presented the Paris-Moscou collection in Paris, it celebrated the Russian culture, history, and evolution.  Looking at the post-Communist era for this nation-state, the fashion world has bloomed in Moscow to now include a fashion week. Fashion publication Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar each have their own editions in the Russian Federation.  There was even a reality television series called “Top Model po-russki” their own version of Tyra Banks’ hit show “America’s Next Top Model.

Lagerfeld also has drawn on the culture and history of France to host various collections including those at Versailles Place and the French Rivera (in Saint-Tropez in May 2010, and Antibes in May 2011).

Here are a few of my favorite looks from the collections.

Until next time…

I’m Gavo Capote