Ay Cuba!
8 years ago by
Chanel KNOWS how to throw a destination runway show.
The whole Cuban runway show reminded me of a video I would have watched as a kid. It felt like they turned back time right to when things were bold, filled with color and beautiful fun. You have to watch the video of the show, the images don’t do it justice. The lights and the live music really gave it life and had me dreaming of cuffed white shirts and multi-colored, ruffled anything.
Cuba has really been trending recently, and if the Chanel show doesn’t make you want to jump on the next plane, I’m not sure what would! While you can often look to the shows and think, “where on earth would you wear that?!” – this time, everything just clicked. So, I thought I’d share my favorite looks and why, if I had a limitless budget I would buy them …
Look 1 : This is classic Chanel. Period.
Look 26 : Also pretty classic, but more feminine and how great would that slip top be with jeans?
Look 29 : If you knew me in 1996, you would know I probably did wear this, and although I think it may have been a costume, today – I would wear to dinner.
Look 58 : Kelly Kapowski may know this look best, but I have a thing for bike shorts, and I think the longer ones work.
Look 69: I just like this – when you break it down, it’s the simple formula for a cool outfit: tee, blazer and pencil skirt.
What about you??
Gotta have that perfect Pilates butt to pull off bike shorts. My glutes ache just looking at them.
I love the shoes. They channel Elaine Benes of Seinfeld a little.
The tee, skirt, blazer and hat I could live in that. Loved this show.
I thought that this show was embarrassing, to be honest. From Gisele dressing up as Che (really?! REALLY?!) to all of the wealthy fashion set posing in front of old cars and crumbling buildings and saying how exotic it was and like it’s another world – it made me cringe. No regard whatsoever for the people who have lived there or how incredibly poor they are or the fact that it looks like it’s in the past BECAUSE they have been restricted in their access to modernity. Also, no real emphasis on anything in the clothes except for Cuban stereotypes. They have a really interest youth culture happening right now, but I didn’t see that anywhere in the “Cuban influences.”
I don’t know…the image of an immensely wealthy European fashion house picking and choosing the aspects of Cuba its rich patrons experienced just did not sit well with me, at all.
yes.. I know Cuba from the inside and this whole happening made me in a way sad and very uncomfortable. Don’t understand it wrong, I love beauty (art, fashion, music). And Havana is a mythical location! But this show (and a lot of recent changes and so called ‘openess’ in between Cuba and the world), only generate more and more questions and doubts in my mind… Chanel doesn’t do politics they say, but in this context that statement (which is a statement in itself and not necessarly a bad thing) hurts. Chanel isn’t for cubans, a majority still struggles to have enough money for daily food. An enormous contrast. Real cubans weren’t allowed even near paseo del Prado, how can that not confirm ‘apartheid’ politics. Real cuban people, who are Cuba, don’t benefit from this at all. Maybe the idea of Chanel came from something positive but it made the fashionworld seem so shallow in my eyes, not adressing any reality at all, a beautifull dream for rich extranjeros.
I completely agree. When I see the fashion world and celebrities treat this poor country like a new playground it makes me want to wear a sack. The whole thing was in bad taste and just wrong.
I totally agree with Cay and Igrid. The clothes were beautiful but the idea and the implementation (“Real cubans weren’t allowed even near paseo del Prado”) somehow obscene. No, Chanel doesn’t do politics. Chanel just steel the romantics of cuban revolutionary past (“Viva Coco Cuba libre”) to sell theirs t-shirts that cost maybe 5 USD in the production for 500 USD. It’s only business..
I completely agree with both this comments. The whole show is a parody of the real politics that happen in Cuba. The so-called opening of Cuba to the world, how is this real, if the same siblings are in power of the country? I have my reservations against this…
Pfffff I agree so much with Cay and Ingrid…I would even be meaner than them, and say that all this fashion world is starting to disgust me. Chanel is trying to take advantage of this cuban trend, I find this really pathetic. Cuba is not a zoo. We should let cuban live their lives (more freely now) without capitalizing on them.
my fave is the last outfit. looks like a perfect way to dress down a pencil skirt. it’s fitted and fun.
Cool and contemporary but I dare say that I love the classic old-times Chanel… :)
https://sofaundermapletree.wordpress.com
Loving all of the colors and prints ??
This looks so fun!
Paula- http://www.livingpaula.com
Great photos!
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Au delà de la polémique sur l’écart de salaire entre les clientes Chanel et le cubain moyen, ce qu’il y a d’encore plus choquant c’est de penser que ce style là se rapproche du “Style Cubain”.
Je crois que penser ça c’est n’avoir jamais mis les pieds à Cuba, comme Karl apparemment !!!
Les cubains ont adaptés le style « Reggaeton » : jeans troués, coiffures de footballeurs, débardeurs à échancrures sous les bras, t-shirts fluo…sans parler de la taille des vêtements des femmes qui dépasse rarement le haut de la cuisse alors le dessous du genoux!?…
Les cubains deviennent esclave d’une culture qui n’est pas la leur et qu’on voudrait leur imposer: les Rolling Stones, Chanel!!…Tantôt espagnole, tantôt américaine, puis Russe, on oublie que ce pays a une âme caribéenne…et beaucoup de jeunes cubains semblent vouloir le revendiquer aujourd’hui !
I just feel sad in a way that Americans are now going to start traveling to Cuba. In fact, as a Canadian who has traveled to Cuba over and over and as any Canadian will tell you, the Cuba we love…the real Cuba without this kind of silly Merican showboating will be diluted. And the stereotypes perpetrated in this “show” – Oh dear. All I know is that Canadians truly embraced the Cuban culture and the Cuban people as they are – not some sophomoric vision of what the U.S. thinks they are. Man, when did the fashion world get so unsophisticated?
Hi Carrie! Like all of Chanel’s destination shows, they’re aspirational and over the top, isn’t that what makes fashion fun sometimes? To still be able to dream? To generalize that this one, French brand, represents American’s idea of Cuba seems a bit harsh…
How can you gush about about this in such an adoring way? — Chanel used the country of Cuba as a backdrop, a temporary runway to showcase so called luxury goods intended for rich white women. As if Cuba was some kind of stage set built for fashion week, not someone’s home and community. It reeks of privilege and ignorance – a revolting “let them eat cake” scene that showcases the worst instincts of the fashion industry. Yick- wake up and write about fashion in an informed way please!
Hi Katherine!
There’s a fair bit of overgeneralizing – “rich white women” seems terribly harsh and likely untrue as to who the Chanel customer is … just saying.
I would have loved this show. I love the slip top! Could definitely see myself wearing that with jeans!
La petite robe jaune en V manches courtes est merveilleuse.