Karl Lagerfeld, who passed away aged 85 in 2019, joined the house of Chanel in 1983. In his tenure as creative director of the famed Parisian maison, Lagerfeld was renowned for creative, showstopping runway sets, not just at the Grand Palais in Paris, but across a host of locations, from Cuba to Dubai. The immersive and cinematic sets resembled, variously, windfarms and polar landscapes (complete with a real iceberg), airport departure lounges, space stations and supermarkets. Here, in celebration of Lagerfeld’s boundless creativity, we look back at Chanel's most awe-inspiring show set design.
Karl Lagerfeld’s 20 greatest Chanel show sets
Chanel S/S 2010: The brand imagined a lush barnyard scene for S/S 2010. The show set featured a tiled farmhouse raised on pillars, with rolling in the hay-worthy bales housed beneath, and its walls lined with lengths of trailing foliage.
Chanel A/W 2010: Lagerfeld erected a chilly polar landscape, complete with a 265-tonne iceberg imported from Scandinavia. Housed in a sealed ‘glacier’ box in subzero temperatures, the berg was constructed by 35 ice sculptors who, over the course of six days, transformed 240 tonnes of snow-ice into the icescape – which reached a peak of 8.5 metres.
Chanel S/S 2011: Karl Lagerfeld looked to the gardens of the Palace of Versailles for inspiration, filling the Grand Palais with a topiary-style maze of stone pebbles, punctuated by giant fountains.
Chanel A/W 2011: Chanel’s Grand Palais venue was transformed into a stark post-apocalyptic landscape by an impressive 350m painted forest-effect canvas backdrop, undercut with a winding cerused pine catwalk road – an undertaking which took two months to complete and seven days to construct.
Chanel S/S 2012: Giant pieces of coral, seaweed and shells were the centrepiece for Chanel’s aquatic show. The set was designed by the late architect Zaha Hadid, and evoked an etheral underwater abode fitting for the ancient goddess Venus.
Chanel A/W 2013: In the centre of Chanel’s wide, round catwalk stood a giant spinning globe in black and gold, with the house’s interlocking Cs marking the brand’s numerous boutiques around the world.
Chanel S/S 2013: The focus of the show was on ‘energy’, models walked on blue hi-tech solar panels, while gigantic white wind turbines blew a summer breeze throughout the space.
Chanel A/W 2014: The Chanel shopping centre inside Paris’ Grand Palais was the talk of the town during Paris fashion week. Models clutching Chanel logo baskets paraded down aisles fully stocked with a rainbow of jars, bottles and groceries – yet this was no ordinary supermarket run..
Chanel S/S 2014: An avid art collection, Karl Lagerfeld created a Chanel art gallery for S/S 2014. Its wide walls came covered in Chanel-themed, tongue-in-cheek art pieces, inspired by both modern and contemporary art movements
Chanel Resort 2015: Lagerfeld took over an entire island in Dubai, with Chanel transplanting running water, electricity, shelter, palm trees and some 300 of the world’s international fashion press to a reclaimed plot of sand, surrounded by turquoise water. Guests reached the island by wooden boat, arriving at a pavilion decorated inside and out with traditional Mashrabiya carved wooden panels, which – on closer inspection – fittingly etched out the brand’s iconic double C logo.
Chanel A/W 2015: The luxury brand once again fulfilled expectations (and appetites) with its transformation of the Grand Palais into the ‘Brasserie Gabrielle’. Three operational pop-up bars were equipped with Parisian waiters, coffee and newspapers, while the space was set with red leather banquettes, wood boiserie panelling and bistro tiled flooring.
Chanel S/S 2015: The ever-changing Chanel interior revealed itself as an emblematic Parisian avenue for Karl Lagerfeld’s spring parade. The indoor street scene came complete with seven-storey buildings, paved sidewalks, puddles and even potholes, offering up the perfect marching ground for Chanel’s latest tweed revolution.
Chanel Haute Couture S/S 2016: Lagerfeld erected a serene and contemplative show set, a runway formed from sections of grass, wooden panelling and wood chippings. At the head of the runway stood a wooden pavillion surrounded by water, a charming two-storey hideaway, and the scene where the brand’s models took their final positions at the show’s climax.
Chanel A/W 2016: Karl Lagerfeld transformed the inside of the Grand Palais into an old-fashioned couture runway show, much like the salons in which Coco herself would have presented her collections back in the 1950s. Row upon row of gilded chairs provided a front row seat for each one of Chanel’s 2,500 guests, while the 600-metre-long runway was multiplied to dizzying effect in the mirrored pillars and walls.
Chanel S/S 2016: Lagerfeld conceived another blockbuster set, theatrically transforming the lofty interiors of the Grand Palais into an airport terminal complete with 40 different Chanel-branded check-in desks, luggage trolleys and a huge departure board listing the house’s recent show locations
Chanel S/S 2017: Karl Lagerfeld installed a Chanel data centre for S/S 2017. Although more restrained than previous seasons, the still impressive set-up featured vast rows of twisted coloured wires, switches and LED light boxes that gave the impression of being inside a giant computer.
Chanel A/W 2017: Karl Lagerfeld prepared for blast-off with a space station-inspired runway set. The ‘Gabrielle Chanel Agency Spatiale’ boasted an igloo-like tent, flashing transmission towers and a giant Chanel logo rocket. At the show’s finish the rocket burst into life, emitting sparks and smoke, and appeared to take off through the glass ceiling of the Grand Palais to the blaring soundtrack of Elton John’s Rocket Man.
Chanel Resort 2018: Lagerfeld erected his idealised vision of ancient Greece – complete with Parthenon-worthy crumbling columns and a sunset view of the Aegean – at the Grand Palais’ Galerie Courbe in Paris. A first-century headless statue of Venus still sits at Coco Chanel’s Rue Cambon apartment, and an iteration of it appeared on set, wrapped in cloth and a construction site of wooden scaffolding.
Chanel S/S 2018: Lagerfeld devised an immense set up that recreated the Verdon Gorge, a spectacular river canyon in southeast France. Models strode a narrow wooden walkway, surrounded by cascading waterfalls, verdant cliffs and grassy foliage, all of which were reused after the show.
Chanel A/W 2018: Lagerfeld took show goers into a forest. Real, mature trees covered in moss and Chanel-branded autumnal leaves completely covered the floor. Such a natural setting evoked more emotion than usual. This was a landscape that offering a multisensory experience – the earthy scent of tree bark filled the air – and it was also a reflection of the times, in which permanently stressed urban dwellers are turning en masse to the liberating antidote of the great outdoors.
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