Icarus Walks: Chanel Cruise 2017 Fashion Show
- Nov 24, 2017
- 3 min read
Dreams came true yesterday noon.
"I am in my first Chanel fashion show!"
Yes. The double C has held a fashion show at the sunny little island of Singapore. The best part? All the invitees were fashion students.
When I arrived at the venue (which was at a wine storage facility at SG's west area), something was indeed different. It has a different aura than the catwalks of Australian fashion weeks that I volunteered for. No seasoned editors or renowned public figures. However, the energy of curiosity, eagerness, and excitement were all over the Greek garden installation. The beige-toned seating rows were accompanied with an issue of a Chanel magazine and a small bag of samples of its beauty products.
When the show starts, awes filled the room. The pieces were gorgeous to watch, definitely. There was this white floaty dress with a golden pattern that flew as the model strolls. What stole my eyes though, were the accessories. The big, adorned bangles and the bags in a Santorini-like colour palette. Ladies in with their ribbon headbands circling around the temple-like structure, showcasing Lagerfeld's creations of the season.
All in all, it really does feel like a surrealistic experience.
I've said it time and time again that fashion, at its core, is the business of selling dreams. And who gladly buys dreams? Youths. Millennials. Whatever you would call us. We will be the ones who build the future of fashion.
Or better yet, they don't buy it - they make them.
Most of my instagram captions have an underlying meaning. Like, for this shot of BooksActually, I'm referencing Murakami books. I'm not sure that anyone who is scrolling quickly through their TLs would get it, but take it from a lifelong Disney fan that I love slipping in easter eggs.
My first instinct was to put it Modernity in Antiquity, aka the collection's name. But where is the fun in that?
So came forth Icarus Walks.
Icarus is a Greek myth I happen to came across a year ago (Take a guess from where. Clue: Pop culture > Physics class). Since the collection is a tribute to Greece, I felt like I had to put something that relates back to the showcase.
The myth is a tragic one. Icarus is a son of a Daedalus, creator of the Labyrinth. He was imprisoned inside a tower in the middle of the sea along with his father. Being a brilliant inventor, Icarus' father crafted two pairs of wings - made from feathers of birds he gathered for a long time - for them to escape the tower. He warned Icarus not to fly too high, since it may led the sun to melt away the wax that holds the wings together.
Since I spoiled the story's less-than-happy ending, you might have guessed it. Icarus did fly, so happily that he forgot his father's warnings and flew too high. The sun melted his wings and he fell to the sea. The legend is a favourite of musicians, who often incorporate it into their works. Usually the interpretation lies back to the topics of 'deadly ambition'.
I know many of us who attended the show dream of this sort of career: top fashion (insert job here). Internationally renowned brand. Fame and fortune. An invite to a Chanel fashion show is a piece of that ambition that arrived on our doorstep, just because our parents paid for our attendance in fashion school. Like Daedalus attaching the feathers with wax for his son to fly.
Which brings us to the next part.
I guess 'walks' can have dual meanings. One, 'walks' refers to when Icarus walks before flying - reaching to his ambitions, you might say. Secondly, it may refer that he didn't perish in the fall after all.
The idea I got are these. With the help of people around us and our own will, we will be able to fly. But, just because you achieved something, doesn't mean you can sit happily and stop progressing. Ambition is there to motivate you, but don't let it consume you. And if you do fall, try as hard as you can to come back up.
Yes, the title is another Korean song reference. This time, it's from a 2008 album of Epik High, an alternative/hip-hop trio who describes their work as "no genres, just music".
"No labels. Just fashion." I have a feeling that phrase will come into my life someday.
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