Round 1 - 2023 (Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty / In Honor of Karl) - Match 77 of 107
Christine Chiu (Chanel), left
“At yesterday’s Met Gala, Christine Chiu celebrated Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty by donning a red Chanel Haute Couture gown from the fall 2015 collection—an encore of sorts, considering she already wore it, years ago, to a dinner with King Charles, the then-Prince of Wales. “One can’t [simply] talk about sustainability in fashion, she must wear it on The Met Gala carpet," Chiu says. "So, I paired the dress with an up-cycled cape made by local artisans from Demi-couture gowns in my closet.”” (x)
vs. Jared Leto (SCPS), right
“The theme was late designer Karl Lagerfeld; Leto came as Choupette, the pet he reportedly left £1.3m ($1.6m) in his will and scored a major publicity land grab. On the phone from Torrance, California, Joshua Balster – who was project manager of the cat costume for production studio SCPS – says its creation was “pretty wild – definitely a rollercoaster”. ... The hyper-real design was another hurdle. Usually mascot suits look like caricatures but Leto “was really pushing it. He wanted it to be like a real cat.” It took a lot of sketching and digital sculpting to come up with a design that worked, based closely on photographs of Choupette (“I think I’ve seen every single one that’s out there,” says Balster). And so the team translated the cat’s essence to a creature on its hind legs. Choupette’s face went through “a couple different stages”. At first it was even more closely based on photos of Choupette which look “a little bit angry”. Wisely, “Jared wanted to make it a little more soft and cute.” When new pictures of Choupette appeared in the run-up to the Met (Choupette hung out with Kim Kardashian in Paris; the images were shared on Instagram), the design team pounced. “We pulled those as soon as they came out. We wanted to see what it looks like now – to capture the face and the look. It was super crucial that we nailed the eyes.” The eyes gave Leto visibility, using “a couple of costume secrets” but ensured Leto could not be seen within the costume. The costume was made from synthetic fur – the type SCPS usually use for monsters and yetis – which was painted to match all the variations of colour on the real Choupette’s fur. It had a cooling mechanism for the face, with battery-powered fans pumping air. It needed to be removed quickly, to reveal a second, somewhat more sober outfit underneath, and to enable Leto to wear his own shoes over step-out platforms within the cat’s paws. Usually there is a process to take such costumes apart, but this time there had to be “breakaway seam lines” hidden in the fur at the back.” (x)
Whose outfit was better?
Voting ended onMar 16