When Coco Chanel created the sleek tubular silhouette of the active, modern woman back in the 1920s, fashion spoke to a smaller audience; now it addresses a global one. Not content to simply export French savoir faire and Parisian chic through the regular channels, in the mid ’00s Karl Lagerfeld started taking Chanel’s resort and Métiers d’Art collections on the road, bringing the esprit de Chanel to life.
“Lagerfeld’s angle, though, wasn’t the life of Chanel herself, but, he emphasized, ‘cosmopolitan elegance people from all over the world who’ve come to the Ritz. There were hundreds of dinners in the ’20s and ’30s, where women wore incredible things. But you cannot tell from the collection what decade it is, and I think that is modern, no?’ ” Havana, Cuba: Resort 2017 The Location: Old Havana, where guests took in the show from open-top Buicks, Cadillacs, and Oldsmobiles.