Chanel’s Mane Event. The Winter 2010-2011 Haute Couture Show.

Chanel Lion

The newest haute couture collection from CHANEL premiered July 6 at the Grand Palais in Paris. The collection was filled with rich brocades, luxurious sequins, ruched boots, new longer length dresses, some seriously puffy sleeves, tousled hair and lions. Yes, Lions.

Chanel Winter Couture

One of Karl Lagerfeld’s most sumptuous and elegant collections to date, the Chanel Winter Couture show and collection were punctuated with multiple appearances of the King of the Jungle.

The set in Paris, designed by Stéfan Lubrina, had an enormous statue (reported to weigh 8 tons) of a Lion through whose giant paws the models strutted Karl Lagerfeld’s latest looks. You can view a video of the construction of the set here.

The set was based on this marble statue:
originl marble lion statue

Lion heads adorned the invitation, the press kit, some of the jewelry, some of the gowns and even were embedded into some of the fabrics.

The invitation:

Karl Lagerfeld shooting the press kit:

A Chanel gown with sequined lions:

Chanel dresses with Lion head accents:

and on the jewelry:
chanel lion jewelry

Even the groom in the the finale donned a giant lion head:

The LION. A video about what the Lion meant to Mme Chanel:

To see the entire Chanel Winter 2010/2011 collection, visit  the CHANEL site.