If the world is a megastore, even Chanel's clothes have a shelf life.

In what has become a lavish standard for Karl Lagerfeld, the spectacle that was the Fall 2014 RTW Chanel show laughed in our faces at our idea of excess. If his Spring show recognised the art world as a supermarket, then this is what it would look like if the world was too. 

Hundreds of thousands of everyday supermarket items, rebranded to be Chanel-esque, filled the shelves and lined the runway. There were no bargains to be found at this megastore however, with items marked up 20 or 50 percent.

Nodding to Andy Warhol's pop-art interest in Coca Cola bottles and Brillo boxes and Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent diptychs, it cannot be helped but to interpret the show's references to consumerist culture and the devaluation of high-art. But what exactly was he trying to say? 

Let's take Warhol's perspective; placing high-art and low-art, high-value and low-value items in the same space to obscure the representation of value on items we see everyday, whatever their 'true' value. Reproduction and repetition of an object forces value to decrease, so, what does it say about placing previously unattainable-to-most items (cue Chanel clothing) into a sphere that everybody engages with? On the other hand, how does it effect the average consumer if that previously-unnatainable-to-most items is placed into their most routinely surroundings at a price of 50 percent more? Naturally, consumers desire what is least unattainable to themselves. For example, I want a Chanel purse with all of my heart and truly think my life would be better if I had one. Of course, it will be a long time before I can afford to buy one, however, if the price of said Chanel purse was to increase by 50 percent would I want it more or less? Obviously, I would want it more. The classic supply-and-demand theory means fewer people will own said Chanel purse, therefore on owning said Chanel purse I would become even more special than an even larger number of people who cannot own said Chanel purse. By placing the clothes (unattainable) in a supermarket (attainable), the line is not necessarily blurred, but in fact, emphasised.

On the other hand, there is a direct relationship between the clothes themselves and megastore/mass-produced products. PVC pleather intentionally made to resemble rubbish sacks, bags packaged in styrofoam and cling-wrap like meat cuts, bags the shape of egg-cartons and styrofoam used for fruit all featured in the collection. Of course a consumerist society -particularly fashion - is totally disposable and has a high turnover. Chanel pumps out 6 collections per year, and although the value we place on the clothes remains high, their shelf life is little more than fruit on the shelves of a megastore.

Don't be fooled, I still love Karl more than ever, and this was the greatest and most spectacular show of PFW

MB xx