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Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld under fire after staging mock feminist protest at Paris Fashion Week

In the fashion business, Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld ranks among the most celebrated of designers. When his models paraded down the runway in Paris this week, they were adorned in more than fine couture, they were carrying placards in a faux-demonstration for Feminism, a design choice that has the critics and the supporters unraveling....
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The Current21:29Karl Lagerfeld: Designer ... and feminist? - Oct 2, 2014
In the fashion business, Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld ranks among the most celebrated of designers. When his models paraded down the runway in Paris this week, they were adorned in more than fine couture, they were carrying placards in a faux-demonstration for Feminism, a design choice that has the critics and the supporters unraveling.

"I'm a professional. Always impeccable. Always under control. I'm a control freak."
- Fashion Designer Karl Lagerfeld.

lagerfeld-feminism-insert.jpg

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld acknowledges the applause of the audience after the Chanel show as part of
the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2015. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)


Superstar fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld added a controversial touch to Chanel's Spring 2015 Collection. The runway was designed to look like a Paris Boulevard, and the models carried protest signs bearing the slogans of the feminist movement. "Ladies First," "History is Her Story," "Feminism Not Masochism" are not the kind of thing elite audiences are accustomed to reading at fashion shows.

The feminist backdrop caused a social media storm. Not everyone is sure it's a good thing for Chanel to peddle its products with feminism. But for his friend Jeanne Beker - Karl Lagerfeld's work and messages are a perfect fit.

Jeanne Beker was the creator and time host of Fashion Television and now a columnist at
The Globe & Mail. She was also the guest curator of a show at the Design Exchange called Politics of Fashion. She was in our Toronto studio.


Karl Lagerfeld is hardly alone in borrowing from the feminist movement to move product. In the song "Flawless", Beyoncé sampled Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TEDx talk "We Should All Be Feminists."


At the MTV video music awards, the word feminist appeared behind Beyoncé in capital letters as she performed her hits. That's the kind of message Kim Katrin Milan would prefer the fashion industry promote.

Kim Katrin Milan is a multidisciplinary artist who is an associate director at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. She is also the editor and writer of Sista-ink - a website dedicated to tattooed women of colour. In the past, she has also worked as a makeup artist, and a personal shopper.


What do you think of Karl Lagerfeld's fashion for feminism runway show?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Pacinthe Matter and Sujata Berry.

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