From

Haute Couture
Spring 2001

(ELLE.com) Fashion icons Christian Lacroix and Karl Lagerfeld flaunt their flair for finesse at this season’s fashion shows! Click on ELLE.com’s Fashion Collections for the concluding highlights from Haute Couture week.

Christian Lacroix
Lacroix was up to his old tricks again, breaking the rules of conventional style by clashing patterns, matching jarring colors and combining opposing genres. That meant fake fur fringe on a curvy 18th-century style red crocodile jacket, a zebra coat with ostrich epaulettes over blue silk gabardine shorts, and crusty sequined bellbottoms worn with a black chantilly tee-shirt worked into fan-like folds. There was both the sublime and the ridiculous in this collection, and as usual with Lacroix, both went to the extreme. Sublime was a white gauze ballgown and its alligator-skin bustier draped with a blossom-embroidered turquoise tulle shawl. Or a tangerine satin sheath with kelly green brocade kickpleats and antique quilting emerging from beneath its skirts. However, when a chartreuse handknit bodysuit topped a black and white silk blouse, Lacroix clearly got it wrong.

Chanel
Karl Lagerfeld has a gift for bringing a fresh approach to Coco Chanel classics. The perennial suit had a thirties slant this time around; silhouettes were relaxed with dropped waists and wide-pleated skirts in the classic black and white, pink, lilac and beige tweed. Karl heaped it on with heavy pearls, jeweled brooches, chain belts and short veils. But it was the eveningwear that was special here, with long, sleek skirts embellished with jewels, or ruffled flamenco skirts. One standout was a delicate top in pearl gray chiffon, with strips of fabric doubled with pearls along the shoulder and back, over a floor-length taffeta skirt.

Photos by Java Fashion Photo Agency

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