The Subtle Way Chanel Paid Tribute To Karl Lagerfeld At Its Haute Couture Show

The late designer was very much present in Paris today - by Isabelle Truman

To mark her solo couture debut, Chanel's new creative director Virginie Viard paid tribute to the man whom she worked beside her entire career, Karl Lagerfeld. For the French fashion house's Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture 2019/2020 show, Viard transformed the Grand Palais into a library - a nod to Lagerfeld who loved books and who revealed in 2015 he had collected upwards of 300,000 of them.

The library was created circular in design with models, including Australia's Adut Akech and supermodel in the making Kaia Gerber, walking down from an upper-tier runway, similar to one Lagerfeld had built in his home.

Viard's first couture collection was full of elegance -belted silk gowns, bows, silk wide-legged pants and models wearing mostly flats. Makeup was kept fresh and minimal with model's hair pulled back into slick ponytails and many wearing metal-framed reading glasses.

Of course, this isn't Viard's first rodeo: the designer first joined Lagerfeld as his intern at Chanel in 1987 and remained at his side from then on, including following him to Chloé in 1992, before returning together to Chanel in 1997. Though there were Lagerfeld-inspired pieces throughout, a lot of the more feminine looks seemed to be a nod to the brand's founder, Coco Chanel.

Below, everything to see from Chanel's Paris Fashion Week show.

This article originally appeared on InStyle Australia

Isabelle Truman

Isabelle Truman is a freelance writer based out of London, UK. She specialises in fashion, lifestyle and travel and knows a thing or two (read: everything) about both Meghan Markle and 'Sex and the City'.