http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/fashion/paris-fashion-week-chanel-and-hermes-mcqueen.html 2016-10-04 15:57:07 Getting Lost in the Matrix With Chanel and Hermès Big data but few big ideas on the Paris runways, with the notable exception of Sarah Burton’s ode to unity at Alexander McQueen. === PARIS — On the penultimate day of fashion month, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, fresh from defending her city during “This is an essential sector,” she told guests as they sipped coffee and ignored the croissants. “Paris is not a capital of crime, but a capital of fashion.” Then she talked about diversity, and asked for advice in getting the word out. Less than an hour later, Kind of. In what turned out to be a relatively low-tech show of classic Chanel suits in electric circuit-board tweeds and sporty shapes — the blouson jacket, the tennis skirt — all mixed and matched with lacy peach-toned lingerie and light-up handbags, Mr. Lagerfeld dangled the promise of delving into the dueling realities of modern life but didn’t entirely deliver. Instead he served up delicate dresses and digitized sound and light prints, all worn with sideways baseball caps. Even though two masked robotic stormtroopers opened the show, the tone was more breezy than Big Brother. In this, it was entirely linked-in (and wired-up) with much of the week. Over all, and with one more day to go, it has been an unambitious finale to what had been shaping up as a strikingly political season. In New York, designers practically held election rallies on the runway ( But Ms. Hidalgo’s efforts aside, Despite a presidential election looming next year, and a “Frexit” that’s on the table, designers have by and large shied away from any overt campaigning, content to offer vague lip service to the need for “optimism” and “joy.” You can understand it — it’s the safe way out; the inoffensive middle ground — but it has left a lingering sense of emptiness. If they don’t care enough to commit, why should we, to them? Such was feeling, anyway, when faced with Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s collection for At least at There were giant clown pants in denim and khaki, and tent-like empire-waisted tunics in jacquard; pillowy leather handbags and suede platforms and silk sleeves on maxi dresses stretching to the ground. It was hard to imagine many women wanting to embrace the look (that kind of volume is hard for most bodies to pull off), but it was also hard not to admire Ms. de Libran’s dedication to the line. She went there, whether anyone else wanted to follow or not. It was at “I was thinking about our team,” she said before the show, “and how we come together, and then also our larger community, and then it seemed applicable much further beyond.” This took the form of thinking about the Shetland Islands (we all have to start somewhere, and she chose those rocky, windswept lands). And given that Scotland, where the Shetland Islands are — and where, not coincidentally, McQueen has some roots; remember Mr. McQueen’s 1995 “Highland Rape” collection? — is rumbling again about leaving Britain as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, you can see what she means. And you could see it on the runway. In crocheted lace slips so light they could be pulled through a wedding ring and floral lawn empire-waisted dresses under studded leather Boudicca harnesses. In gray and black tartan trousers and jackets worn with varying lengths of kilts to form a new kind of suit and embroidered with jet-beaded thistles. In patchworked Fair Isle knits pinned together with kilt hardware and metal rings. In big studded work boots made to range over the ground, and piles of Celtic jewelry. And in a finale of embroidered cobweb tulle dresses with frothing feather hems that told a tale of shipwrecks and kelpies and adventure fit for a warrior queen. The fragility and romance was offset by the handicraft and hardiness. They were, indeed, stronger together.