Chanel "The Boy/Girl Show in Paris"

Mademoiselle Chanel was destined for the boyish, straight-line tweeds that strode Lagerfeld’s runway for Chanel at the Grand Palais. Mr. Lagerfeld is rarely nostalgic, but this Autumn/Winter 2011 couture show, with its graphic black and white tweeds and exquisitely detailed evening clothes, seemed to have a narrative that took fashion back to the boy/girl thing.Or as the designer put it: “I like the idea of metamorphosis — a female evolution from boyish to woman.

”The result was a standoff between the compass and the ruler: the curvy woman with her rounded silhouette and the loose, mannish shape. Neither seemed exactly of the moment. And when fuchsia pink was inserted, it jarred with the gray elegy. Maybe because he no longer has his own line to express his graphic, linear vision, Mr. Lagerfeld brought that side of himself to Chanel. But the result was a show that did not entirely catch the poetry of nightfall as intended.

(The show, in fact, took place at 10:30 p.m. because Lagerfeld wanted the collection to be seen at night, would Coco Chanel have approved?)