Successors Emerge? The 85 Year Old Buddha Was Absent From Chanel For The First Time.

What the fashion industry needs to think about is whether Chanel is ready to usher in an era of "old Buddha".

The Chanel 2019 spring and summer high show fashion show was released today in The Grand Palace, Paris. It is surprising that the 85 year old brand art director, Karl Lagerfeld, has not appeared for the first time in history. Instead, it has come to the curtain by the Chanel creative studio director, Virginie Viard, who has worked with him for nearly 30 years.

A brand spokesman later explained that Karl Lagerfeld was absent because of overwork and hoped he would recover soon.

However, the abnormal behaviour of Karl Lagerfeld has heightened speculation that he will retire.

Some people have pointed out that although Karl Lagerfeld signed a lifelong contract, if he is in poor health, retirement will also be put on the agenda.

Recently, he has also kept his beard. Some people think this may be a certain indication.

It is noteworthy that Virginie Viard is the successor of Karl Lagerfeld.

New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman wrote last year in an article called "fashion world after Anna Wintour". The rumors of Anna Wintour's departure undoubtedly inspired people's imagination. What would fashion world be without Anna Wintour?

She also points out that the Karl Lagerfeld is the only one in the fashion sector that is most stable today.

Karl Lagerfeld has been the creative director of Chanel since 1983 and has been the creative director of LVMH's luxury brand Fendi for over 50 years.

He said in an interview, "why do I have to stop working?

If I don't work, I may die. "

However, despite the signing of a lifelong contract, the fashion industry has never stopped speculation about when Karl Lagerfeld will retire.

Through the violent changes of the creative director for the past period, people frequently see the rumor that the violation of common sense has been confirmed, and has begun to reexamine the "fashion", which has been naturally accepted, and the future of this fashion.

Few people realize that the "fashion" that people are accustomed to nowadays is exactly the concept built by Karl Lagerfeld and other brands and designers in the past 20 years, and fashion is not necessarily necessary.

Some analysts say that if people begin to envisage the fashion world of Anna Wintour, then the world will also be a post Karl Lagerfeld world.

Haider Ackermann was once regarded as the successor of Karl Lagerfeld.

As early as 2010, Karl Lagerfeld said in an interview with Numero magazine, "I signed a lifelong contract, so it mainly depends on who I want to take over. At the moment, I would say that Haider Ackermann is more suitable."

Subsequently, Karl Lagerfeld decided to Haider Ackermann for the news of creative director.

But this statement was denied the following year.

When Karl Lagerfeld interviewed US magazine W, Haider Ackermann could go to Givenchy, and denied the idea of adding Haider Ackermann to Chanel. "I don't think that's his world."

In 2016, the news that Karl Lagerfeld was about to retire was crazy again in the industry.

The story of the US gossip tabloid Page Six has revealed that Karl Lagerfeld is already very tired and unsatisfactory at work and has already prepared for retirement. The source also said that the Cuban holiday series may be his last series.

The news was clarified in Karl Lagerfeld's interview with us Harper 's BAZAAR magazine.

Last year, Chanel's Hamburg vacation Series in Germany was once passed the last series of Karl Lagerfeld.

However, compared with other star creative directors, Virginie Viard, which has grown from within, is considered the most reliable successor.

After a long time, the trust between Virginie Viard and the Wertheimer family behind Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld has been established.

In addition, the successful case of Alessandro Michele leads Gucci proves that it is also feasible for the brand to promote the creative director from within.

The fashion industry is undergoing structural changes, and brand designers are constantly changing their blood. The new fashion scene has begun to take shape.

To be sure, whoever takes over Karl Lagerfeld in charge of Chanel will face an increasingly volatile luxury industry and Chanel in the middle age anxiety.

Although Chanel has some capital in its head luxury brand, it has been able to take the first place in the luxury industry in the past half century.

At the same time, because the Chanel group is mainly held by Alain Wertheimer and Gerard Wertheimer, the performance pressure of Chanel is relatively smaller than that of the listed group.

But in the face of LVMH and Kai Yun group oligopoly competition to enter the white hot stage, Chanel also had to think about its position in the industry.

In June last year, when Gucci said that it would sell its target of luxury Louis Vuitton with the sales target of 10 billion euros, the low profile Chanel announced its earnings for the first time. Its total sales in fiscal year 2017 rose 11% to 9 billion 620 million dollars, or 8 billion 300 million euros, operating profit of 2 billion 690 million US dollars, and net profit of 1 billion 800 million US dollars.

Some analysts say that Chanel has not only made the acquisition rumors unsuccessful, but also shows that the brand still has an unshakable position in the luxury industry.

As a luxury brand advocating classics, internal turbulence is not conducive to the long-term development of the brand.

However, for the Chanel led by Karl Lagerfeld, the industry's constant criticism of its design has been brewing for a long time.

Fashion headlines have pointed out in the report that under the packaging of a series of fresh marketing, the design of Karl Lagerfeld has not changed much, so that the market can not help worrying that many topical actions are just the illusion of Chanel's younger age. Brand products and images have been seriously divorced from the latest trend.

Some analysts say that whether it is the show to build a simulation rocket, or to build Eiffel Tower and man-made beach in a high fashion show, the extravagant stadium may be due to some misunderstanding of Chanel to the new generation of consumers, especially the Millennials.

In the future, consumers' expectations of luxury brands are no longer a distant and magnificent setting, but a cultural and emotional interaction; not a carefully constructed dream of landing on the moon and a centralism of Paris, but a resonance with consumers on issues they care about; they are not the image of a brand built by the brand, but the unique personality of the consumers themselves, not the extravagant and wasteful comparisons, but the contest of taste and personality; not the slogan of "subversive innovation", but a more diverse and fresh experience.

The current fashion industry is almost everyone's own danger, including the fashion media, and the brand's patience with creative director is very limited.

Even brilliant talent, such as Haider Ackermann, left the Berluti in the three quarter, and Chinese designer Yin Yiqing separated from France's old fashioned fashion house Poiret in just two seasons.

But now the young generation of designers will be brutally replaced things will not happen in Karl Lagerfeld, and its many years of friendship with Chanel can be called a creative director and brand relationship between the model.

People can even venture to speculate that the lifelong contract signed by Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel may be the last life contract in fashion history.

Over the past 20 years, the structure of the fashion industry has been relatively stable, and now it seems to usher in a new turning point.

There is no doubt that once those traders who build traditional power system quit, fashion will become another scene.