The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Style
Thursday, January 26, 2017 — 5A

The Chanel Effect: Why I 
still love Karl Lagerfeld

Label’s latest Paris Couture show reminds us that innovation 
isn’t the only way to win the heart of the fashion industry

It’s Paris Couture Week.
Twice a year, once in February 

and again in July, the city of 
love is enveloped in a world of 
hand-embroidered, 
expertly 

hairsprayed fantasy. Few know 
the world of one-of-a-kind design 
better than Karl Lagerfeld. He’s 
been around the bend of fashion’s 
greatest stages time and time 
again. He’s designed for the likes of 
Balmain and Chloé, and currently 
serves as the creative director 
Fendi and his own eponymous 
label. Why, then, when we hear his 
name, do we only think of Chanel?

It’s Chanel. The interlocked 

pair of C’s on a quilted, chain-
linked bag. The one name in 
fashion 
known 
by 
everyone 

before us that will likely remain 
in ubiquity for the next century. 
I don’t give a shit if we have seen 
that same tweed suit from Karl 
before — it’s Chanel, for god’s sake.

In a perfect world, legacy 

wouldn’t be a determining factor 
in 
the 
what’s-hot-what’s-not 

debate. Yet Donald Trump is 
president, and climate change 
is real. By all means, then, is it 
entirely valid to love a brand for 
its name.

To be grounded in such a lasting 

heritage, something great must 
have happened at the hands of its 
inheritor at one point or another. 
When Karl took the helm at Chanel 
in 1983, the German mastermind 
began cranking out controversial 
collections like it was his job (to 
be fair, it was). When the ‘90s 
rolled around, his taste grew ever 
more 
objectionable. 
High-rise 

bodysuits emblazoned with that 
omnipresent double-C paraded 
down his runway alongside suits 
reminiscent of the matador’s traje 
de luces. As I recount his bold past 
in writing, everything sounds too 
good to have been true (there is 
nothing I would prefer than to 
see a new generation of Cindy 
Crawfords prance across the Paris 
stage in nothing but a hot pink 
Chanel bikini). In the 21st century, 
Karl appears to have focused his 
energy on paying homage to his 
lone successor, an act that has 
become predictable after seasons 

of relative redundancy.

Karl’s 68th couture collection 

for the house debuted this past 
Tuesday. Even before viewing 
the photo gallery on nowfashion.
com, I knew this season’s work 
would 
be 
predictably 
frothy 

and frilly, accompanied by some 
characteristically 
enchanting 

background, but I still counted 
down the minutes until I could 
escape my social science class and 
devour the photos on a “bathroom 
break.”

Look one: A tweed skirt suit 

in a subdued shade of green, 
accented by a black pussybow at 
the neck and a chunky silver belt 
at the midsection. Skirt suit after 
skirt suit, tweed after tweed, 
pastel after pastel, ruffle after 
ruffle. Soon, fully-sequined ball 
gowns were added into the mix, 
not without a generous spray 
of feathers. Spokesmodel Lily 
Rose-Depp closed out the show 
in a gargantuan pink pastry of a 
number. Utterly typical, and yet, I 
drooled over every last detail.

That’s just the Chanel Effect. 

You may not like it, but you still 
have to love it.

CHANEL

Chanel’s latest show for Paris Couture Week

TESS GARCIA
Senior Arts Editor

Fred’s makes its return

The empty storefront startled 

me. I didn’t know how to 
interpret the sign on the door 
that read: “Working hard on 
getting reopened and will be 
seeing you all so soon.” It was so 
vague. It was early fall, and I was 
not taking Fred’s disappearance 
well — being told I couldn’t 
have it only made me want it 
more. I checked their Instagram 
(@Fredslol) with regularity and 
impatiently waited for word of 
reopening. When news of their 
January relaunch finally arrived, I 
was elated.

The old Fred’s was a charming, 

shoebox-sized café tucked away 
on South U. The sunny California 
vibe inside was a rupture from 
gray of the street. The aesthetic 
was trendy, but it wasn’t trying too 
hard — it was small and cramped, 
but clean and white.

The new space is similarly cute, 

yet different.

When I entered, it was clear 

that the place was far from its 
humble beginnings. The new 
place gobbled up the old one: 
It’s sprawling. Every inch 
was packed. I opened the 
door straight to a line. What’s 
more, the place was bustling. The 
energy was palpable. Waiters were 
zipping around, swapping trays 
of avocado toast for beautifully 
illustrated number cards.

I have to confess, I despise 

nearly every variety of vegetable. 
However, every January, after 
the onslaught of “clean eating” 
content, I think to myself: “Maybe 
I do like healthy food, maybe it’s 
not that bad.” Unfortunately, that 
message never sticks. Salad just 
does not excite me the way a plate 
of fries does. However, despite my 
distaste for superfoods, at Fred’s 
I cannot help but exchange green 
for greens. Turns out, all I need to 
get excited is a pretty presentation 
— and in that regard, Fred’s excels. 

The food styling is next level where 
every single item on the menu has 
its custumors reaching for their 
phone. You’d be hard pressed to 
find a dish that is not vibrant and 
multi-hued.

Arguably, even more beautiful 

than the food is the café itself; it 
is spacious, light and the décor 
evokes a very West Coast x 
Marrekesh vibe. Long gone are 
the days of the hallway-sized café. 
Unlike before, where the only 
seating was a cramped counter, 
the renovated space now has 
room for dining. Alternatively, 
you can lounge on the plush steel 
blue couch while drinking a latte 
from the coffee bar. If you’re into 
healthy food that doesn’t taste like 
sawdust, or you’re just into taking 
photos of your food (no judgment), 
it’s worth the trip. Fred’s perfectly 
satisfies the gap in the market for 
reasonably priced, casual, clean, 
aesthetically pleasing food and 
is overall a great new (well, half 
new) addition to the Ann 
Arbor food scene.

TESS TOBIN
Daily Arts Writer

An ode to the late-night snack

It’s a little after 11 p.m., 

and you just got home from 
the library, a late meeting or 
somewhere or other. You likely 
ate dinner four or five hours 
ago. 
Your 
stomach 
growls, 

reminding you of the stretch of 
time that has elapsed. Perhaps 
you could snack on a bag of 
Goldfish or munch on an apple. 
Neither really fill you up or hit 
the spot, but they’ll do in the 
moment –– until 
you get in bed and 
find yourself already 
thinking 
about 

breakfast.

Maybe 
this 

isn’t you at all. It’s 
possibly 
just 
me 

rambling about my 
late-night 
eating 

habits 
(admittedly 

unbefitting someone 
who loves a good 
meal as much as I 
do). But it makes me 
wonder: What is it 
about that chunk of 
time between the sun setting 
and our bodies following suit 
that makes food a salient, 
nagging thought surfacing in 
our minds?

Though 
termed 
the 

“midnight 
snack,” 
late-

night eating can roughly be 
considered 
eating 
anything 

after our last meal of the day 
and anything before our first. 
It can take various forms, be 
shared with others or alone 
and usually creeps up on us 
in the form of a some random 
craving. Akin to the midnight 
snack is the drunk food, a 
similarly spontaneous act of 
eating anything to satisfy us in 
the moment.

While most people carefully 

devise and prepare their daily 
meals (taken to the extreme by 
myself) –– a habit inherently 
hinged 
upon 
concern 
for 

sustaining our health and well-
being –– there’s rarely, if ever, 
pause or a plan of action that 
motivates our decisive instinct 
to consume a late-night snack. 
It’s a moment of complete, 
uninhibited consumption that 

encapsulates 
the 

frequently 
evasive 

feeling 
of 
total 

freedom.

I say run with 

that freedom. How 
often 
throughout 

the day do we get 
to act with reckless 
abandon? How often 
do we act with such 
carelessness, 
such 

aimless gusto? Our 
limited 
energy 
is 

channeled 
towards 

so 
many 
other 

demands that drain 

us of our ability to scrutinize 
even the most trivial of matters 
that the brief moment in which 
we act upon our hunger without 
thinking twice resolves any 
other nagging thoughts in our 
minds. Though on a small scale, 
the indulgence of a satiating 
impromptu snack seems like 
a blip on our daily radar, it’s 
much more than that.

Our society doesn’t reward 

action without thought, and 
under most circumstances, it 
shouldn’t. 
But 
momentarily 

freeing ourselves from the 
chains of arbitrary, everyday 
choices can be a psychological 
deep breath –– a moment of 
peace.

Whatever 
prompts 
us 

to 
fill 
our 
stomachs 
and 

ease our minds, be it a dull, 
persistent hunger or an aching 
restlessness, 
we 
seek 
out 

comfort in food. And a late-
night snack is the epitome of 
a quick, comforting treat that 
doesn’t require much effort or 
time to attain.

With that, I’ll leave you with 

three of my favorite late night 
snacks: the beautifully random 
concoctions of edible respites 
I find comfort in on any given 
night. 

A bowl of cereal
I know, I know: “Seriously?” 

Yes, seriously. It’s cheap and 
easy. I throw in nuts, chocolate 
chips, coconut flakes, almond 
butter; replace dairy milk with 
almond milk or yogurt or cereal 
with granola. The options are 
endless, easy and satisfying.

Ricotta toast
Sounds fancy, right? Well, 

it’s not. It’s an airy, subtly 
tangy cheese (for under $3 at 
most grocery stores) slathered 
on crisp toasted bread and can 
be assembled in under five 
minutes. If you really want to 
throw caution to the wind, top 
it with sliced fruit, honey, seeds 
or whatever. It’s a blank slate 
for your most foolhardy culinary 
ambitions. The less thought you put 
into it the better and tastier. 

DIY Trail Mix
AKA a crazy person’s bag of 

snacks. Combine pretzels, goldfish, 
peanuts, or anything in your snack 
cabinet with a crunch, and toss 
together. The pleasing variety 
and gratifying textures are a true 
testament to what can be done with 
an offhand spurt of creativity and 
bold indifference. 

SHIR 

Avinadav 

Food 

Columnist

RUNWAY REVIEW

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Industry must adapt to pressing environmental concerns

UNSPLASH

Snacks are great.

FOOD COLUMN

RESTAURANTS

STYLE NOTEBOOK
Fashion’s great obligation

“Buy less and buy better” — 

that’s what we’re told. In that 
cliché 
narrative, 
consumers 

are the primary targets of 
activists 
focused 
on 
the 

fashion industry’s devastating 
environmental 
effects 
and 

inhumane 
treatment 
of 

workers. The fashion industry 
has cultivated the idea that 
consumers 
hold 
the 
true 

power 
in 
determining 
the 

market’s interaction with the 
environment. If we choose 
to 
buy 
more 
exclusively 

responsible, 
recycled 
and 

reused clothing, then fashion 
corporations will be forced to 
change their wasteful ways and 
cater to an ecological demand. 
Current clothing production 
and distribution poses a myriad 
of all too real problems, from 
the use of non-biodegradable 
material, 
rampant 

environmental pollution and 
exhaustion of fossil fuels and 
freshwater, all to produce over 
80 billion pieces of clothing a 
year. “Fast fashion” simply isn’t 
sustainable. 

But despite the warnings 

and begging of activists, we 
continue to gorge ourselves 
shirt by shirt, breathlessly 
hoping to keep up, be stylish, 
full steam ahead. 

Perhaps 
the 
relationship 

between the fashion industry 
and 
our 
environment 
is 

infinitely 
more 
complex 

than our typical branding of 
the consumer populus, with 
responsibility 
for 
creating 

an ecological demand. The 
decision to shop ecologically 
could have much less to do 
with the individual consumer 
decision and more so with 
the powerhouses of modern 
fashion mandating wear of the 
newest pieces and ideas. The 
worth of any item of clothing 
has been reconfigured — now 

lying in its momentary and 
cheap 
trendsetting 
ability. 

Rather than a quality and fair 
trade make in a U.S. warehouse, 
production is often outsourced 
to an illegal one in Bangladesh. 
 

As the excess builds up, it is 

becoming painfully clear the 
fashion corporations we hold 

in such high regard have an 
imminent moral responsibility 
to 
actively 
implement 

sustainable practices for the 
future of fashion and, more 
pressingly, our environment. In 
cooperation with the everyday 
individual’s effort to consume 
less conspicuously, there is too 
much potential for corporate 
change. Companies like Eileen 
Fisher, Ralph Lauren and Stella 
McCartney have demonstrated 
the potential of an ecological 
business model and set in 
motion 
a 
wiser 
consumer 

impression of what is trendy, 
desirable 
and 
ultimately 

necessary. The company’s 
market 
highly 
regarded 

collections of fairly sourced 
and 
constructed 
clothing, 

encouraging 
the 
spread 
of 

sustainable fashion. Through 
closed 
loop 
technology, 

clothing 
can 
be 
carefully 

broken down for textile reuse. 
Similarly, Swedish engineers 
recently released a garment 
made 
from 
100 
percent 

recycled cotton. For worldwide 
clothing names to implement 
these practices would both 
engage 
the 
impressionable 

public and encourage a far-
reaching 
implementation 
of 

environmental production. 

So for now, keep thrifting, 

re-wearing, 
shopping 

smart and handing in your 
unwanted clothes to recycling 
collections. You never know, 
the 
material 
from 
those 

unwanted clothes could walk 
the runways of Valentino in its 
next life.

SARAH AGNONE

Daily Arts Writer

Despite the 
warnings and 

begging of 
activists, we 

continue to gorge 
ourselves shirt by 
shirt, breathlessly 
hoping to keep up

