Follow That Bird.

So, I saw this:

Chanel Couture Spring 2013: Style.com

Schwing. 

So I popped some feathers on this weekend and hit the town. Now I'm a bit embarrassed to pop my picture right underneath this sexy ostrich.

Maybe let's make a little extra space between them ...

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Zara feather skirt, New Look creepers, Primark peplum lace top, H&M leather jacket, Marks & Spencers embroidered waistcoat, Superdrug necklace worn on my big head and Maison Martin Margiela for H&M hair extension necklace.

Apologies, these pics are dominated by my shnozz. Sadly, that's just the life I lead. 

Now, this is obviously not quite the froth-pot that Mr Lagerfeld served up, and only a month after his Pre-Fall collections in Linlithgow too! Ah, the genius of Karl. I can definitely see it. Sometimes I wish I could hear it a little clearer. Style.com quotes him as saying post-show: "There is nothing more elegant than a certain kind of melancholia." Now er, is that clever? Or a bit twatty? It's kind of hard to tell from a man who asked his mother for a valet. For his fourth birthday.

Sometimes I really enjoy his insights: "I don't like that people butcher animals, but I don't like them to butcher humans either which is apparently very popular in the world." Yes Karl. Yes. But other times I wonder why the interviewer bothered writing it down: "Frustration is the mother of crime, and so there would be much more crime without prostitutes and without porn movies." I wonder what Karl thinks about a lady's frustrations. I suppose that we just smash our teacups when the horn beast comes a-knockin'. 

I found this one in a Vogue feature on Karl's 'best' quotes: "The advantage of fashion is that there is no racism." It's a tricky one. I've always wanted to believe exactly that but if you stand in Smiths and peruse the fashion mag aisle, there's often an overwhelming amount of pasty faces looking back at you. Flicking through the Chanel Spring 13 Couture collection where I found the fluffy crown atop this post, I counted 5 non-white faces. Out of 68. This piqued my curiosity. Elie Saab seemed to have 2 out of 47. And Dior Couture much the same: 2/46. Atelier Versace had 1 in 27 so that's an average of 5%. And Karl's dragging that figure upward.  

Here I think it starts to get uncomfortable. I'm sitting here doling out race labels based on one picture and a name. That's hideous and I feel embarrassed but I don't want to freak myself out of thinking about it at all. The Huffington Post back in 2011 compiled a list of black models that had appeared on the cover of Vogue. There were 27. The darn thing's been around since 1891. I couldn't find any figures on other proposed ethnic groups. 

Now my sister, and the wisest person I know, told me that one of the most important things that she learned at uni was that there is no such thing as race. No biological, pre-determined difference just a hideous clanger of a social set-up. I've googled Karl's comment and it comes from a debate with Noemie Leonoir about racism in fashion that you can find here. It's pretty interesting and he seems to argue that there just aren't enough well-known black women for them to hold more of a presence in the industry. Well er, that sounds a lot like racism Karl. It's interesting that Vogue didn't include these bits in their feature ... Thank God they left this gem in: "Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants." Well that's definitely genius.