From Russia With Love

Russia’s modern history is characterized by extremes, from the incredible opulence of the Tsarist court to the anger of revolution and the bold, iconoclastic work of the constructivists in the 1920s. A woman of extremes herself, Coco Chanel had a dalliance with Russian Aristocrat Dmitri Pavlovich in 1921, a fact that provided the inspiration for Karl Lagerfeld’s pre-fall 2009 collection for Chanel. These new images from Lagerfeld—taken from a new book from Steidl, Chanel’s Russian Connection—develop the themes of the collection, drawing on folk art as much as imperial splendor. The spring 2010 Chanel collection shows today in Paris.