Chanel celebrates its artisans in glimmering Paris show

Chanel brought its itinerant off-season fashion show the “arts and crafts,” with its swath of VIPs including Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard, back to home ground in Paris on Wednesday to mark its first collection since Karl Lagerfeld died earlier this year.

New designer Virginie Viard teamed up with film director Sofia Coppola this season to imagine a cinematic opus that saw the house’s 1920s Rue Cambon atelier — replete with crystal chandeliers and mirrored cubist staircase — recreated under the lofty roof of the Grand Palais exhibition space.

Unlike the seasonal collections that trickle down to set high street trends, the “arts and crafts” pre-collection aims at showing off and celebrating the work of the artisans that are the beating heart of Chanel, and the Paris fashion industry as a whole. Celebrating their technical know-how is one way that storied Paris heritage houses have tried to distinguish themselves in the face of increased competition from other fashion capitals, such as New York and Milan.

Model Kaia Gerber wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

The first looks, in black with oversized statement shoulders, were simple enough as to let the embellishments do the talking: Large silvery art-deco waist bands with beading, bejeweled cuff bands or large geometric buttons with silver rims. A staple black sweater and knee length skirt were given life with rings of pearls that cascaded down to a black and gold chain belt that resembled the strap of the house’s iconic handbag. Camellias adorned ethereal feathers as prints, while ears of wheat were constructed in glimmering gold sequins.

They set the agenda of the show. The fashion panache here was hidden down in the details that were delivered with couture-like finesse.

“The show was incredible,” exclaimed Cruz, who reminisced nostalgically about walking around Central Park at midnight with Lagerfeld last December after last year’s Egypt-themed Chanel show in New York.

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

Since 2002, the “arts and crafts” show has traveled around the world to highlight the fashion artistry of Parisian embroiderers, feathermakers, adornment-makers, pleaters, shoemakers, milliners and glovemakers.

After shows in Hamburg, Edinburgh, New York and other far-flung locations, Chanel returned to the French capital where it may be the last chance in a long time to stage it at the Grand Palais, which is scheduled to close for renovations next year ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

This year’s homecoming echoes the very first show, held in the salons at 31 Rue Cambon — Chanel’s storied Paris atelier.

Models wear creations for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

It was the late house founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel who first understood the need to support struggling artisans in the field in the 1950s, culminating in the creation of the body of crafts, Paraffection, in 1985.

This vast network, which employs some 5,000 workers and includes famed embroider Lesage, does not work only for Chanel but also multiple other big names in the fashion industry.

“There is something so generous about how Chanel has supported the Parisian fashion industry as a whole,” Cotillard said following the show.

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

“Chanel is a sort of ambassador for France and Paris over the world and it makes me so proud,” she added.

Thomas Adamson on Twitter: Twitter.com/ThomasAdamson_K

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

ModelS wear creationS for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

Models wear creations for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Chanel's Metiers d'Art collection presented at the Grand Palais in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.4, 2019. (AP PhotoFrancois Mori)

Before zombies shambled about, ghoulishly feasting on the flesh of those too slow to flee, aliens from outer space ruled movie theaters, drive-ins and late Saturday night creature features on television.

Even as Hollywood still drives how Americans envision little green men with big eyes and bigger heads, fiction soon could be separated from — or revealed as — fact if government agencies release secret files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs as called for in February by President Donald Trump.

The science fiction genre has shaped how people think about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe — “whether it’s invasion narratives or aliens coming to warn us that we’re on the wrong track or aliens just trying to come and make contact and help us with things or just say ‘hi,’” says Duke University professor Priscilla Wald, who teaches a class on science fiction and film.

Trump's announcement on social media followed former President Barack Obama suggesting in a podcast interview that aliens were real. Obama later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens had made contact, but said since the universe is so vast odds are good that life exists elsewhere.

Movies say they are nearly everywhere, from a Pennsylvania cornfield in 2002's “Signs” to Wyoming's Devil's Tower in 1977's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to a Central American jungle where 1987's “Predator” was set.

“Hollywood has basically been preparing the public for this,” retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet says of any revelation that intelligent life from outer space exists and has visited Earth. “I think people can handle it. It does, of course, depend on what information is released (by the government)."

Hollywood quickly latched on following the 1947 discovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. Authorities initially identified crash materials as a flying disc before quickly backtracking and saying they were from a high-altitude weather balloon.

About three years after Roswell, “The Flying Saucer” made it to theaters. That was followed by a some low-budget and mostly forgettable movies, while others continue to inspire sci-fi buffs like 1951’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

“If you think back to the flourishing of alien films, this starts really in the U.S. in the 1950s,” Wald says.

“The aliens are gentle souls who come down and try to warn us after nuclear war," she says of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” “They’re trying to warn that we’re creating problems in the cosmos and that if we don’t stop, they are and have to do something about it."

Still others depict visitors arriving with more nefarious motives and intentions — to kill us, to take over the Earth, sometimes even to make us food.

“I think if we found out aliens were on the way, there would be a mix of responses,” Wald says. “I think there would be a lot of people out there welcoming them. A lot of people would be going down to the cellars and stocking them with canned food."

A plethora of documentaries also have been released, including 2025’s “The Age of Disclosure,” which details government knowledge of the existence of intelligent life outside of humans and attempts to reverse engineer alien technology.

Steven Spielberg has directed such box office hits as 1982's “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” His upcoming film “Disclosure Day” teases: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?”

“My question is always, 'Well, what is that fear really about?'” Wald says. “It seems to me it’s a reflection on who we are, that we’re projecting onto aliens the way we treat each other. So, the aliens are coming down, they want to conquer us, they’re violent. Who does that sound like? It sounds like us.”

AP national writer Allen G. Breed in Durham, North Carolina, contributed to this story.

FILE - Model ships hang at the entrance to the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas on Aug. 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)