Chanel’s autumn/winter ready-to-wear collection is multi-faceted: it features a mixture of new, modern and casual attitudes.

Designed by Karl Lagerfeld, the collection features fresh and unexpected pieces, including a suit: the new three-piece – a jacket and little dress over trousers.

The collection also features a few jackets with sailor-smock collars and a fur-lined coat, a very long riding coat with large, rounded, sloping sleeves and the ‘pantacoat’ – an all-in-one with legs that unzip to become a coat.

Volumes are amplified by drawstrings or gathered belts, highlighted by top-stitching – a reference to the same detail found on the Boy Chanel handbag.

The mineral rock setting is extended to fabric meta-phors, with combinations of wool and more technical mat-erials glinting with a subtle metallic shimmer.

Subdued shades of hematite, azurite and obsidian are illuminated by myriad jewel-coloured splashes of sulphur, lapis lazuli, emerald and amethyst.

Violet tweed refracts the light with its irregular texture, while the volcanic coated cotton is shot through with silvery, sparkling Lurex.

Stippled iridescent feathers, softer to the touch than fur, bring warmth to the outfits. Crystals and minerals reinterpreted in a Czech Cubism style become prisms of gleaming vinyl. Accumulations of stones are worn beneath collars, in between pleats, on cuffs, belt buckles, buttons and jewellery.

The sandal, open on one side, with a heel, is described by the couturier as a salomé décapotable.