A custom-built big-data centre set provided the backdrop for Chanel’s spring- summer 2017 show at the recent Paris fashion week, which included models dressed as robots and bags with flashing LED displays.

Taking place at the Grand Palais in Paris, the brand’s famed creative director, Karl Lagerfeld – known for creating elaborate sets – transformed the historic site into the Chanel Data Centre.

“The data centre is something of our time,” says Lagerfeld. “It’s the idea of the modern person, whatever the time, the century or the circumstances. It’s not technology in a cold way, it’s intimate technology,” he added. “Even if you don’t like the idea, technology rules the world because it changed the world and it’s made many things easier; work, live and play.”

The catwalk was set in front of giant control panels complete with multicoloured wires. Models, including two styled similarly to stormtroopers, emerged from the machines into a stark white room. The colours seen in the wiring were repeated in the collection, having been applied to digital prints and the signature Chanel tweed. Accessories included brightly coloured baseball caps, robot-shaped bags and monochrome clutches with LED displays.

If the old adage that ‘fashion leads design’ is true, then we can rest easy knowing big data is going to be big – and beautiful, too.

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