ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: "Once Upon A Time ..." The Film by Karl Lagerfeld

Private Screening of "Once Upon A Time ...", Palm Court, May 8t, in Singapore.

Karl Lagerfeld unveiled his film "Once Upon a Time…" which celebrates the 100-year anniversary of Gabrielle Chanel’s Deauville boutique. During a private screening at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the evening before the Cruise 2013/14 show. The interior courtyard of the hotel, the Palm Court, was chosen as the theatrical backdrop for the screening. Within this verdant showcase, where Charlie Chaplin and William Somerset Maugham once wrote beneath the shade of the palm trees, the guests were invited to enjoy the preview of the film.

Caroline de Maigret and Karl Lagerfeld

Zing and Zhou Xun

Jamie Bochert and Sigrid Agren

Saskia de Brauw

Soo Joo

Zhou Xun

You really have to travel to feel the shifting of these tectonics of taste, which is one reason Mr. Lagerfeld is compelled to be out there, absorbing. The Chanel resort season publicity policy has also handed him another reason to be creatively engaged it gives him the opportunity to develop his moviemaking. He said he directed every aspect, from set design to costumes to the casting of a 160 for Once Upon a Time . . . , a short film starring Keira Knightley, Clotilde Hesme, and a “family” of Chanel models and friends. It imagines the scene as Gabrielle Chanel tries to sell her first collections to American heiresses (Lindsey Wixson as “Miss Wonderbilt”), British aristocrats (played by Stella Tennant and Amanda Harlech), society hostesses (Jamie Bochert as Marchesa Luisa Casati). The script was improvised by the players.

Once Upon A Time - Karl Lagerfeld on set ...

“I like using the Chanel family it’s what Andy Warhol did, no?” said Lagerfeld after the screening. “But the budget was a bit different.” Andy did not have the funds that Chanel has, its resonance is far longer lasting and further reaching than a mere vanity experiment. And when you see the cheering, sobbing reaction of Chanel’s Singaporean clientele to Lagerfeld’s show, or drop by the Chanel store on Spring Street and watch every counter besieged by customers well, whatever the dizzying costs of the film, show, parties, transportation, and hotels must have been for Chanel, there is no doubt that Karl Lagerfeld has to be worth it.