Chanel dazzles with latest couture

PARIS -- Veteran designer Karl Lagerfeld defied predictions Tuesday that Paris haute couture will soon die out with a display of feather-light gowns for Chanel destined to lure a new generation of clients.\nTo a live set by singer Cat Power, models paraded under the soaring steel and glass roof of the Grand Palais before guests including actress Sigourney Weaver, director Sofia Coppola and French first lady Bernadette Chirac.\nSlim sequined gowns in metallic pink, burnished gold and gray shimmered under gray Paris skies, while cloudlike skirts of see-through tulle wafted across a giant carpet emblazoned with the house's double-C logo.\nThe number of houses that produce made-to-measure haute couture has dwindled dramatically in recent years. But Chanel has proved its commitment to preserving French know-how by buying up the embroiderers, featherers and shoemakers who supply it.\nLagerfeld made clear, however, that it was not his mission to rescue the sector.\n"My future is Chanel, the future of the other couture houses I don't really know," the German designer said after the show. "I only care what I'm doing. I'm not there to save the corporations. It's up to them to make an effort to save it."\nFans of the legendary house were given a peek behind the scenes of the recent documentary which shows seamstresses toiling for weeks to make Lagerfeld's sketches come to life.\nAmong the featured artisans was Raymonde Pouzieux, an eccentric old farmer who makes braids for Chanel's tweed suits on an ancient loom on her farm, surrounded by horses and hay.\nThis season, Lagerfeld drew inspiration from '60s icon Edie Sedgwick and dispensed with skirts entirely, simply pairing his iconic tweed jackets with shiny black tights and two-tone shoes