Chanel’s Spring 2014 Handbags Have Taken a Detour to Art School

There are a lot of things I respect about Karl Lagerfeld, but chief among them is his willingness to load down his runway models with handbags and accessories. Those are, after all, the things that make luxury brands the lion’s share of their profits, and with fashion shows now watched by consumers the world over instead of just buyers and editors, it makes perfect sense to make a runway, among other things, a showcase of the stuff that consumers want to buy. Not only did almost all the models from Chanel Spring 2014 carry bags, but most carried more than one.

Often, one of those bags was a graffiti-covered backpack, looking for all the world like it would be right at home hanging on the shoulders of a 19-year-old art student. Indeed, art was the in-your-face theme of the collection, with models walking the runway next to what looked like gallery walls and wearing clothes and bags covered in painterly strokes. Several models even toted oversized Chanel art portfolios, clearly intended to be the Instagram-dominating Chanel Hula Hoop Bag of this collection. If Karl knows anything, it’s who’s watching his fashion shows.

[Photos via Style.com]