"Modern English".(Karl Lagerfeld's Metiers d'Art fashion show)

Byline: --ANDR�% LEON TALLEY

Maureen Dowd sent me the delicious novel The Collection (Scribner), written by her friend Gioia Diliberto, about the life of a seamstress in the early days at Chanel. Tossed out of the atelier by Mademoiselle, she finds herself standing next to her former boss in the sixties at an exhibit displaying a dress she made in 1919--"the year," Gabrielle Chanel is quoted as saying in the novel, "I woke up famous."

Everyone knows that early in her career, Chanel was influenced by the English lifestyle of her beau the Duke of Westminster. The deft attitude toward tailoring that became part of Chanel folklore was alive as Karl Lagerfeld took his high-luxe Metiers d'Art show to London along with house favorite Irina Lazareanu, whose beautiful voice accompanied the designer's remix of Chanelisms on the runway. For the Paris-Londres 2008 collection (which showcased the craftsmanship and hand-detailing of ateliers Massaro for bespoke shoes, Lesage for embroideries, and Lemarie for feathers), Lagerfeld came up with the brilliant idea of having Irina debut her singing talents to a fashionista audience that included Daphne Guinness, Lucy Ferry, and Rupert Everett. She and Sean Lennon co-wrote the opening song, "Strange Places," and he orchestrated the mini-concert as the collection floated by on concrete floors at the Phillips de Pury & Company auction galleries on Howick Place. The annual Metiers d'Art collections (basically a pre-fall collection) has taken yours truly from its launch in Paris in December 2002 to Tokyo in 2004. Lennon, like Lagerfeld, wears white shirts and bow ties, except the musician takes a more casual approach, while Lagerfeld--with big diamond brooches on his ties--dresses like a powdered aristocrat out of the age of Louis XV.

SHOW TIME

Natalia Vodianova arrived, in a pale-gray Chanel Haute Couture chiffon dress over licorice leggings and flat shoes, with her husband, Justin Portman, wearing black lame cotton jeans from Dior Homme. Flats were the ubershoe of the night. Lagerfeld decided smart brogues with brooches kept the show on the English Channel track (he also had Union Jack quilted bags). Emma Thompson, who seemed covetous of a pair of these sensible walking shoes, had a reunion of sorts backstage with Lagerfeld, for whom she once made English jam and took it to a photo shoot in Paris.

Amy Winehouse, the Baroque neo-punk-inspired show's muse, and Damien Hirst were meant to attend, but she was stuck somewhere in the countryside. "In ...