Pocketbooks in the Park.(The Talk of the Town)

New Yorkers love a line. Certain attractions--Shake Shack, Film Forum, Apple stores--even seem to prosper because of the lines leading to them: where there's fire, there's smoke. The latest of these may well turn out to be the Chanel Contemporary Art Container, which opened last week in Central Park--a portable pod (it is here until November 9th, and will travel to six cities in all) designed by Zaha Hadid, and filled with artwork commissioned by Chanel in tribute to the company's 2.55 pocketbook. It was, according to the promotional materials, "a revolutionary event, uniting one of the greatest architects of our time, some of our most innovative artists, and an icon of the fashion world: the quilted bag." In other words: a line generator. Bring headphones, or get a free ticket for timed entry.

Tuesday got off to an anticipatory start when Karl Lagerfeld arrived late at the Museum of Modern Art, where he and Hadid were to give a talk. Trailed by an entourage, Lagerfeld--a line leader if ever there was one--made his way, finally, from the back of the auditorium to a cluster of armchairs onstage.

Lagerfeld told the moderator that he had met Hadid not long ago. "I went up to her in the Mercer and said, 'I love your work.' " He continued, "For me, she is the architect of the twenty-first century, because she liberated us from the ugly Bauhaus that covers the world today."

Lagerfeld seemed enamored of Hadid's contribution to the project, which he had solicited ("through this collaboration, resulting from their singular points of view--poetic, audacious and as yet unseen--the multiple facets of this mythical bag and its universe are revealed," a Chanel release read), but less enthusiastic about its contents, which he had not. "The pavillon is the most exciting," he said. "Whatever may be in there--that is not my problem." You could see what he meant. Getting a bunch of artists to fabricate works based on a purse seemed a bit literal, like putting a big plastic pig on the roof of a barbecue joint.

That night, Chanel threw a party to welcome the Container to New York. There it was, a U.F.O. parked for the night, a ...