Purple Magazine
— F/W 2016 issue 26
Chanel Cruise La Habana, Cuba
photography by OLIVIER ZAHM
style by CAMILLE BIDAULT-WADDINGTON
featuring LINEISY MONTERO
Picture a beautiful but fallen-down Caribbean city with no fashion boutiques, no luxury goods, no street advertisements, no magazines, no Starbucks, and no selfies. The only Internet connections are at a few hotels where people hang around outside hacking the Wi-Fi code. Now imagine a sexy city with a young population craving change after 60 years of ongoing socialist revolution, but one that also offers free education, free health care, and rent-free apartments for its people (you pay if you want a better place).
After US President Barack Obama paid an unprecedented visit to Havana, the Rolling Stones performed there for the first time. Then Karl Lagerfeld arrived with his Chanel Cruise collection, with models parading on the Paseo del Prado in the historical center — a brilliant collection honoring “Cuba Libre” in an explosion of Cuban styles, sensuous shapes, and open attitudes.
Cuba is changing radically but, one hopes, not to an opposite extreme. The Chanel show in Havana was the ultimate symbol of a new beginning. As the small socialist island opens its beaches to the world, one can only hope it will not succumb to an onslaught of tourism and corruption, which the Cuban Revolution eradicated. A few days after the Chanel Cruise show, a massive American cruise ship docked at the island for the first time since the ’50s.
Havana was once a place of resistance to Capitalism. Now the doors to this magically exceptional place, which everyone falls in love with at first sight, are visibly opening. Even young Cuban artists, such as the members of the art collective Stainless, who are benefiting from Cuba’s rapid international success — are among those who aim to protect it. We should all do the same.
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Multicolor sweater tucked into gray iridescent jersey shorts with a silver calfskin belt, black beret, and metal and strass bracelets CHANEL
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Historic Havana
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Historic Havana
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Gray silk tulle blouse and skirt with a leather and gold metal belt CHANEL
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The iconic Hotel Riviera on the Malecón esplanade along the ocean, constructed in 1957 by Miami modernist architect Igor B. Polevitzky. The hotel was the last American development in Havana before the 1959 revolution. Unfortunately, its current renovation is erasing much of its '50s charm.
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The iconic Hotel Riviera on the Malecón esplanade along the ocean, constructed in 1957 by Miami modernist architect Igor B. Polevitzky. The hotel was the last American development in Havana before the 1959 revolution. Unfortunately, its current renovation is erasing much of its '50s charm.
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Multicolor sweater tucked into iridescent jersey shorts with a silver calfskin belt, black glitter beret, and metal and strass bracelets CHANEL
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Private house in Miramar, the chic pre-revolutionary residential district of Havana
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Incredible cult Cuban singer Juan Bacallao, in her 90s, who started singing in the streets of Havana in the '50s. She still performs weekly at one of Havana's premier cabarets, El Gato Tuerto.
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José Capaz and Roberto Fabelo Hung, two of the three-member art collective, Stainless
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Art Deco building in historic Havana
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Ocher silk sweater, cardigan, and skirt with a gold metal belt and gold tweed messenger bag CHANEL
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A vintage 1950s car waiting outside the Chanel Cruise show
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Detail of a painting by one of the most famous Cuban artists from the '80s, Robert Fabelo, at his studio
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View of the Malecón, Havana's emblematic seafront promenade
