Less than two weeks ago, Karl Lagerfeld made headlines for quotes he’d made in the New York Times in a story on the toll the recession was taking on France. “The whole crisis is like a big spring housecleaning -- both moral and physical,” the designer said, adding, “Bling is over. Red carpet covered with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty’.” As one might imagine, the concept of a couture designer fully embracing the recession was a bit hard to swallow for many critics. But it turns out when Lagerfeld said ‘new modesty,’ he meant it.

At the spring summer ’09 haute couture collection presentation for Chanel, which took place yesterday in Paris, restraint was everywhere. “Mr. Lagerfeld eschewed his traditional venue, Paris’s sprawling Grand Palais, for the more intimate setting of the Cambon-Capucines Pavilion,” says the Washington Street Journal. He likewise forswore a typical front row for a series of more egalitarian tables. The collection itself was equally demure: Lagerfeld sent down a parade of predominantly all-white cotton dresses “decorated with paper cutouts of flowers,” while the models wearing them navigated the aforementioned “tables decorated with white paper garlands and columns festooned with paper roses.” Of the simple embellishments, Lagerfeld says: “I like nothing more than white paper. It is like a breath of fresh air.” Meanwhile, the icing on Lagerfeld’s paper cake were the headdresses created by hairstylist Katsuya Kamo. Altogether they required solely “six or seven helpers,” “three weeks,” and “two packets of 11 x 17 office paper.”