Chanel Chugs into the Future

PARIS — Chanel is moving forward. Or at least trying to. How else to view the fact that for the first Chanel cruise show since the death in February of Karl Lagerfeld, its longtime designer, the house had reimagined a Parisian railway station?

“You have to move, to travel, to surprise,” Mr. Lagerfeld once said. “Traveling informs youth, and what’s so fun is the energy.” So said a man who built an airport terminal, a cruise ship and even a rocket launchpad as sets for his Chanel runway shows, the better to transport guests from one fantastical destination to the next.

And so with a strict departure time of 9 a.m. on Friday, guests arrived to find that a string of lavish custom-built dining cars had pulled into the upper salons of the Grand Palais, Mr. Lagerfeld’s long-favored show site, transformed for the moment into a Beaux-Arts terminal, complete with platforms and Le Riviera, an elegant cafe.

It should be noted here that fashion has always loved a train, including the “Diorient Express” that opened John Galliano’s fall couture show for Christian Dior at Gare d’Austerlitz in 1998 and Marc Jacobs’s “Louis Vuitton Express” that chugged its way into Paris Fashion Week in 2012.