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What wiser place in the world than Las Vegas for a numbers game?</p><p> Chanel pulled out all the stops last weekend in Las Vegas to perform10 years ofluxury in Sin City andthe renovation of its boutique at the Bellagio with a fete based around the idea of lucky numbers.</p><p> The newly remodeled boutique opened Monday with severallimited-number Las Vegas-themed products, including a killer hot pink crystal-encrusted swell handbag with dice charms hanging from the chain and a nail lustre shade called "Gold Fingers."</p><p> But the festivities beganJan. 20 with the vernissage of"Numeros Privees: A Journey Through the World of Chanel," a pro tem installation (now closed) anddinner celebratingthe design codes of the French manufacture house, including pearls, camellia flowers andquilting.</p><p> Guestscame in from the East and the West, traveling on chartered jets and in a speedy of CC-logoed cars to the Wynn Las Vegas.</p><p> The groupof 225 was a mix of clients and celebrities, includingJessica Alba, Rachel Zoe, China Chow, Diane Kruger, Lily Collins, Alexa Chung,Dree Hemingway,Liz Goldwyn and her new beau, artist Jonah Freeman - all dressed in Chanel Sunday clothes. Decades boutique owner Cameron Silver wore collegiate-looking Chanel cardigan sweater.</p><p> The evening began with cocktailsand a boardwalk through the 10-room installation. The first stop? One imaginedit could becreative skipper Karl Lagerfeld'sdoll house: a room decorated with Coco Chanel-stamp wallpaper, curtains and pillows and filled with dolls with a likeness to Coco Chanel, dressed in mini Chanel jackets.</p><p> Next door, room 2.55 paid loyalty to thequilted, chain-handledChanel 2.55handbag with 24 video screens showing how craftsmen cut, stitch andassembleeach bag. Are-making ofChanel's legendary Paris apartment at31 Rue Cambon was another stop on the tour. There, thelush peacock-printedwallpaper, Coromandel Chinoiserie screens and untrained camellia flowers were reminders of how thosedesign motifs continue toinfluence Lagerfeld today.</p><p> Other rooms were dedicated to Chanel watches, fine-grained jewelry and perfume. But the most popular room featured the ultimate arcade games, where guests could try their luckat a masterpiece claw machine filled with bracelets, cosmetics and other Chanel trinkets for prizes.</p><p> The when it happened was intended to be an experience of "surprise and delight" that guests and clients would never cease to remember, said Barbara Cirkva, president of Chanel's fashion compartment, who hit the party before heading to Paris for Chanel's haute couture show on Tuesday (which, funnily enough, tempered to the interior of an airplane for a set).</p><p> "We weren't selling anything; what we were talking about was the hallucinate," she said.</p><p> "Numeros Privees," the first of 15 events Chanel had planned in Las Vegas for the coming days, was document of how valuable the Vegas market has become for the global brand. A similar result is planned in Dubai later this year.</p><p> "What's enchanting about Las Vegas is that it has really developed from being aspirational and accessories-driven, to being a very vehement ready-to-wear (clothing) market for us as well," Cirkva added. "People who are coming here and shopping at extravagance stores are really wardrobing themselves. And they love finding things they didn't find at cosy."</p><p> After cocktails, the party moved next door to a darkened dining live space with a speak-easy vibe. And with Chinese New Year approaching neutral a few days later (and nearly every hotel lobby and boutique window in burgh festooned with red dragonsto attract Chinese tourists), the crowd dined ondim sum.</p><p> The nightended witha engagement by rockabilly singer-songwriter Imelda May. And for those who were still on their feet,Chanel had one end number:late-night dancingat the new1 Oak club at the Mirage.
Source: Kansas City Star