Sneakers underpin Chanel’s breezy couture creations

The mood was in stark contrast to its Fall-Winter show last July, whose set evoked a bombed-out theatre.

Head designer Karl Lagerfeld said Tuesday’s bright white decor was meant to suggest a « nightclub in another galaxy ».

Top British grunge model Cara Delevingne took a star turn to kick off the show, bouncing down a stairway in a white body-hugging brocade two-piece skirt suit with tennis shoes on her feet as French singer-songwriter Sebastien Tellier provided a keyboard accompaniment.

Tennis shoes also made an appearance in Monday’s runway show by Dior — will women, even on the red carpet, say, at the Cannes film festival dare to opt for sensible shoes this spring?

The feeling is that of « being at home and opening the door for the concierge with the mail, » Lagerfeld said.

In any case these were not common or garden tennis shoes, for the most part, but up-market creations in their own right, many featuring fancy embroidery.

But despite the labour-intensive, meticulous work by Lagerfeld’s « petites mains » — literally small hands, or haute couture seamstresses — he said after the show: « You have to have lightness, otherwise haute couture has a somewhat old-fashioned image…. It’s 2014 after all! »

Delevingne returned to close the show in an ephemeral frock suggesting a wedding dress but still with sneakers on her feet, plus an elaborate feather headdress and sequins for eye makeup.

Lagerfeld’s six-year-old godson Hudson Kroenig, wearing a white suit with a Nehru collar, carried the long train.

Hudson’s model father Brad has long served as muse to the veteran German designer.