Supermodel Gigi Hadid confronted a gatecrasher at Chanel and US pop star Justin Timberlake was grabbed by a fan as he walked to the Louis Vuitton show later Tuesday, in a wacky final day of Paris fashion week.
The madness began in the day’s first show when a prankster walked unchecked onto the Chanel catwalk with the models for the big finale.
French comedian Marie Benoliel ran from her seat and joined the models as they did their last walk along a spectacular set recreating the rooftops of Paris inside the Grand Palais.
With security guards left floundering, Hadid confronted the gatecrasher as she tried to further upstage the models, with the two facing off on the set.
Hours later as Timberlake turned up at the Louvre with his actress wife Jessica Biel for the Louis Vuitton show, a man lunged at the singer grabbing his leg as he left his car.
Bodyguards quickly wrenched him off and Timberlake walked on unhurt, but clearly a little shaken, to see fashion week’s final collection.
The second security lapse came after a hitherto obscure comic and YouTuber Benoliel, aka Marie S’Infiltre (Marie Sneaks In), managed to steal the limelight from one of the world’s richest brands.
Having crashed Etam’s lingerie show earlier in Paris fashion week in silver underwear, Benoliel dressed from head to toe in a black and white Chanel-like houndstooth tweed suit and hat to pull off an even bigger stunt.
“Marie S’Infiltre strikes again!” she declared on Instagram after being shown the door.
Guards only realised that she had joined the models when it was too late to intervene.
‘Couldn’t stop laughing’ -
“I couldn’t stop laughing because the hapless security guards couldn’t spot her in the line-up,” said New York Times fashion writer Elizabeth Paton, who had been on the front row.
By then Benoliel was giving it her all, waddling down the catwalk with her hands on her hips like a supermodel.
Moments later as she left the line of models to pose further up on the rooftop, Hadid marched over to determinedly block her way before the visibly miffed model escorted the comedian offstage.
Chanel told AFP that they did not “want to make a drama out of it.”
Benoliel was “escorted to the exit by our security personnel afterwards”, a spokeswoman added.
Cardi B ‘a little scared’ -
With the front row crammed with celebrities from US rapper Cardi B to K-pop star Jennie and French actress Isabelle Adjani, security had been tight.
Cardi B later admitted that “I got a little scared when the homegirl flew out there.”
The models hardly blinked an eye as the comedian climbed onto the catwalk, making space for her as they filed backstage.
It was only as she doubled back to milk her big moment to the full that Hadid acted.
Most of the hundreds of fashionistas at the show didn’t realise what had happened having watched Chanel designer Virginie Viard turn back the clock to the insouciant sophistication of 1960s socialites.
Viard -- who took over at Chanel after the death of Karl Lagerfeld in February -- said Hollywood actress Kristen Stewart and the mould-breaking French New Wave films of the 1960s were her inspirations.
Stewart plays Seberg, the star of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film “Breathless” which launched the New Wave, in a new biopic premiered at the Venice film festival last month. — AFP
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