Visions and a decision

Karl Lagerfeld has run Chanel for the last 24 years, with Lady Amanda Harlech at his side for half of that time in the role of a personal and professional muse. Visions and Decision , their second collaborative book, combines Lagerfeld's black-and-white photographs of Claudia Schiffer, Brad Kroenig and Sebastien Jondeau from a 1993 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque advertising campaign with a story by Harlech. Her tale charts the sensual fantasies of a young bachelor, Ghyslain, and Malvina, his bride-to-be; he is charming and ruthless, she is beautiful and demure. "This is a story of a young, handsome, old-money couple," explains Lagerfeld. "Everything is perfect, they're just a little bored." With Dom Pérignon as the catalyst, Ghyslain fantasizes about transforming his prim fiancée into a cast of seductive characters. Harlech's darkly humorous sensibility, which informs the Chanel aesthetic, is pitch perfect in this story of decadent ennui and passive seduction. Modeled on a traditional fairy-tale book with a title plaque embossed in silver, a black cloth bookmark and silver printing throughout, Visions and a Decision is perhaps not without a playful moral. Suppressing our desires is a dangerous thing; liberating them could be the beginning of a delectable existence.