Chanel Couture - Trend Whore?

Lagerfeld has always transformed classic Chanel into the appropriate, 'current' silhouette, but for several couture seasons I cannot decide whether he is leading the way, or whether he is following and getting it quite wrong.
For couture fall 2010 he showed questionable, inelegant rounded, seamless shoulders and for the next two ready-to-wear seasons the whole world was showing cocoon and rounded shoulders.
Now he is showing what I am going to call 'padded-hanger' shoulders, these are almost horizontal shoulders with a rounded end. The majority of the looks in this collection had a a subtle 'eighties feel to them, maybe only a feel a designer who lived through and designed through the 'eighties could imbue into their clothes. The most reminiscent examples starting with the hanger shoulders, working down to a boxy fit and finishing with a skirt to the knee.
While an awful sting comes with the shapeless tuxedo coat-dresses (also very 'eighties) the absolute gems of this collection are the little jackets that very smartly fasten at the waist and give way to the lampshade hips which appear to be attached to tops beneath.
Is this the last straw? Will the 1980's be visiting again in the spring thanks to Tom Ford and his womenswear collections? If it is, I can put my faith in Lagerfeld to continue to march on before ready-to-wear with his off the mark couture.

J. Mendel F/W 11-12 New York

I'm not often moved to immediately write about a collection, but this one really inspired and entirely impressed me:

The livestream for the J. Mendel collection has just finished and, I have to say, it left me absolutely agasp.
The collection opened with coats with what I guess was tiny top-stitching in intricate patterns that created an incredible embossed effect. This pattern was continued throughout the collection, even in the furs, and most stunningly rendered in a sandy colour only on the back of a long, otherwise plain coat.
Amongst the other spectacles an entirely simple belted, black sheared fur coat that glistened like no silk-velvet can, literally took my breath away.
The show finished with incredibly frail beaded evening gowns in soft wintry colours.

Gilles Mendel blasted socialite furrier, Dennis Basso (who also showed today) and his More-Is-More lynx and chinchilla patchwork decadencies back into his marble fur vault with such refined understatement as I don't think I have ever seen in fur.
I hope Lagerfeld's Fendi can at least try and par this sort of modest hyper-luxury.