Chanel glows in sweet pastel rainbow

hanel basked in luminous pastels earlier today with a spring-summer 2010 haute couture show dubbed neon Baroque by the label's chief designer and creative director Karl Lagerfeld.

Oversized pillars that lined the walls of the show's venue glowed with a fluorescent rainbow as the models minced down the catwalk in buttery yellow culotte suits, fancy plissed tank dresses in baby blue silk and ankle-length gowns in frothy pink on boots with silver rococo heels and pearl-studded soles.

The polychromatic show represented a break from the high contrast black-and-white collections that are the storied label's marque de fabrique.

Lagerfeld called working without black a "challenge" but said the idea for the color-soaked show came in "electronic flashes I get in my head."

"I saw it in a dream and I made the sketches ... at five o'clock in the morning," he told Associated Press Television News.

Some of the looks had a dreamlike quality. An off-the-shoulder bubble dress awash in tiny silk ruffles evoked sea foam, or a cloud. The wedding dress — which traditionally closes haute couture displays — had silver sequin-covered sleeves and a fluffy train in marshmallow pink. Little blobs of silver, like liquid mercury, dotted the seams of the peaked-shouldered jackets which were paired with high-waisted culottes.

Never one to neglect his accessories, Lagerfeld decked the models out in fingerless gloves like the ones he often sports in silver lame and fastened fancy bows into their massive winged bouffants.