September 8, 2026·Aesthetic Study
Data Center Chic
How Lagerfeld’s 2016 “Chanel Data Center” predicted the decade fashion and big tech would spend in bed together.
Lately 2016 keeps coming up as a sweet, dumb, innocent time — the last year before everything got heavy.
That fall, the naïveté was on full display at a Chanel show, when Karl Lagerfeld turned the Grand Palais into a server farm. A sign over the door said “Chanel Data Center,” models walked in robot suits, the runway was a corridor of glowing mainframes, and the handbags had blinking eyes. This was 2016, when smartphones had taken over daily life, but the machines running them were still invisible. Lagerfeld dragged that hidden backroom into the light, calling it “intimate technology.”
He was all too right, though perhaps not how he intended. In 2026, that glowing corridor is the ominous Eddington-style shed going up outside some unsuspecting town. Now, when we see data centers, we think of online petitions, and some say Lagerfeld’s show would be canceled if staged today.
At the same time, big tech has the best seats in the house. Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos watch shows, Bryan Johnson walks runways, and AI companies put out merch like yesteryear’s streetwear labels. Balenciaga now sponsors Substack writers directly. Lagerfeld guessed that the robots were coming, but it’s the tech bros who built them that are taking over.
- How the data center became a midterm villain
- Seven in ten Americans don’t want data centers anywhere near them
- Read a review that called the Chanel show the most glamorous runway in fashion
- Balenciaga returned the favor by sponsoring Substackers
