Karl Lagerfeld wanted to ensure the arctic scene at Chanel’s Fall 2010 runway show was so realistic that he went above and beyond to ensure an authentic ice-age feel

Karl Lagerfeld imported a 265-ton iceberg from the northern reaches of Scandinavia to the Grand Palais for Tuesday’s Chanel show. Standing 28 feet tall, giant chunks of ice formed the glacial sculpture around which the models hit the catwalk, staying warm in shaggy snow boots with ice-block heels.

The shivering audience, including Chanel model Vanessa Paradis, Maria Shriver, and Lindsay Lohan, sat amid the freezing temperatures inside the venue (-4ºC) making the collection of cozy knits, furry apparel, and thick tweeds all the more enticing.

The Chanel invitations included Karl Lagerfeld’s own sketch of the endangered polar bear perhaps alerting fashionistas that this wouldn’t be your run of the mill overcrowded and overheated fashion show.

The Kaiser took the cause so much to heart that he filled the collection with fur, albeit fake fur. In a fashion first, Karl decided to  promote chic environmentalism with a collection loaded with lush furs (tops, pants, bags, and boots) which was all faux.

“It’s so good now, technical advances are so perfect you can hardly tell fake fur from the real thing,” he said backstage. “Fake is not chic – we have got a new Chanel tweed to stop copies – but fake fur is.”

“It’s not global warming, it’s global-cooling!”

Style.com said of the collection: “Lagerfeld steered this collection nearer to couture than ready-to-wear than ever.”

Fur-fringed embroideries, ice jewelry, rock-crystal accessories, and Chanel two-tone shoes covered with plastic galoshes complemented the mesmerizing collection. Models clutched Lucite minaudieres, in which the quilting of the Chanel classic bag had been frozen into the likeness of an ice cube tray.

WWD called Lagerfeld’s masterpiece “fantasy fur” adding that the cozy skin was an “incredibly convincing faux fuzz developed for the shaggy, full-body polar bear coats, pants and boots — knee-highs and gaiters.”

Focused on global warming and the melting of ice caps, this show swept the audience into a fantasy land which ended with Karl Lagerfeld’s muse, Baptiste Giabiconi, emerging from an ice cave in a full-length faux-fur.

For the finale, a wedding dress knitted in silk tulle ribbon formed a tight-fitting sweater which swept away. The fashionable ice-queen carried an ice-block purse on a fur-woven Chanel chain.

Finale Gown