Russia’s modern history is characterized by extremes, from the incredible opulence of the Tsarist court to the anger of revolution and the bold, iconoclastic work of the constructivists in the 1920s. A woman of extremes herself, Coco Chanel had a dalliance with Russian Aristocrat Dmitri Pavlovich in 1921, a fact that provided the inspiration for Karl Lagerfeld’s pre-fall 2009 collection for Chanel. These new images from Lagerfeld—taken from a new book from Steidl, Chanel’s Russian Connection—develop the themes of the collection, drawing on folk art as much as imperial splendor. The spring 2010 Chanel collection shows today in Paris.