The iconographic use of globes continues ... here's a picture from The Guardian (6 March 2013) of a parade of models, during Paris fashion week, wearing clothes designed by Karl Lagerfeld. Led by the globe, the article was appropriately entitled, "Chanel circles the globe with spirit of Coco and Earhart." The article desctibed the globe and its flags (visible as bright dots in the image):
On Tuesday, the space was dominated by an enormous rotating globe in the centre of the catwalk, a sparkling flag bearing the double-C trademark pinned to show the location of each Chanel boutique. It was an impressive show of global power – who knew Chanel had not one, but two boutiques in Honolulu? – but also neatly broadened the focus of the event, from the arcane procedures of a Paris show – the ritualistic pomp, the place names in traditional calligraphy – to the reality of a luxury brand in the 21st century.
Perhaps most intriguing is the label applied by the article to this giant installation, of "space age symbolism." The entire history of terrestrial globes as imaginative devices to view the world has been obscured by the modern ability actually to see entire hemispheres ~ although never the entire globe ~ from space. I am reminded of the work on the image of the globe in Western culture by the late Denis Cosgrove, and especially his Apollo's Eye (2001).
mhe