Migue Leyva J., model and blogger behind this is this , put it in more definitive terms: “Chanel is going to mark a before and and an after in the history of Cuba,” he said. “Some time in the future, if everything goes the way it has been, we won’t have just Chanel — we’ll have Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey; we’ll have Hedi Slimane presenting his collections here.”It’s interesting to note that despite this quick change (and what you might have gathered about Cuba from Instagram), Havana is nowhere as developed as Seoul Dallas , or Salzburg . Currently, you’re unable to actually buy Chanel products, except from its perfume and cosmetics, anywhere in Cuba. For 30 years after the Revolution in 1959, Cuba was closed to foreign enterprises and private businesses were illegal. In the 1990s, however, the Special Period that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the heavily Soviet-subsidized economy forced the government to loosen restrictions. These days, more and more tourists are flooding into Havana, European companies are investing in hotels across the island and Cubans are opening private restaurants. The gap between rich and poor, greatly reduced in preceding decades, is beginning to widen again.Chanel is known for hosting shows in far-flung locales. This particular show, however, was a first in many ways: Chanel’s first in Latin America, and, for Cuba, the first time since the Revolution that so many notable people had come from abroad to collectively view a display of what can ultimately be summed up in one word: capitalism. And unlike the Major Lazer and Rolling Stones concerts in March, which were free and open to the public, the Chanel show was a private event.“That’s kind of expected from this kind of fashion world, which is really an elite thing,” said Adriana Marcelo Costa, a literature professor and book editor.“I would prefer it, of course, to be different, but I didn’t expect it to be.” Echoed Guevara, “We all want to see the Chanel show, [but] it has to be done this way, half-closed; that’s something normal.”