Chanel Métiers d’Art 2024
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Chanel put the “C” in Manchester this week, taking over some of the northern city’s landmarks for a three-day luxury and pop culture experience that culminated with the annual Métiers d’Art runway show.
Manchester, England’s third largest city, was an unlikely choice for the French house, which only has one stockist here, Selfridges. It’s not a charming tourist town like York, Bath or Cambridge, nor is it a luxury hub.
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It’s a rainy manufacturing city famous for its mills that once supplied cotton to the world, a city that still churns out mass and contemporary fashion under labels including Umbro, Boohoo, Missguided and Private White V.C.
Chanel’s creative director Virginie Viard, though, had always known a different Manchester, a city with a heart that once beat to the sounds from Factory Records and clubs like Haçienda, and to the scores of bands that emerged from here including Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Smiths and Oasis.
Viard worked the music of Manchester into the show with little guitar and musical note charms dangling from gold and pearl chains; a micro-shoulder bag shaped like a vinyl record; flat caps, and hairbands with fringe that channeled the rockers’ shaggy mops.
Cuff bracelets, pearly necklaces, brooches and earrings looked as if they were made from candy buttons. They came in red, yellow and green, bright as the album sleeves and graphics that Peter Saville made for Factory Records, which he cofounded.
Like Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who famously said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory,” Viard didn’t overload her sweet and youthful ’60s-inspired silhouettes with too much embellishment.
Instead she let the tweeds do the talking. Standouts included a lineup of skirt suits, knee-grazing coats with little chain belts, and a swingy cape all in those candy button brights: green, raspberry, yellow and tangerine.
Models walked down a wet, cobbled street, bright as a film set, wearing tweed newsboy caps that matched their coats and suits, and flat leather mary janes with statement straps made from pearls or gold buckles.
In a nod to Manchester’s Victorian heyday, some of them strode past the freshly painted shop fronts of Thomas Street, which Chanel took over for the night, wearing dresses and tops with leg-of-mutton, butterfly sleeves, high collars or ruffle fronts.
Queen Victoria, whose statue looms over Piccadilly Gardens nearby, might have smiled at the vision.
To get everyone in a Mancunian mood before the show, Chanel sent its 600-plus international guests, clients and the press vinyl records with music curated by Michel Gaubert and a slick, mega-magazine by Chaos founders Charlotte Stockdale and Katie Lyall that delved into Manchester’s history and traditions.
That was just the beginning.
Chanel’s moves in Manchester have been an exercise in luxury diplomacy. For the past eight months the brand has been working with local businesses and suppliers on the event, and the excitement captivated the local audience long before the double “C” caravan rolled into town.
Media outlets reported stories on the venue preparations; the gifts that Chanel was dropping into guests’ rooms, and plans for the after party at Victoria Baths, a 19th-century temple of brick, brightly colored tiles, and stained glass.
Chanel worked with Factory International, organizers of the Manchester International Festival and other fine arts events, to collaborate on a three-day exhibition “Manchester Modern: Past, Present, Future.”
The brand organized literary and poetry rendezvous around town, tours of the city and of The Lowry performing arts space and the town center.
The night before the show, guests were invited to Old Trafford football stadium to watch Manchester United play (and later beat) Chelsea 2 to 1. Guests wore bright red team shirts with their own names emblazoned on the back, and cashmere scarves designed to look like football strips bearing Saville’s bespoke “MCR” logo alongside Chanel’s double “C.”
Viard said she chose the city, which straddles the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, for a variety of reasons.
Music has always been a big part of her life and she also wanted an offbeat location for the Métiers d’Art event meant to showcase the know-how of Chanel’s specialty ateliers, which include embroiderer Lesage; shoemaker Massaro; feather and flower expert Lemarié; milliner Maison Michel; pleater Lognon; grand flou atelier Paloma, and goldsmith Goossens.
Having worked at Chanel for most of her career, Viard also knew Coco Chanel spent a lot of time in this part of the country during her decade-long affair with Hugh Grosvenor, the second Duke of Westminster, and the-then wealthiest man in Britain.
One of the duke’s family estates is Eaton Hall, near Cheshire, an hour’s drive from Manchester.
The couple would often visit the estate, and Chanel is believed to have drawn inspiration for collections from the duke’s outdoorsy wardrobe — especially his tweeds — and the liveries of the household staff. They were also regulars at Chester Races.
Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel, said the team was eager to explore Manchester after having staged previous Métiers d’Art shows in Dakar, Senegal; Tokyo; New York; Dallas; Shanghai; Rome, and Edinburgh, Scotland.
“We were looking for something different from London, a place with history that we could use as inspiration. The more we heard about the story of the city, about the music and the art, the more it made sense for us to be here,” he said.
“I think that most of the big cities in the post-industrial world have a difficult history — but here there is a rebound, a strong energy coming from art and music. There’s a popular energy, too, which you see at the stadium,” he said, referring to Old Trafford, which on Wednesday night was rammed with fans who cheered on Man U — and booed Chelsea — through the cold and the drizzle.
Chanel’s guests were no exception. They clapped the home team to victory and urged them on in French — and many other languages.
The collection was heavy on Chanel’s signature tweeds, and Pavlovsky said he was particularly proud of the work the house has been doing with those fabrics, which are made with a mix of virgin and recycled materials.
Chanel continues to work closely with Linton Tweeds, one of its historic English suppliers, and a variety of other specialists. In 2020, the group acquired Italian yarn maker Vimar, and it’s been working with it and other suppliers to create lighter and more eco-friendly, upcycled threads to meet the challenge of global warming.
The team’s choice of Manchester also forms part of a wider strategy aimed at digging deeper into the U.K.
In September, Chanel and the Victoria and Albert Museum unveiled “Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto,” the first U.K. exhibition dedicated entirely to the iconic designer.
It charts six decades of Coco Chanel’s career, starting with the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910, and ending with her final show in 1971. The show runs until Feb. 25 at the museum’s Sainsbury Gallery, and its next stop is China.
Chanel moved its global headquarters to London from New York in 2018, and the brand is building a new building in Berkeley Square, which is set to open in 2025, housing IT, commercial, business, culture and non-fashion offices.
Earlier this year Chanel and The Prince’s Foundation, which was founded by King Charles III, launched a new Métiers d’Art education program in partnership with Le 19M, the Paris-based multidisciplinary space, creative hub and base for Chanel’s artisanal brands.
The program takes place at a new building that’s part of the foundation’s Highgrove training facility in Gloucestershire, England. Six students will be selected each year, and the practice-based learning is meant to encourage creativity, build confidence in their skills and prepare recent graduates to become “artisan embroiderers of the future.”
Chanel continues to work with the local partners in the U.K. as well.
Asked about the brand’s relationship with the London-based Farfetch, which has been struggling with debt and is said to be mulling a stock market delisting, Pavlovsky said the two groups continue to collaborate on tech projects.
Chanel no longer holds a stake in the fashion platform, having sold it a few years ago.
“There are many ways we can benefit from the experience of Farfetch and we continue to collaborate, brainstorm together, and talk about the future of retail and our relationship with the customer. We are talking about many different initiatives to nourish the future of our boutiques, such as AI tools to better understand the needs of the customer. We might not end up using those tools, but we want to understand what they mean,” Pavlovsky said.
He added that business in the U.K. has been robust, with the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 “exceptional” due to Chanel’s focus on the local clientele.
Viard’s collections, he said, have been popular and “supply and demand are coming together.” In 2022, the business gained even more traction with the return of foreign tourists. “We have an excellent commitment from our top clients,” he said.
Asked whether Chanel, a privately owned company, was witnessing a slowdown similar to its luxury peers, Pavlovsky suggested that demand has always been uneven.
“We shouldn’t think that the world of luxury is one of steady growth. Some people believe that the sky is the limit, but we don’t. We’ve always seen markets in full expansion — or others facing a slowdown — at one time or another. Our good fortune is to be a global brand, with global results.”
Launch Gallery: Chanel Métiers d’Art 2024
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