How Chanel Is Embracing Dakar's Rich Culture And Artistic Community
It was a headline seen around the world. Last December, Chanel’s Metiers D'art spectacle staged in Dakar, Senegal, made the French Maison the first European luxury house to hold a fashion show in sub-Saharan Africa. Don’t mistake it for yet another flashy destination show though: the brand is determined to build an enduring relationship with Senegal’s culture and artistic community. We break down how it’s doing just that through the collection and more.
As a house, Chanel has always had foresight. Everyone likes to talk about craftsmanship these days, but one can say the house has been prescient when it comes to honouring the work of artisans.
Since 1985 – through a subsidiary named Paraffection – it has been steadily acquiring ateliers (some of which date as far back as 1858) specialising in age-old crafts such as embroidery, shoe making and millinery in order to preserve their traditions from dying out. Of course, this also ensures that Chanel’s manufacturing continues its smooth sailing.
And while the art of these ateliers is exhibited through the brand’s couture collections, it’s during the annual Metiers d’Art (French for “art professions”) showcase that it can be said to shine boldest and brightest. A unique-to-Chanel endeavour started in 2002 by the late Karl Lagerfeld as a dedicated avenue to spotlight such prowess, the Metiers d’Art – or MDA – collection is usually revealed in December during its own stand-alone show outside of the standard fashion calendar.
Typically, the location of the show changes, with a different city picked each year for its link to the past or present of the house while its culture gives shape and colour to the collection that would hit boutiques about six months later (read: the latest – referred to officially as the 2022/23 Metiers d’Art collection – is in stores now).
Staged in the former Palais de Justice building in the Senegalese capital last December, the Chanel‐Dakar Metiers d’Art showcase was also a jaunty tribute to the music and social attitudes of the ’70s, with plenty of powerfully languid pantsuits offering the freedom to move as well as play mix and match.
WAIT, SO WHY DAKAR?
The most recent destination of choice: Dakar – the capital and largest city of Senegal, a country on the westernmost tip of Africa. It could be argued that the location was an unexpected (and also politically tricky) choice, given that Senegal was previously a French colony for more than 300 years up until 1960.
“I cannot say Madame Chanel dreamed of coming to Dakar,” said Chanel’s president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky in an interview with The New York Times. Yet, as with most things Chanel, the decision to do a historic show in Dakar was far from an impetuous one.
The story behind this Metiers d’Art collection started in 2020 when Chanel’s art-loving creative director Virginie Viard grew fascinated with Dakar after hearing about its incandescent arts and culture scene from friends of the house.
By all accounts, the coastal city has arguably grown to become one of, if not the epicentre of Africa’s contemporary arts scene, with its signature Dakar Biennale described as the biggest art event in West Africa. Its fashion and textiles, cinema, literature, dance and music industries – fields that possess spiritual affinities with the Chanel lexicon – are also said to be just as robust.
The culture and colours of Dakar – the capital of Senegal in West Africa – have been subtly and sophisticatedly translated into Chanel’s latest Metiers d’Art collection, including a long tweed coat hand‐embroidered by Lesage artisans using threads in the vivid hues of the Senegalese flag.
NAVIGATING DAKAR RIGHT
Viard’s plans for this Metiers d’Art collection were of course thwarted by the onset of Covid-19. This delay, however, afforded Viard and the Chanel team more time to flesh out a holistic relationship between the house and Dakar, as opposed to the hit-and-run grab for social media eyeballs that tends to be a common criticism of many destination shows.
What eventually blossomed was an expansive three-day programme chock-full of cultural events hosted at Dakar’s former Palais de Justice building highlighting several Senegalese artists and creative practitioners. They included emerging photographer Malick Bodian, who lensed the images for the MDA collection’s press kit, and singer Obree Daman, who performed at the runway show flanked by dancers from local school Ecole des Sables, which specialises in traditional and contemporary African dance.
The fast-rising Senegalese model and photographer Malick Bodian was tapped on to shoot the visuals for the collection's press kit.
Overall, the hope is to forge enduring cross-cultural connections between Chanel and Dakar. Rather than enlist local artisans to work on ostensibly French designs, the maison appears to be planning for the long haul.
Nods to the Senegalese capital’s rich flora and fauna also turn up on handbags, which sport handles crafted from wenge wood – a species native to Africa – as well as in the collection’s colours and prints.
Take, for example, how Le19M (Chanel’s Paris-based hub housing 11 of the speciality ateliers it owns that opened in January 2022) inaugurated its first international programme after the MDA show in December. The establishment collaborated with the Dakar-based Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, or Ifan, to stage a group exhibition in the Senegalese capital that focused on various forms of local textile artistry – in particular, weaving and embroidery, two crafts the country excels in.
According to fashion trade publication WWD, the exhibition – titled On The Thread: From Dakar To Paris – attracted a sizable crowd of more than 10,000 during its run at Musee Theodore-Monod d’Art africain from January to March this year.
Chanel's cross-cultural dialogue with Dakar continued by bringing the exhibition spotlighting the works of Senegalese artisans and artists over to Paris, where it is currently open to the public till July 30 at the brand's Le19M space in the French city.
Pictured here, the giant figurines of Senegalese artist and designer Cheikha Sigil, who's known for specialising in sculpture and textiles.
Continuing that cross-cultural dialogue, Chanel brought Senegal into the heart of Paris when it opened the second leg of the exhibition at La Galerie du 19M – Le19M’s in-house gallery space – where it remains open to the public till July 30.
The luxury maison is exploring other initiatives too. Already, it will contribute to the renovation of Dakar’s former Palais de Justice building (the venue of the Chanel-Dakar Metiers d’Art show) and is planning to work with Senegalese organic cotton producers as part of its efforts to secure raw materials in a more sustainable and ethical manner.
Taking Lesage 68 hours of work using needle and Luneville embroidery techniques, this tweed jacket is adorned with 300 crystal flowers, 1,200 shiny pellets, 600 spinning tops and – for a touch unique to this Metiers d’Art collection – 4,400 wooden beads.
REINTERPRETING DAKAR TASTEFULLY
In the same vein, the Metiers d’Art collection itself doesn’t incorporate any blatant aesthetic nods to Senegalese fashion – Viard is not one for such obvious tricks. Rather, the ’70s and the idiosyncratic music that emerged from the decade – specifically, pop, punk, soul, funk and disco – formed the bedrock that the Chanel artistic director started with. Their influences are evident in the collection’s powerfully elongated silhouettes: clock the bell-bottom trousers, swingy pantsuits and chunky platform sandals.
“We’re not seeking to emulate the craft of Dakar in the collection,” says Hubert Barrere, the artistic director of Lesage, the Chanel-owned atelier famed for its embroidery know-how, and a long-time collaborator with Viard. “What’s important is that we have a meeting and discussion with the artisans and the artists of Dakar. That’s crucial to catch the feeling and inspiration, but it’s not direct inspiration. We do not copy – that is not interesting.”
Viard has, however, paid uplifting nods to the bright colours that characterise Dakar as a city as well as the abundant natural beauty that surrounds it. Punctuating the 62-look collection are beaded vests with intricate mosaic motifs; charming wooden accents on bags, including pearls crafted out of wenge wood – a species native to Africa known for its sturdiness; and a colour palette awash with energetic earth tones, including sienna, moss green and punchy pinks. (The last was inspired by the famously rosy-hued Lake Retba that lies around 35 kilometres outside of Dakar.)
This blue silk muslin dress (left) is printed all over with the motif of mini hibiscus flowers – the base ingredient of bissap, Senega;'s national beverage. An intricately smocked waistband and sleeves, this day‐to‐evening look took the atelier Paloma – which specialises in flou, or delicate fabrics – 64 and a half man‐hours. Meanwhile, the sporty lambskin tunic (right) – its ombre, printed finish calling for an 11‐step process done entirely by hand – was inspired by Senegal’s striking sunsets.
THIS IS THE MOMENT
The Chanel-Dakar Metiers d’Art show has set a thoughtful precedent in fashion. And in a harried post-pandemic world – one in which mega brands are pouring in more effort than ever to one-up one another through increasingly ostentatious experiences and locations around the world – it stands out all the more, burnished with not just consideration, but also warmth.
This has likely plenty to do with Viard, who has leaned towards a more lateral and collaborative modus operandi since taking over the reins at Chanel in 2019. “Real dialogues nourished over the long term – it is this human and warm dimension that motivates my work and that I try to re-transcribe,” she states in the collection’s press notes. “I put all my soul into it. These marvellous encounters from which artistic adventures like this one are born – that’s what drives me.”
It also represents new growth and possibilities for the maison’s artistic universe. The Metiers d’Art collection has been shown in many grand locations since its inception, including Linlithgow Palace in West Lothian, Scotland, in 2012; the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017; and the Temple of Dendur exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2018.
Next to these iconic presentations that exuded such stateliness, sometimes to the point of mythical, the Chanel-Dakar outing – for all its scale and momentousness – felt palpably more human. And that’s no small feat to pull off.
This article is adapted from a story that first appeared in the July 2023 Graphic Design Edition of FEMALE