What To Buy From Chanel's Metiers D’Art 2024 Collection
Chanel's annual Metiers d’Art show is the maison's ode to fine craftsmenship - this year's collection was staged in and inspired by Manchester.
The French maison's signature Metiers d’Art (French for “art professions”) collection, which typically arrives in stores mid-year, is where the skills of its specialty ateliers are best showcased: think long-standing studios (some of which date as far back as 1858) that specialise in age-old crafts such as embroidery, shoe-making and millinery.
The Metiers d’Art show usually travels to a different city each year, selected for its historical or contemporary connection to Chanel, with the culture of the chosen location also playing a big part in influencing the collection's design and aesthetic. Previous locations have spanned the globe, including Dakar, Salzburg, Shanghai, Dallas, Rome, Edinburgh, New York, to name but a few.
Manchester, with its reputation for being both a manufacturing hub and the birthplace of some of England's coolest music acts, was the chosen location for this year's Chanel Metiers d'Art collection.
This year, England's Manchester was the site of choice. While it may not be as bustling a hub as capital London, Chanel's former artistic director Virginie Viard says she was smitten with Manchester's vibrant, slightly gritty culture. After all, the city birthed many greats in English pop history; think the likes of The Smiths, Joy Division, New Order and Oasis. “For me, Manchester is the city of music... It incites creation," says Viard, who's known to be a big fan of arts and music.
The colourful collection had a '60s energy to it, and came across more playfully youthful than usual.
To that end, the Chanel girls wore kicky newsboy caps, cute Mary Jane flats with knee-high socks and dressed in tonal tweed skirt suits with higher hemlines than usual - it was a colourful collection that rode high on youthful energy, one that's particular to the '60s (the decade spawned the term youthquake after all).
The collection hits Chanel stores in Singapore today - scroll on below for a closer look at the pieces you can add to cart.