What is Metier d’Arts?
Did you know that Chanel never repeats a button in any collection? Or that the ostrich feathers used are never ever plucked, rather shed by the bird and then collected? How about the fact that a camellia flower, a signature of the house take approximately three hours to make? Just some of many examples of the attention to detail you will find employed by Chanel in creating the Metier d’Art collection.
Introduced by Karl Lagerfeld in 2002, the Métiers d’Art collection is something truly unique to Chanel. While other brands certainly celebrate craftmanship, Chanel is the only luxury house to host a yearly collection and runway show dedicated to exceptional French savoir-faire.
You will see work by Lesage, Lemarié, shoe maker Massaro, millinery by Maison Michel. Where once each atelier would have stood on its own location, these days you will find them gathered at le19M in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. This is a creative hub purposefully created by Chanel. Still operating as stand alone businesses, they are folded into an area where they can share expertise under one roof. It was here that Chanel’s current creative director Matthieu Blazy found inspiration for the 2026 collection.
“I remember the first time I went to le19M, which is the creative artisan hub just outside Paris. I was a bit in shock, because you hear about these things, but unless you get to visit them and to meet the people, you can never fully realise the scale of their knowledge. But I was also struck by the fact that they’re all under the same roof and how much they interact together. So I had the feeling for each different workshop, but I did not understand that the entire place worked as a kind of collective with beautiful and friendly synergies. This was absolutely extraordinary. And then you have this feeling that, of course, you have entered this remarkable playground. What are you going to try? Which story are you going to tell with these people?” he told writer T.Cole Rachel for Chanel’s publication of The Savoir-Faire Review.
Now in Melbourne…
And so it was on a rainy Wednesday morning in Melbourne that I became privy to this exceptional collection of clothes, all the way from Paris (you may remember another collection gracing our shores in 2021). Chanel have bought this collection to our shores to showcase this masterwork and is not available to the public, unfortunately. However, I am able to share these pictures and details with you for an exclusive look at just what goes in to creating one of these collections, a peek, if you like, into the mind of a creative director in his prime at Chanel.
The level of detail is beyond a nice lining or a well constructed shoulder, rather the purpose of this collection is to have you think about the origin story of a silk flower for example. Where is the silk spun? How was it died? What type of thread was used and how many hours did it take to sew? (Approximately three I found out today).
In a world of fashion that moves faster than Wile E. Coyote, this collection asks you to slow right down and consider, who made my clothes? And when do most of us ponder how, when and where a button was sewn onto our jacket?
