Chanel just took over this surprising English city for its latest show
“Happy Chanel day!” someone calls out across the dark car park of a Manchester city center hotel. It’s a rainy Thursday night in December, and to the surprise of both fashion insiders and members of the public, the French fashion house has descended on England’s third most populated city for its latest Métiers d’Art event — an annual catwalk dedicated to the brand’s community of artisans.
Nestled in the northwestern flank of the country, Manchester was once a textile titan of the UK — but the fashion parallels just about stop there. More recently, the city is known for birthing the new romantic and Brit pop bands of the 1980s and ‘90s: The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, Oasis and The Stone Roses. There’s a bustling literary scene, too.
Punk poet John Cooper Clarke — whose song “Evidently Chickentown” closed Season 6, Episode 14 of “The Sopranos” — and UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy are both proud Manucians, as was Anthony Burgess, author of the subversive dystopian ‘60s novella “A Clockwork Orange.” Even Emmeline Pankhurst, who led the country’s suffragette movement in the early 20th century, was born here. In short: Manchester is known for its defiant spirit and counter-culture history. So how did it become the catwalk backdrop for one of most traditional names in luxury fashion?
“It’s ultimately thanks to Viriginie Viard that Chanel has taken this excursion to the north of England,” reads the letter by editors Charlotte Stockdate and Katie Lyall in the special edition of Chaos magazine, issued as part of Chanel’s show invite. “But this part of the world also has particular ties to Coco Chanel through the 2nd Duke of Westminster…and his family estate in Chesire.” In 1923, Chanel began a relationship with the Duke and stayed in the country seat 30 miles from Manchester. Though it’s uncertain whether she ever visited the city itself.
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