INTO THE FOLD

Chanel gathers its métiers d’art ateliers under one roof

- AMY SERAFIN

Seven years ago, French embroidery house Montex combined tiny concrete cubes with pieces of leather, inventing a totally unique fabric for Chanel’s A/W14 haute couture collection. Now Chanel has turned concrete into a sort of fabric once more, with a head-turning new building, designed by French architect Rudy Ricciotti (W*157), which is wrapped in a chrysalis of white concrete threadlike structures.

Located on the northern edge of Paris, the building covers 25,000 sq m on seven floors. It houses 600 people and 11 métiers d’art, the ateliers behind millions of hours of painstaking craftsmanship (embroidering sequins, trimming feathers, sculpting sunburst pleats) that transforms apparel into art. Chanel has named the building Le 19M – ‘M’ for mains (hands), métier (craftsmanship) and mode (fashion), and 19 for the arrondissement and Coco Chanel’s birthdate.