Images by Mikael Jansson
Last December we reported on the stunningly realized Chanel 21/22 Metiers d’art runway show staged at the house’s Le19 Paris atelier, with Creative Director Virginie Viard enthusiastically describing the collection at the time as, “Very metropolitan yet sophisticated, tweed jackets with sweatshirt sleeves, graffiti-style embroidery in colored beads by Lesage, voluminous purple or royal blue knit Bermuda short-outfits, and casual coats worn open.”
We could not have been more captivated by the production, by the clothes themselves, or by how Chanel just manages to perpetually and unfailingly…bring it.
Metiers D’Art, of course, is the ongoing concern that pays tribute to the long history of Chanel using the most skilled artisans in France, with nearly every region of the country contributing something to the process. And the new campaign by Swedish photographer Mikael Jansson captures the ethereal beauty of the collection in a way that pays it the level of reverence it is most certainly due.
In a corresponding video, we see longtime house collaborator Sofia Coppola dropping in at the Le19 atelier, marveling at the details of the process – which naturally would be of particular interest to a film director such as she, for whom craft is so essential to the finished product. And if you’ve ever seen Lost in Translation or Marie Antoinette, you know perfectly well what we mean.
“It’s so inspiring to visit,” she exalts…”it’s like a dream.”
In fact, the house has created a series of similar videos starring the likes of Pharrell Williams, Carole Bouquet and Sébastien Tellier, each visiting the atelier in their own awestruck sort of way. Watch, and be humbled.
