Chanel Takes Over French Castle To Unveil Its Métiers D’Art 2020 Collection

The Chanel Métiers D’Arts takes place every year, and while past locations of the shows included Paris, New York, Dallas and more, this year the French house was forced to stay home with France imposing its second lockdown. 

Métiers d’Arts collection has always been the luxury house’s way of honoring craftsmanship of the ateliers the Parisian house has worked with. 

“Showing at the Château de Chenonceau, at the “Château des Dames”, was an obvious choice. It was designed and lived in by women, including Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de’ Medici. It is a castle on a human scale. And Catherine de Medici’s emblem was a monogram composed of two intertwined Cs, just like that of Chanel,” says creative director of the house, Virginie Viard.

“We don’t know if Coco was directly inspired by her, but it is highly likely because she so admired Renaissance women. Her taste for lace ruffs and the aesthetic of certain pieces of her jewelry come from there. Deep down, this place is a part of Chanel’s history.”

In the grand gallery where the runway show takes place, the black and white checkered motif on the floor is reminiscent of a life-size game of checkers, and appears on sequined mini-skirts, as well as a long skirt in a fringed geometric tweed patchwork worn with a black and white jacquard sweater. The warm hues of a tweed cape echo the famous tapestries of the castle, while the flowers from the two gardens, one created by Diane de Poitiers and the other by Catherine de’ Medici, located on either side of the castle, inspired the floral embroideries on the wide lapel of a jacket.

We loved the long black lace dress punctuated with studs, the two-tone sparkling silver platform sandals and the tapered black boots with fold-over cuffs and high heels.

This year, the Métiers D’art collection was a trip back to renaissance and romanticism, much needed these days.