The brand’s upcoming show will be the first in the city since 2018, and the first under its new creative lead
Chanel is returning to New York City this December for its next Métiers d’Art presentation—the house’s first runway show in the city since 2018, and the first collection in this category designed by Matthieu Blazy.
Blazy worked in New York earlier in his career and knows the creative rhythms of the city well. This upcoming show suggests a return not only to a place, but to a certain kind of energy: a way of thinking about fashion that is in conversation with culture, architecture, movement, and scale. New York, a city long associated with ambition and transformation, offers a fitting backdrop for a collection designed to foreground the work of the house’s specialist ateliers: embroiderers, feather-makers, milliners, pleaters, and more.
The Métiers d’Art line has traveled widely in recent years, from Hangzhou to Dakar to Manchester, with each destination chosen for its own history. In that context, New York stands out less for novelty than for significance. It was the site of one of Karl Lagerfeld’s final collections, shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018. The return, under a new creative director, carries its own sense of continuity and contrast.
Though the exact location of the show has yet to be revealed, Chanel has released an early visual: a vintage New York subway map, printed in faded tones, overlaid with the house’s logo. It is a subtle image that suggests the collection may not only explore the preservation of artisanal techniques, but reflect on their placement and movement: how craft operates within physical spaces, cultural memory, and the urban landscape.
After a long and closely watched transition, this Métiers d’Art presentation offers an early glimpse into how Blazy will shape Chanel’s narrative going forward. The format—less tied to seasonal trends than to deep material practice—suits a designer known for thoughtful construction and attention to gesture. And New York, with its layered history and relentless pace, offers the right kind of stage.