Matthieu Blazy’s viral Chanel hits stores this week. What goes on in the workshops that make them?

PARIS – In December 2025, Chanel broke the internet with its Metiers d’Art show staged in an actual New York subway station.

Showcased through a cast of willowy models playing real women in the subway, the presentation was creative director Matthieu Blazy’s first take on Chanel’s annual Metiers d’Art collection, a range unique to the French luxury house and often considered one of its most creatively challenging (and fun).

It ended up being the second act in a string of hotly watched – and, some would say, orchestrated – fashion events catapulting Chanel and Blazy to unprecedented levels of virality.

Ever since the 42-year-old took the reins at Chanel, a new generation of shoppers has been thirsting for his whimsical collections.

By the time his Spring-Summer 2026 runway debut – first revealed in October 2025 – hit stores in March 2026, the people were feral. Tales of fashion editors, influencers and customers descending upon the brand’s Rue Cambon store in Paris to cat-fight for a piece consumed the internet, fuelled by its timely drop during Paris Fashion Week.

News publications and TikTok commentators alike documented the queues that stretched outside boutiques, from Singapore to New York. The New York Times called it the Hunger Games.

A May report from trade publication Business of Fashion revealed that revenue for Chanel returned to high single-digit growth at the end of 2025, rising 2 per cent to US$19.3 billion (S$24.7 billion) amid a punishing industry downturn. Fashion index Lyst ranked it the hottest brand in the first quarter of 2026.

With the Metiers d’Art 2026 collection out in Singapore boutiques on June 4, shoppers are bracing themselves for the next war.

While the bags and shoes are historically the most coveted, Blazy’s fresh take on ready-to-wear has brought renewed interest to the apparel. A new demographic is seeking out the intricately embroidered tweed jackets, priced in the thousands, that were once at risk of being dismissed as dowdy.

What exactly goes into making these pieces? In March, The Straits Times got a peek into the coveted ateliers inside le19M, Chanel’s creative campus, that make them.

Day at the ateliers

Located in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, le19M was set up by Chanel in 2021 to support the preservation of heritage French craftsmanship.

It brings together 11 maisons d’art – French for “houses of art” – and their almost 700 artisans under one roof, who work in ateliers specialised in traditional French crafts known as metiers d’art.

The building’s name is a nod to both its locale and the birthdate of founder Gabrielle Chanel. The M stands for metiers, mode (fashion) and main (hand), referencing the artisans who work by hand.

A “craft atelier” might conjure an image of old, weathered bodies hunched over sewing machines by candlelight.

Yet le19M is very much like any other office building, with its own canteen, brightly lit workstations and cubicles, and generations of employees milling about in corporate routine. The main difference here is that they are enviably well-dressed.

Picture a Google office for craftspeople, who work across companies such as bespoke shoemaker Massaro and Maison Lesage, Paris’ oldest and most prestigious embroidery house.

On this visit, the Lesage office is busy with a number of confidential projects that keep us at arm’s length from the artisans. A hurried glimpse of the embroidery atelier shows it abuzz with activity. Embroidery frames as workstations – strewn with threads, embellishments and fabrics – are littered around the space, like a Santa’s Workshop for high fashion.

The vibe is less frenzied at Lesage’s tweed atelier, responsible for the iconic tweed jackets that are Chanel’s signature. Here, an artisan employed for 22 years patiently threads spools of yarn through a loom to form a sample for the leopard-print jacket in Look 04 of the Metiers d’Art show.

Based on the brief of recreating leopard skin in tweed, the atelier has to pick the right recipe of brown, beige and black threads, and propose patterns that would convey the realistic ripple of its fur as a leopard moves in nature. The sample, which takes two to three days to create, is then sent to the manufacturer.

Irregular placement of the threads – from matt to shiny – is encouraged so no two pieces come out exactly the same, the artisan says in French, adding that preparing the loom is what takes the longest time.

Technically, one could digitise the weaving process with a computer, but the result would not be as spontaneous or “funky” as with a hand loom. “The point of the sample is to be imperfect,” she says, turning back to the rhythmic raising and lowering of the loom levers.

Mission to preserve

Chanel owned several maisons d’art even before le19M was built. The luxury house began acquiring them from 1985, years before creative director Karl Lagerfeld decided to pioneer a Metiers d’Art collection in 2002.

You could call the 25,500 sq m campus the pet project of Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion.

From his sunlit office in Rue Cambon, proudly littered with campaign pictures through the years, he cuts a relaxed figure in a V-neck cardigan and navy quarter-zip – the latter fast becoming a Blazy signature. A Bearbrick styled as Gabrielle Chanel smirks knowingly in the corner.

Before le19M, most of these ateliers were separated, Pavlovsky tells ST. Some were in Paris, some were in the north-eastern commune of Pantin. “What we’ve done is to move them to the best working condition.”

Yet when the process to formally acquire and bring together the maisons d’arts began, there were “doubts”, he recalls.

There were fears around confidentiality and it was difficult coaxing ateliers out of their corners to unite them in one space. Furthermore, it is a gargantuan task relocating an atelier, some of whom carry with them decades of archived buttons, fabric swatches and materials – “even if it is only 10km”.

To assuage fears, a project preceding le19M was attempted, where individual “houses” were designed for each maison to give them privacy. But this isolation endeavour failed.

So, they tried another route: regrouping the maisons in an interconnected way. Some maisons can be on the same floor, which encourages interaction between them. It was an uphill battle forcing this ecosystem, but it eventually succeeded, Pavlovsky says.

“The artisans are super proud of this building, and the way they are collaborating; the way sometimes they share the resources of an atelier.”

So much so that le19M is looking for more space to expand.

“I am sure that in the next two years, we’ll probably be 900-people strong,” Pavlovsky adds. “You have to create the right conditions for people to work and collaborate. They have understood that they are part of a unique story with no equivalent in the rest of the world.”

Passing down techniques

Chanel functions as the “protector of the big story”, Pavlovsky says. Many of the maisons d’art operate as standalone businesses and also work for brands outside Chanel.

The luxury house has a “capitalistic role” – it takes care of the accounting and administrative tasks so the ateliers can focus on the client and creativity. “It’s thanks to Chanel, I think, that we have given them more confidence, perhaps more freedom, in their initiative to develop unexpected (creations) for the client.”

Double-hatting as president of the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body for the French fashion industry, he feels a responsibility to ensure the continued survival of these companies. This starts with ensuring they sustain the interest of their clients: luxury brands.

“I am both sides. I am leading Chanel, but I’m also the president of all these companies. They have to be super agile, a strong listener to understand the brands’ needs and super capable in know-how.

“The job for all these ateliers is to be as open as possible to what is happening in the world today,” he says. That comes in the form of harnessing new tech like 3D printers, but also “how we project this incredible know-how into the future”.

“No development, no business,” he adds matter-of-factly.

Transmission – a term that comes up multiple times in this interview – of know-how is why le19M was set up, but as a concept, it did not exist back then. “The (maisons are) well-equipped for tomorrow – but it was not that easy,” says Pavlovsky. “We have been working for the past 20 to 30 years to put them in this position. Now, I feel we are in a good posture.”

Young people today are coming in droves to work at the ateliers, wanting training and bringing with them “transmission as part of their DNA”. “It was not that obvious 20 years ago to think about transmission. It was more about, ‘What do I do now?’ (Artisans) were not thinking about the next generation.”

In a way, the threat of a dying trade has softened in the wake of growing interest from youth to make craft their careers.

“We have seen a turning point where people are back to working with their hands. We have a lot of requests from very young people, at the end of school, to join. The ones we have to convince are the parents,” says Pavlovsky, who has four adult children.

Le19M holds open houses to invite parents in – to see that these are real professions, with liveable wages and hours, “real people and real career paths”. “The job of parents, you know,” he adds with a knowing shrug.

As for the old guard, they are taught the importance of dedicating part of their day-to-day duties to onboarding, developing and training people.

“Sometimes, they come to me and say, ‘Bruno, we don’t have enough people.’ But that means you have not done your work, because your work was to anticipate (that), and to onboard and train.”

What is most important is that they are entrepreneurial. The idea, Pavlovsky says, is this: “You live with Chanel, but you could live without Chanel.”

Sharing French craft with the world

Today, there are around 30 different nationalities working at le19M. With the foundation established at home, le19M is ready to be shared with the rest of the world.

La Galerie du 19M, the gallery arm of the compound, stages workshops and exhibitions showcasing the metiers d’art. It also leads international projects in dialogue with creative communities around the world, in cities like Dakar, Marseille and Tokyo.

Another aspect of le19M is Ecole Lesage, an embroidery school where anyone can sign up for courses to learn techniques of artistic embroidery used in haute couture and ready-to-wear creations.

While Ecole Lesage is not the official training pathway for artisans, who typically come from formal embroidery schools, some of the Lesage senior artisans teach there.

In the coming years, Chanel will open in le19M’s vicinity a school for haute couture, ready-to-wear and alteration. These are to train newcomers who have skills, but are “not operationally ready” to join an atelier.

Several artisans who are approaching retirement have been the first to put up their hands to teach, says Pavlovsky.

Passion, it would appear, has no age limit.

“If we didn’t at Chanel create le19M, artisans will continue to exist. They will find their way,” he says. “But we have designed le19M and they were very happy to join and feel this energy.”