A dapper commuter in a three-piece suit, reading the newspaper. A speed-walker in a zip-up sweater and jeans making their way across the platform as an announcer warns, "Stand clear of the closing doors, please." A woman in a feathered coat the size of a Mastiff, carrying a Chanel bag embellished with a golden giraffe's head and spindly legs. Wait, what?
Most days criss-crossing the New York City subway include a double-take moment like the above. At Chanel's Métiers d'Art 2026 show on December 2, set in an out-of-service station in Lower Manhattan, artistic director Matthieu Blazy imagined a commute entirely populated by the sort of fashion that would cause any other passenger to miss their stop.
Public transit is always an exercise in people watching and a lesson in patience—especially if you're transferring between the nine lines at Times Square. But Blazy's first Métiers d'Art presentation (which showcases the savoir-faire of the house's 11 owned maisons d'art) pushed the notion of a kaleidoscopic New York minute to its limits. The designer populated the world's chicest subway stop with references spanning 100 years of Chanel style history—plus clever twists on NYC style archetypes. Unsurprisingly, service delays or rerouted lines were not part of the fantasy.
Models walk Chanel's Métiers d'Art runway, hosted inside of an out-of-service subway station in Lower Manhattan.
First up, front-row guests including Ayo Edebiri, Angel Reese, and newly-minted ambassador A$AP Rocky were greeted by an upscale take on an NYC classic: a woman in an oversize quarter-zip sweater, with baggy jeans and cap-toe pumps. Her shearling coat was draped over her bag instead of her shoulders; look closer at her sweater, and it came draped with pearls. This opening look—and others involving denim, car coats, and even more quarter-zips—resembles the chic commuters you might find on the 4, 5, or 6 trains heading downtown from East 72nd Street. They're pieces that, technically, anyone could style. But with the touch of Chanel's owned maisons d'art, the details are far more opulent than on an average Tuesday. (See: the flannel that's actually bouclé tweed, or the beaded skirt that, up close, comprises cut-outs of the New York City skyline, complete with a tiny Gabrielle Chanel walking her dog.)
Three looks showing the range of Chanel's Métiers d'art collection, spanning clear trench coats and commuter-friendly quarter-zips.
Blazy and the Chanel team couldn't leave this collection stalled at Spring Street with everyday-but-better pieces, though. Métiers d'Art presentations put the spotlight on the craft of Chanel's ateliers and workshops, which specialize in crafts ranging from embroidery to beadwork to jewelry. So, the New York City cat lady was reimagined as a 1930s ingenue in a leopard-print dress with a matching fascinator, molded into the shape of a cat's head. Her rival, the woman whose dog is her entire personality, walked by in a two-piece set embellished by a menagerie of sequin canines.
Mattieu Blazy mixed present-day commuter staples with references to Chanel's 1920s origins, as in this leopard print dress and cat-shaped fascinator.
Uptown ladies who lunch had netted bonnets and tweedy sets; a downtown City Hall bride closed the show in a flapper-inspired white dress. In between, the subway filled with everyone from a pinstripe-clad mid-century businesswoman to a modern-day Super Girl, her red, yellow, and blue sweater peeking out from underneath a checkered suit.
At its most opulent, the collection featured butterfly-inspired ballgown skirts and awards season-worthy beaded gowns.
By the following morning, the transit lines were once again filled with their usual patrons—corporate commuters, service workers, buskers, herds of kids on their way to school—without a paparazzi camera in sight. But somewhere in the thousands of travelers, there's definitely a fashion person with a double-take-worthy flap bag perched on her shoulder. As Blazy wrote in his show notes, "The New York subway belongs to all."
Chanel Metiers d'art 2026
