Chanel have been secretive about the location of their Manchester show. Thank god Mancunians love to gossip…
We send two intrepid reporters to investigate this city’s biggest fashion mystery
Dear Millers — this December, Manchester is joining the ranks of London, New York, Paris and Milan and becoming A Great Fashion City. You knew it already, but now the world’s cottoned on: luxury brand Chanel has elected to stage a fashion show here. Up until now, the details of where exactly have proved difficult to pinpoint, with their press team staying schtum. But present us with a question and we’ll give you our best shot at finding the answer.
Coming up: where is the show? Why are some people fuming at the brand? Why are others elated? Why is this choice of city not as random as Vogue et al would lead you to believe — what is the great Coco Chanel-Manchester connection?
On Monday, we wrote about the latest row over a “low traffic neighbourhood” in Withington — a concept that is meant to address traffic levels and air pollution but has become known for dividing opinion. It’s sparked a fascinating debate in the comments — members can dive in here.
Editor’s note: Normally we paywall on Thursday, but we are paywalling unfashionably early this week because we think this is the must-read piece of the week. It would be easy enough to rehash press releases and to have written the same piece on the Chanel show every other local outlet did. But excellent pieces like this, rammed full of detail, take time: they require a lot of trailing around in the cold trying to persuade insiders to divulge their secrets to you and a lot of fact checking. They’re only possible with the help of our paying subscribers, who pay for reporters on the ground and editors in the office to ask the right questions and clarify the foggier parts. If you haven’t yet joined us, what are you waiting for? Give this city the independent media it deserves by clicking below.
From today’s sponsor: This beautiful ceramic tile pays homage to John Rylands Library, one of Manchester’s architectural gems and home to a vast collection of priceless works, including one of the earliest New Testament texts and many illuminated medieval manuscripts. The tile is available from The Sculpts, a local company founded by illustrator and architect Richard Bennett in 2020, which designs and makes beautiful homewares and textiles celebrating Manchester's history, heritage and culture. Check out the full range of tiles and artwork.
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Your Mill briefing
ASLEF, the railway workers’ union, is criticising Avanti West Coast for cutting services over Christmas. Avanti, who runs the west coast mainline between Manchester and London, is running a reduced timetable over Christmas as, they say, it will make services more reliable. ASLEF says this is a “nonsense explanation,” and the service reduction joins a “long line of disappointments felt by passengers who travel with a company whose name has become a byword for poor service”.
Manchester has the second-highest rate of destitution in the UK, according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report found that 3.8 million people in the UK experienced destitution in 2022. Just shy of 2% of Manchester households (that’s more than 4,000 households) a week experienced destitution in 2022.
University of Manchester engineers are claiming to have flown the largest unmanned quadcopter drone ever. It weighs nearly 25kg and spans 21ft corner to corner. Kieran Wood — the drone’s pilot and lecturer in Aerospace Systems at the University of Manchester — was thankful the drone achieved take-off without “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
A construction company in Bolton has been fined £30,000 after pleading guilty to breaching regulations on one of their sites. Their failure to plan and monitor work on the site resulted in one worker falling through a stairlift and fracturing their skull.
Finally: Manchester City Council has cancelled their Christmas light switch-on for the second year running. When they pulled it last year, they blamed a lack of a “safe and suitable location” to host the event, and have said the same this time around.
Chanel have been secretive about the location of their Manchester show. Thank god Mancunians love to gossip…
By Mollie Simpson and Shikhar Talwar
Think of French luxury fashion house Chanel, and associations arise: the little black dress. The quilted purse. Marilyn Monroe's favourite perfume, Chanel No. 5... and Manchester.
Manchester? When the brand announced in July that they would be hosting their annual Métiers d'art Show here in December, you could feel eyebrows being raised from here to Primrose Hill. Vogue described Manchester as “the spiritual home of the WAG” and suggested any attendee to the show might spot Princess of Monaco “eating a barm cake”. Yahoo News couldn’t resist saying that “holding such a prestigious event in Manchester might seem unusual”. Even most of the local coverage limited itself to one question: why here?
Métiers d'art is a catwalk show that pays tribute to Chanel’s history of craftsmanship and couture. It’s a big budget event which is often held in far flung locations (last year, Dakar, Senegal, the year before that, Château de Chenonceau in France) and features senior fashion executives and models like Naomi Campbell sitting in the front row. This year, the 2023/24 Chanel collection will debut here on 7 December. Up until now, the location of the show has been a big secret.
Chanel said this year’s collection bears witness to Manchester’s “exceptional artisanal heritage and its influence around the world”, but refused to confirm exactly where the show will happen. The obvious guesses were Aviva Studios, the £242 million arts venue in St John’s, or maybe Manchester Central or Depot Mayfield. But then one day, when I’m gossiping with a friend, she tells me she’s heard from someone in the hospitality industry that it’s going to be somewhere much more unexpected.
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