Chanel Metiers d'art 2026: Is Commuting Chic?
Image Credit: Tabitha23 via Flickr
As I stepped onto a screeching Northern Line carriage this morning, I was reminded of Chanel’s latest collection. Matthieu Blazy’s inaugural Métiers d’art show was staged in an abandoned New York subway station, bringing the runway to rush-hour. Commuters included a pinstripe-clad Alex Consani, who sauntered down the platform to Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam, whilst the show’s promotional short featured Margaret Qualley and A$AP Rocky in a metropolitan love-story. The show itself was excellent: classic tweed skirt-suits were interposed with unapologetic extravagance, which made for a harmonious yet visually engaging collection.
Nonetheless, Blazy’s most talked-about choices were more peripheral: from choosing the decommissioned Bowery station as its setting to opening the show with a model who was discovered on the New York subway (NYU grad Bhavitha Mandava), this show was distinctly subway-centric. So why host Métiers d’art 2026 - a celebration of glamour and craftsmanship unique to Chanel - in such a decidedly unglamorous location? Because fashionable people are going somewhere.
Fashion houses have long aestheticised commuter culture, but the trend is - now more than ever - seeing a resurgence: Kenzo’s F/W 1998 show that took place inside a replica train carriage was reimagined by the brand last year, whilst Miu Miu’s S/S 2024 models sported bags that were deliberately unzipped and overflowing. That iconic opening sequence from 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada seems just as relevant 20 years later, as today’s muse is on the move: she has places to go and things to carry.
Beyond luxury fashion houses, there is a palpable desire for the glamorisation of everyday life in our current culture. Last year, millions attempted to ‘Jane Birkinify’ their bags, striving to emulate Birkin’s unconventional treatment of her eponymous accessory: tattered and stuffed, her everyday use of the bag - an item now so coveted it is often kept behind glass - seemed to embody a life well-lived and loved.
It is a desire mirrored (albeit absurdly) in the return of London’s annual ‘No Trousers Tube ride’: ordinary commuters abandon practicality, baring their legs in the freezing January temperatures for little more than a laugh. Chanel is tapping into this global appetite: to transform the everyday commute, usually a forgettable slog, into a space for humour, creativity and self-expression.
So maybe commuting is chic. Though the Chanel show’s tailored fringe jackets may put my tube-friendly puffer jacket to shame, I can’t help but admire Blazy’s impulse: in an age of perennial uncertainty, maybe we ought to romanticize the mundane - to look up from our phones, to dress as our city-dwelling selves, and observe the fashion around us. Like our ever-evolving urban life, fashion has to keep moving. As Miucca Prada says, fashion should make people feel ‘confident - that they can perform in life. Fashion is a representation of one’s vision of the world. Because otherwise, I think fashion is useless.’