“This is absolutely unexpected. It’s truly extraordinary. Really off the wall. “It’s so incongruous that it’s weirdly interesting.”
Speaking to the Guardian a few hours before Chanel’s runway show, famed designer Peter Saville painted a rather eloquent picture of the “dynamically unconventional” official visit to the rainy streets of Manchester by the grandest and most urbane of Paris fashion houses.
In the front row past the tattoo parlors, pubs and karaoke bars of the Northern Quarter, Tilda Swinton and Gary Neville and Hugh Grant and John Cooper Clarke met. On the street catwalk, the bodice of a cocktail dress was hand-embroidered in concentric jet-beaded circles to resemble the licorice black grooves on a vinyl record, while intarsia cashmere sweaters were plastered with graphics inspired by nightclub brochures. The show’s invitation was a montage of images from the Mancunian counterculture: Saville’s designs for Factory Records; Women’s rights advocate Emmeline Pankhurst, who marched with her daughters; The striped walls of the Hacienda; images of the former Granada studios, soon to reopen as Soho House’s first outpost in Manchester, and Kevin Cummins’s 1979 photograph of Joy Division on Hulme Bridge.
“This show shows that there is a world perception of Manchester that is not just mediated by football, and that’s really important,” Saville said. “This is an interesting confirmation. “This is good for Chanel and good for Manchester.”
Protected from the weather by a giant metal canopy supporting a transparent roof, Cummins said after the show: “It had a really great Mancunian feel to it. It didn’t feel like Chanel parachuted in here and spoke in clichés. Everyone I talked to felt the same. And I thought it was interesting that it was raining. It was very Mancunian, wasn’t it?”
Actor and playwright Chris Hoyle, who runs historic walking tours of Manchester, said football and music were the main drivers for most visiting tourists, but residents varied and valued what he called the “Manchester mentality” of original thinking in the birthplace of invention. like a passenger train station and an ice cream cone. “We are consistently voted as one of the best places to live in the UK and I don’t think it’s because of the weather,” he added.
Chanel’s presence in the city was inevitable, with several blocks of the city commandeered for days and an after-show party at the Victoria Baths where Lancashire stew was served before Primal Scream’s live set. “There are aspects of this that will disturb some people and even anger some people,” Saville said. “And from a socioeconomic perspective, that’s very understandable.”
Some protesters gathered near the demonstration and held signs criticizing the insensitivity of holding this extravagant event in a city where most residents are struggling financially. However, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham supported the event, although he was not on the night due to an overseas trip.
Manchester’s football talent was represented by United’s Luke Shaw. Manchester City’s Jack Grealish is reportedly disappointed that his contract with Gucci has prevented him from joining. Many of the Chanel team, who traveled from Paris to Manchester with the brand’s creative director Virginie Viard, turned up in vocal support for Manchester United the night before the show, when part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s stands at Old Trafford rang with screams. “Allez!” During the 2-1 win against Chelsea.
The show proved that the story of the music that emerged from the city 40 years ago retains its pop-cultural appeal. On the morning of the show, the vintage shops on Oldham Street were packed with French fashion editors buying 1980s band T-shirts.
“It makes sense because Factory Records has never been just a music story,” Saville said. “I sometimes referred to it as a designer label. The factory logo was bold and industrial, but done with a lot of style and polish. “It was actually very complicated.”
The importance of aesthetics in the age of Manchester’s musical glory was echoed by Cummins, who spoke of the famous image of Joy Division, where the band standing on the far side of the bridge appeared the size of Lowry matchstick men: “What I was trying to do here was capture the sound”.
“Manchester is the original modern city and the person who defined the original modern more than anyone else in the history of fashion was probably Coco Chanel, because she designed a new way of life for women,” Saville said. “So in a way the two souls are not as far apart as the surface realities seem.”
Nostalgia for the Hacienda dance floor was balanced with pride in Manchester’s development as a diverse city. “I was talking to [the Manchester author] “Tonight Paul Morley and I were saying that in 1977 we went to the Ranch Bar, which is about 100 yards from here, because it was the only place in Manchester where it was safe to be a tramp,” Cummins recalled. “A lot has changed since then, and tonight was a celebration of that.”
“Great clothes. Clarke’s comment was amazing as he left the show with his wife Evie. “Thank you so much – House of Dior!” he added, signing off with a Manchester flourish.