Celebrities, models and several hundred global fashionistas crammed into a Manchester street on Thursday as French luxury brand Chanel turned it into a catwalk for a prestigious fashion show.
Actors Kristen Stewart, Hugh Grant and Tilda Swinton were among the stars on Thomas Street in the city’s Northern Quarter, as was director Sofia Coppola.
Models including Manchester’s Karen Elson used the road as a catwalk, with its mixture of trendy bars and traditional shops providing the backdrop for the Metiers d’Art show.
The models and guests were protected from the pouring rain by a tall Perspex canopy that was erected over the road for the occasion.
The Guardian’s fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley wrote that there was “general agreement that Manchester was a surprising choice for a Chanel show”.
The Telegraph’s head of fashion Lisa Armstrong said there was “mutual curiosity, wonderment and a degree of humour” when Chanel’s “highest-spending international clients came face to face with The Mancunian”.
But the company’s president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky praised the city, saying they were attracted by its “creative energy” and musical history.
Chanel opted for Manchester because “too many things happen in London and we wanted to be in the UK out of London”, Pavlovsky told BBC News.
“We decided to come to Manchester because it was the most inspiring for Virginie [Viard, creative director]. She was inspired by the music and art that she sees here in Manchester, and we’ve had a warm welcome.”
The show’s soundtrack included Manchester bands like The Fall and New Order – two of whose members were in attendance, along with local rappers Aitch and Bugzy Malone.
There were also two Gallagher brothers – not Oasis stars Liam and Noel, but Liam’s sons Gene and Lennon, as well as Noel’s daughter Anais.
Also among the 600 attendees were actors Jenna Coleman, Callum Scott Howells, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Lucy Boynton. Other guests ranged from author Jeanette Winterson to Olivia Attwood Dack from Love Island to Taiwanese actress Gwei Lun-mei and Japan’s Sakura Ando.
The stars soaked up the street’s combination of history and hipness, posing for photos in the doorway of the long-standing Clark Brothers – a retail supply shop that few people would have previously given a second glance – and outside the Bay Horse Tavern pub.
That was one of the street’s bars that Chanel took over for the night. For most of the previous two weeks, the pubs and shops had been shut after the company moved in.
Chanel has compensated businesses for closing but declined to say how much it had spent in the city.
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Councillor Luthfur Rahman, Manchester’s cabinet member for culture, would not say how much the company had paid, but said it had “invested in the city” and that the event would help the local economy.
He said the show was “great for Manchester and is great for our ambition to be a global destination”, adding: “The fact that Chanel have chosen to come to Manchester demonstrates that we’re doing something right.”
Beforehand, a protester outside held a sign calling on the city council to “get your priorities sorted” – with the slogan: “Food or heat!! Not luxury goods.”
The event has been held in cities including Paris, New York, Rome, Dakar, Salzburg and Dallas in the past, and was last in the UK when it was staged at Linlithgow Palace in Scotland in 2012.
This year, guests watched the show from wooden tables that lined the street, which has a link to the birth of the modern textiles industry, having been built for small-scale workshops when the industrial revolution took off in the city in the 18th Century.
Whether by accident or design, that history tied in with the idea behind Chanel’s Metiers d’Art show, which is to celebrate the skilled craftspeople and artisans that the company works with.
Chanel said its new collection focused on “the poetry of emotions with a dash of the sixties”.
It added that “ideas of Great Britain” were represented in “wraparound skirts, miniskirts with godets, Bermuda shorts, shirts, coat-dresses all featured in tweed, knitwear in Shetland and cashmere”.
There were also nods to Manchester’s famous footballing pedigree, with one model sporting Chanel’s version of a Manchester City shirt and another wearing a scarf in Manchester United colours.
About 160 guests who arrived a day early were taken by Chanel to watch United beat Chelsea at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
They then went to a pre-show party at Salford Lads’ Club, featuring a performance from Salford poet John Cooper Clarke.
On Thursday, an after-party took place at the historic Victoria Baths, the Manchester former swimming pool that was given a new lease of life after winning the BBC’s Restoration programme in 2003.
