Three-dimensional embroidery, sculptural millinery, and research into the wardrobe of Elisabetta II arrive at the Garrison Chapel in London as the visible outcome of an educational programme. From Friday through 24 September, Chanel, the Le19M hub, and The King’s Foundation are presenting the work of graduates from the Chanel Métiers d’Art Fellowship, a postgraduate programme aimed at students specialising in embroidery, millinery, and fashion design.
The exhibition is neither a runway show nor a collection preview: it centres on objects, techniques, and the time required to master them. On display in the chapel’s halls are capes adorned with relief embroidery, hats crafted from diverse materials, and garments that reinterpret the British monarch’s wardrobe. It is a format aligned with the initiative’s goal: to take artisanal know-how beyond the purely educational realm and make its value accessible to a wider audience.
For Chanel, which has made the Métiers d’Art a structural pillar of its industrial and creative identity, the London event also serves to showcase how this heritage of skills can be passed down. In the luxury sector, manual craftsmanship is often evoked as an abstract quality; here, the focus is instead on generational transfer, with students engaging directly with techniques that demand precision, practice, and an intimate knowledge of materials.
A programme born from the meeting of Paris and London
The partnership between Chanel and The King’s Foundation dates back to 2023. The fellowship was developed alongside Le19M, the Parisian centre bringing together twelve Chanel-affiliated maisons d’art and more than 700 craftspeople under one roof. Its role is not merely organisational: Le19M represents the space where the group concentrates a significant portion of the skills involved in creating accessories, embellishments, and highly specialised textile craftsmanship.
The King’s Foundation, a charity founded in 1990 by re Carlo III, has long been active in education and training related to craft, architecture, and design. The agreement thus unites two complementary approaches. On the one hand, a global maison that relies on a supply chain of rare skills; on the other, a British institution committed to preserving and teaching artisanal practices.
The program is aimed at postgraduate students and brings the expertise of Le19M's maisons d’art into their curriculum. The decision to dedicate the exhibition to the final projects lends substance to a relationship that, after four years of collaboration, presents itself as an ongoing project rather than an isolated initiative. Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel and Le19M, highlighted how the various editions have allowed the fellowship to be refined and the savoir-faire of the involved maisons to be shared with new talent.
The London exhibition is therefore also a public test of the model. The result is not framed through employment promises or career figures for the participants—details that were not disclosed—but through finished artifacts. This is the ground on which a course of this kind can be evaluated: the ability to foster historical expertise without reducing it to a stylistic exercise or a mere quotation of the past.
Craftsmanship as the infrastructure of luxury
The value of the partnership goes beyond the exhibited works. Embroidery and millinery work require professionals who cannot be trained quickly and who can hardly be replaced without impacting the quality and language of a product. For major luxury houses, supporting schools, ateliers, and apprenticeship programs means investing in a part of the supply chain that remains essential even when the market prioritizes speed, digital communication, and global distribution.
Le19M explicitly embodies this approach: preserving crafts with deep roots while putting them to work in the contemporary fashion landscape. The display of 3D-embroidered capes and headwear with tactile construction suggests that preservation does not equate to replication. Students are asked to use established techniques to develop their own concepts, in a dialogue between executive discipline and design research.
The presence of garments inspired by the wardrobe of Elisabetta II also introduces a recognizable British reference, without turning the exhibition into a celebratory tribute. The royal wardrobe serves as a useful archive for reflecting on silhouettes, the public function of dress, and codes of representation. Integrated into a program focused on making, that reference becomes material to be reinterpreted through cut, ornamentation, and construction.
In this sense, the Garrison Chapel is a meaningful venue. Exhibiting in a space open to visitors shifts the focus from brand reputation alone to the practice of those learning. Jacqueline Farrell, executive director education of The King’s Foundation, invited audiences interested in manufacturing and design to visit the exhibition specifically to see the students' work. It is a simple yet significant formulation: the outcome of the fellowship is presented to the public not as a marketing object, but as evidence of a training process.
What remains after September 24
The closing of the exhibition does not conclude the issue that prompted it. The continuity of artisanal skills depends on the ability of students to find environments where they can practice, develop, and turn them into a profession. The fellowship alone does not resolve the issue, nor does the available information make it possible to measure its impact on employment or on the broader industry. It does, however, point in a clear direction: luxury companies and educational institutions can share responsibility in the transmission of knowledge.
For Chanel, the project consolidates the link between the Métiers d’Art ecosystem and an international educational stage. For The King’s Foundation, it strengthens the curriculum dedicated to craftsmanship through access to the know-how of specialized ateliers. For graduates, the exhibition is above all a moment of visibility where manual craft is not confined to the workshop or portfolio.
Finally, the London case serves as a reminder that contemporary craft does not survive on memory alone. It requires places, teachers, commissions, and opportunities where technical knowledge can be assessed and discussed. The pieces on display at the Garrison Chapel make this dimension evident: behind an embroidered surface or the shape of a hat lies a learning system that luxury considers part of its own creative infrastructure. Bringing it before the public means recognizing that this infrastructure deserves as much attention as the final product.
