Dallas’ Own International Chanel Affair Brings Fashion Envy

The French fashion house brings its masterful Métiers d’Art collection to Dallas — fresh from its debut at the Ritz Paris.

For a fleeting moment in December, the recently reopened Ritz Paris was made a scene straight from the life of Coco Chanel: From 1937 through World War II (including the Nazi occupation of Paris) and until her death in 1971, Mademoiselle Chanel lived at the Ritz, with her atelier just steps from the hotel’s backdoor, on rue Cambon.

The masterful Karl Lagerfeld, in homage to the re-entrée of the magnificent Ritz after its three-year renovation, commandeered the palace hotel for the Métiers d’Art collection, the house’s annual pre-fall show which highlights the work of its couture ateliers and is oft staged in international destinations (Rome, Moscow, Shanghai, Scotland).

Dallas was the site for the 2013 show, a Cowboy-chic spectacle unlike anything the world has ever seen. And this May, Chanel’s Métiers d’Art returns — albeit in a more petite, traveling presentation.

Tuesday, May 16, Chanel’s stage will be our own Ritz, the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek — we’re told no more than 150 will land invitations — during which the Métiers d’Art Pre-Fall 2017 collection will be artfully arranged throughout the hotel, and immediately available for perusing and pre-orders.

Named the Paris Cosmopolite collection, it was shown in Paris in three tiers — during lunch, tea, and dinner — throughout the Ritz’s main-floor Bar Vendôme, L’Espadon restaurant, library, and winter garden.

Each piece in the collection employs a work of art, showing the artistry of 10 ateliers that were purchased by Chanel to save the beading, featherwork, button-making, and embroidery necessary for the creation of the couture.

Riches ensued, including three dimensional, hand-embroidered china patterns; gilt roping, hand-stitched flowers, sequins, and pearls adding youth to cream-hued tweed ensembles; plumes of gold tinsel-like thread adorning the skirt of a glistening evening gown; masterful shirring that adds modernist volume to a mohair puffer; and leather jackets and cropped pants in glossy black and iridescent gold.

Alas, the private preview and dinner at the Mansion is by invitation, but should you desire an appointment, ring the Chanel boutique in Highland Park Village.

Chanel, 100 Highland Park Village, 214.520.1055.