SHANGHAI — Chanel will give Shanghai a full-bodied serving of the crafts with the next stop of its traveling cultural program of La Galerie du 19M, the cultural arm of its Métiers d’Art hub.

Running from Sept. 25 to Nov. 15, a wide-ranging program at the Museum of Art Pudong will spotlight Chanel’s network of specialist ateliers while placing them in dialogue with Chinese craftsmanship and contemporary creations from both China and France.

La Galerie du 19M Shanghai will take over the entire third floor of the contemporary art museum, which boasts a panoramic view of the Bund. The French fashion house said it has planned an immersive, exploratory journey to encourage visitors to move between discovery and hands-on experimentation.

“With this new international project, La Galerie du 19M extends the values of the Maisons d’art — passion, transmission and generosity — beyond its Parisian walls,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel SAS, president of Chanel fashion and president of Le19M.

“Through a creative dialogue imagined for all audiences, the project offers a sensory exploration of the Métiers d’Art that combines heritage, contemporary techniques, and participatory experiences, affirming the status of savoir-faire as a universal creative language,” he added.

The exhibition in the Chinese metropolis will be curated by Gong Yan, artistic director of Power Station of Art in Shanghai; Beijing-based contemporary artist Lin Tianmiao; Zhang Lei, founder and director of Pinwu Design Studio and Rong Design Library in Hangzhou; and Christelle Kocher, artistic director of feather specialist Lemarié and Atelier Lognon, which specializes in pleating.

A highlight will be a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Lesage, celebrating the centenary of the storied embroidery house. Some of its most emblematic creations will go on display in Shanghai, tracing a trajectory from its founding in 1924 through to its most recent work for Chanel.

There will also be a program of talks, participative workshops and cultural mediation activities designed to encourage the public to engage with craft by recasting it as a living practice rooted in cross-cultural exchanges.

The Shanghai chapter builds on the growing international footprint of Le19M, which was founded in 2021 as a hub at the epicenter of the ecosystem Chanel has created by acquiring specialty ateliers and manufacturers since the mid-1980s to safeguard endangered know-how. It concentrates more than 700 artisans and 11 maisons d’art such as embroiderer Lesage, silversmith Goossens and hatmaker Maison Michel under one roof.

Its open-to-the-public cultural program at La Galerie du 19M is structured around several key components, such as a discovery of the know-how and materials at play in its different ateliers as well as creations in dialogue with contemporary practices.

It previously alighted in Dakar, in the wake of the 2023 Métiers d’Art show. For its Tokyo stop in 2025, the work of Japanese and French artists and artisans was front and center, underscoring the value of skilled labor at a time of rapid advances in artificial intelligence, generational shifts and heightened scrutiny of luxury pricing.

As Pavlovsky has repeatedly argued, sustaining the house’s creative ambitions and justifying the cost of its most emblematic products depend on attracting a new generation of artisans and making visible the time, training and manual expertise that go into each piece.

The Shanghai arm is extending that message to a key market that it previously wooed with Métiers d’Art shows, such as the one held in the city in 2009 and, more recently, in Hangzhou in 2024.

Such initiatives have also served as recruitment tools, with Le19M in Paris drawing thousands of students and young visitors into contact with métiers ranging from embroidery and pleating to millinery and feather work.

– With contributions from Lily Templeton, Paris