Chanel Métiers d’Art [Pre-Fall 2023] Show in Dakar, Senegal Did Not Go 'Badly Wrong'

Chanel Métiers d’Art [Pre-Fall 2023] Show in Dakar, Senegal Did Not Go 'Badly Wrong' AOC Fashion

Chanel invited 800 guests to Dakar, Senegal for its new Metiers d’Art collection presentation. Pharrell Williams, Naomi Campbell, and Tobe Nwigwe were on-hand for the French house’s first-ever show in Africa and the first show for any luxury house in sub-Saharan Africa.

The show was also Virginie Ward’s the first show outside of France, since becoming artistic director in 2019.

Note: all images courtesy of Chanel.

Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel, spoke openly with Vogue Business that now more than ever business cannot be conducted as it was in a prepandemic world.

AOC adds a pre-George Floyd murder-world as well, and Pavlovsky spoke candidly about Senegal’s reality as a former French colony.

Lying three miles west of Dakar, Gorée Island was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast. “We cannot go to other parts of the world just for 20 minutes. It is not enough. We have to have this dialogue,” the Chanel executive acknowledged.

Pharrell Williams is intimately involved in bringing Chanel forward in its thinking and embracing progessive values, especially around the multicultural attitudes of today’s progressives, as part of its 21st century DNA.

The Chanel Show in Dakar Didn’t Go ‘Badly Wrong’

“I cannot say Madame Chanel dreamed to come to Dakar,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, as referenced by Friedman.

AOC will not critique the Chanel show from a historical cultural perspective or even a recent ad campaign, where I had plenty to say about these very issues.

Chanel took an excellent first step forward in Senegal. The brand commissioned photography from son of Senegal, Malick Blodian, both before the event and during it. ~ Anne