Chanel Is Returning to the Site of Karl Lagerfeld’s Most Spectacular Shows
The French fashion house is marking its comeback to the Grand Palais with a pledge to contribute 30 million euros to the venue's cultural events.
PARIS — Chanel is returning to the Grand Palais after a four-year break for renovations, with a ready-to-wear show scheduled for Oct. 1 and a fresh commitment to support future cultural events at the storied Paris landmark.
The French fashion house will contribute 30 million euros over the next five years to the budget of the cultural institution, in exchange for retaining the exclusive right to use the nave of the glass-and-steel structure for its fashion shows, Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, told WWD.
The show during Paris Fashion Week will mark the official public reopening of the Grand Palais following the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, kicking off a season that will include the Art Basel Paris fair in October and an exhibition of monumental installations by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota in December.
Chanel, which is searching for a new artistic director following the departure of Virginie Viard in June, started showing at the Grand Palais in 2005 under Karl Lagerfeld, who transformed the space with props that included a fake iceberg, a reproduction of the Eiffel Tower and a supermarket with shelves stocked with Chanel-branded goods.
In recent years Viard had veered toward more minimalist sets, and it remains to be seen how Chanel will mark its grand return, and how her successor will work with the imposing venue. For now, Pavlovsky is focused on the logistics of next month’s event.
“I hope we will occupy the nave with the right degree of audacity, because it’s important, but at the same time without trying to compete with Karl’s extraordinary work. We’ll aim to strike the right tone for today, and the eventual arrival of a new artistic director will no doubt impact the way we use the Grand Palais,” he said.
Pavlovsky declined to comment on the rumored names doing the rounds of Viards’ potential successors and said he could not confirm a time frame for hiring a replacement.
“Things are progressing well on our side,” he said. “We will take the time necessary to make the right choice and to meet the needs of the house. The most encouraging thing, I would say, is that there are a lot of brilliant people out there.”
While the executive is eager to get a new creative head on board rapidly, he noted it was a complex process. “There are lots of restrictions of all kinds,” he said, citing contractual obligations, among others. “Therefore I have absolutely no idea when we’re going to make an announcement.”
Considering Lagerfeld held the post for 36 years, and Viard also logged more than three decades at the house, Chanel is taking a long-term view. “The idea is to recreate the conditions for another long-lasting relationship,” Pavlovsky said.
A Museum Bigger Than Versailles
Chanel’s commitment to cultural institutions will continue to be a central element of its strategy. Through the Chanel Culture Fund, it supports emerging artists and forges partnerships with international museums and institutions, in keeping with founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s well-known role in supporting the arts.
Its alliance with the Grand Palais is one of several major investments by Chanel in the French capital, alongside its support for the Palais Galliera, the city’s fashion museum, and the Paris Opera.
Chanel initially announced in 2018 that it would contribute 25 million euros as the exclusive private sponsor of the renovation of the Grand Palais, which started in 2021 and is expected to be completed within the next three years.
In a joint interview with Didier Fusillier, who took over as president of the Grand Palais a year ago, Pavlovsky said the second tranche of financing would help fund the 2024-28 artistic and cultural program at the sprawling site, which sits between the Seine river and the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Planned events range from marquee exhibitions staged in tandem with major museums, such as the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, to large-scale concerts and popular initiatives, like a temporary ice rink.
“It’s going to become one of the most exciting places in Paris in terms of culture,” Pavlovsky said.
Private partnerships are key, since the French state provides only 17 percent of the venue’s annual budget, Fusillier said. With a surface of 775,000 square feet and 20 galleries to fill, he has ambitious plans for the Grand Palais and its surrounding 81-acre park.
“You have to realize that the Grand Palais is bigger than the Palace of Versailles,” he said. “There were a lot of spaces that were not open. With the renovation, we’ll be able to use the full volume of the venue. That will be a big shock for the public.”
Potential Synergies
Faced with delays in the 485-million-euro renovation project, Fusillier pulled out the stops to deliver the central nave in time for the Games.
He was rewarded with glowing press coverage, as the Grand Palais acted not just as a spectacular venue for fencing and tae kwon do competitions, but as a backdrop for outdoor sports like triathlon and cycling — not to mention Axelle Saint-Cirel’s moving rooftop performance of the French national anthem during the rain-soaked opening ceremony.
For spectators, the experience indoors was unprecedented as the city exceptionally allowed two 5,200-seat bleachers to be set up inside the building, originally built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900.
“At the top, you were not far from the glass roof. It was unbelievable to be up there,” he recalled, adding that the structure also makes sound reverberate in a unique way, meaning the roars of the crowd could be heard from the Champs-Élysées.
It will be a quick turnaround between the end of the Paralympic Games and the Chanel show. “It’s super tight, but that’s the nature of the location,” Pavlovsky said. “It’s magical to be able to do this right after the Olympic Games.”
A few days after fashion week winds down, the Grand Palais is set to host a summit of French-speaking nations with dozens of heads of state. “I don’t know many spaces that are that versatile,” Pavlovsky commented.
Underlining the strategic importance of the venue, French President Emmanuel Macron attended a ceremony in April unveiling a plaque near the main entrance engraved with the name of Gabrielle Chanel.
While Pavlovsky insisted that the company would have no sway over the programming of the Grand Palais, the potential for synergies is evident.
Fusillier said he was in talks with Alexander Neef, director of the Paris Opera, about staging large-scale works such as “The Damnation of Faust” or “St. Francis of Assisi.” Meanwhile, the Galliera is one of several museums that will take part in an Indian-themed exhibition planned for 2028.
Pavlovsky said Chanel would be flexible in working around the Grand Palais schedule. For example, it already knows it won’t be able to stage its July 2025 haute couture collection in the nave due to conflicting events.
As major patron of the Grand Palais, the house plans to expand its involvement in the venue’s activities. Studio MTX, the interior design department of the Chanel-owned embroidery workshop Montex, will design a monumental curtain to make the new spaces within the building adaptable to a wide variety of events.
Starting in November, the curtain will be embroidered during workshops open to the general public, to be held at La Galerie du 19M, the exhibition space attached to Chanel’s craftsmanship hub on the outskirts of Paris.
“We’ll be involved in a number of ways, and why not one day sponsor an exhibition?” Pavlovsky said. “Our partnership makes anything possible.”