Only when Chanel opens its eagerly-anticipated runway show in Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Thursday night will we understand the true scale of what the fashion house has been creating here in the city. In the meantime, a quick walk around the city gives you a decent idea of the eye-popping investment that is being made by the world’s most iconic fashion brand.
Thousands upon thousands of pounds are being spent turning Thomas Street into an outdoor runway for the exclusive Métiers d’Art show. Meanwhile every luxury hotel room and suite in the city has been booked out ready to welcome some 600 VIPs and celebrities – many jetting in from across the world.
And just imagine the money being spent to take out almost every flashing digital advertising board in the city with Chanel’s latest ambassador, movie star Timothée Chalamet, smouldering upon it. Insiders say the investment Chanel is making in Manchester is “in the millions, not the thousands”.
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Manchester has simply never seen anything like it before. No single brand has ever staged a city-wide takeover in the way that Chanel is feverishly doing right now, or, indeed, shrouded it in such secrecy.
Make no mistake about it – this is a global event. The eyes of the fashion and showbiz world will be on Manchester on Thursday, December 7.
Planning for the event has said to have been months in the making. Yet everyone officially involved, including Manchester Council, are refusing to say anything, on the record, about it all.
The only official detail we’ve had from Chanel is that the event takes place on Thursday, December 7 in Manchester. The council say that more details about “The Northern Quarter event” (as it is not very secretly codenamed) will be announced “in due course”.
Even finding out about the road closures around the Northern Quarter has been like pulling teeth. The current position from the council is that there “may or may not” be rolling road closures around the event on Thursday evening from 3pm.
We know that Thomas Street, the connecting end of High Street and the roads around it will be completely shut off from the public between 3pm and 8pm on both Wednesday (thought to be for the dress rehearsal) and on Thursday for the main event.
However on Sunday people could once again freely walk up and down the stretch covered by the impressive metal structure – which is now festooned in flashing lights in preparation for the fashion’s glitterati. It looks so impressive that many are now saying they hope it can stay up there when Chanel has long sashayed away from the city.
What we also know is that ALL of the city’s five star hotels are completely booked out, as are the majority of four star venues too, on December 6 and 7. It’s a move that, taking into account top suites cost from between £1,000 -£3,000 night in the city, will have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
On Wednesday and Thursday nights next week you can barely get hold of a hotel room for less than £400. Even the cheapest room at Manchester’s famous budget hotel Sacha’s is currently priced at £265 – a hotel which in January will cost you just £36 a night.
Just looking around the city right now you can see that the scale of investment is huge, said to be in the millions. But the long term impact of the event is also set to be a multi-million pound boost to Manchester’s economy.
A hotel industry insider said it’s not just the influx of business in December that’s the win. They said: “Having Chanel in the city is huge. We are already getting an influx enquiries into the new year of people wanting to stay ‘because Chanel stayed here’.
“It’s putting Manchester on a world map, and showing that it’s a hugely desirable and cool destination, which in turn means more money being spent in the local economy.”
While the Northern Quarter is being transformed with what is expected to be the main runway event, the city’s historic Victoria Baths has been entirely booked out for a private event for Chanel, thought to be the official after-party.
Meanwhile the huge Diecast food hall at Piccadilly has been completely booked out on Wednesday, December 6, for what is understood to be a fashion industry event connected to Chanel. The sites are all scenes of feverish activity with huge crews of lighting and staging professionals creating events worthy of Chanel’s ultra-luxury brand.
To put the brand into context, Chanel is one of the world’s biggest luxury retailers – it made a mind-boggling £17BILLION in 2022. Revenues were up by 17 per cent year-on-year in their best ever year for sales.
They announced double digit growth across all categories of their business – which ranges from their make-up and perfume lines that you can purchase in your local Boots store, up to their jaw-droppingly expensive couture lines accessible only to the lucky few. They employ 32,000 people worldwide.
But this is a brand built on clear ambitions to do things others have never done before. Not least because that continues to take forward the ethos of its trailblazing French fashion founder Gabrielle Chanel.
Last year The Métiers d’Art fashion show was held in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, a first for Chanel in Africa, and the first-ever show held in Sub-Saharan Africa by any luxury fashion house. The brand says it has been proud to link artistic and cultural bonds on the African continent through long-term partnership programmes following the Métiers d’Art show there.
With the show taking place in Manchester this year, the hope is that there will be a similar legacy for our city too. There are said to be major educational programmes and partnerships being established with Manchester’s colleges of fashion, which the MEN has been told will all be revealed once the catwalk itself is all over.
Following the Metier D’Art show in Senegal, there was then a public Chanel exhibition staged in Dakar. It would suggest something similar is likely to happen in Manchester too, with more details expected to be announced in the coming days.
Leena Nair, Chanel’s Global Chief Executive Officer, said earlier this year after announcing their trading figures how important their “impact in the world” is to the brand. She said at the time: “As we look forward, our priorities are clear, focused on our belief in the transformative role of creation, our desire to have a positive impact in the world, and to always stay ahead of the curve.
Leena concluded: “As Gabrielle Chanel said: “être de ce qui va arriver” – “to be part of what happens next”.”
The fashion brand is said to be paying out compensation to bars and businesses affected by the huge scale of construction for the show in the Northern Quarter – rumours have swirled as to the cost of this. One bar is said to have closed for £47k for two weeks while other bars are said to have been closed at a price of £100k for just three days.
Many of the businesses along here have signed confidentiality agreements so we may never know exactly how much was shelled out. But it’s understood to have been worked out based on how much businesses made last year over the days of disruption which then added up the bar’s compensation package.
As one shop owner in the Northern Quarter who is being compensated for closure, but who asked not to be named, sagely put it: “It must be costing Chanel a fortune”.
Sacha Lord, Night Time Economy Advisor for Greater Manchester, said that the huge investment is not just a boost to the city this month, but offers long-term impacts far beyond it.
He said: “Obviously it’s very exciting that Chanel has chosen the Northern Quarter for its latest show. Firstly, I am pleased that those businesses affected by the construction have been recompensed accordingly, and I am pleased that the brand recognised this upfront.
“In terms of inbound tourism to the city, we already know that most, if not all, of the city’s top hotels have been fully booked for this event, and I’m sure trade across the fine dining restaurants in the city will also be extremely strong.
“Most importantly however is the recognition of Manchester’s unique culture and history which will be globally showcased over the coming week – this is something that you cannot put a price on. I have no doubt that this will raise the status of Manchester even further and the impact of this recognition will be felt for years to come.”
Chanel itself has today released the first details about the event, to inform its 50 million worldwide followers that for those not VIP enough to get an invite WILL be able to watch a film of the Métiers d’Art show on Friday morning from 9am. And the images they used in the posts also offered up some clues too.
The images were a composite of some significant cultural moments of Manchester – from Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst during a protest, through to Hacienda ravers with their hands aloft. The legacy of Manchester music is strong in the images – there is the original HQ of Factory Records, and one of the most iconic images of the label’s band Joy Division, in the snow, in Hulme in the 1970s.
Quite what this all means for the theme of the fashion show itself is yet to be seen. But we can be sure that it will be quite unlike anything Manchester has ever witnessed before.
The bill for private security alone for the event will be rocketing into the hundreds of thousands – with some 600 VIPs to contend with across multiple venues of the city. There are said to be coordinated traffic plans to ferry invited guests all around the city, again costing thousands of pounds in private hire vehicles.
Manchester Airport is set to see an influx of private jets across Tuesday and Wednesday, as some of the world’s wealthiest Chanel clients as well as superstar models and Chanel ambassadors arrive in the city for the show. It is not known if individuals, or Chanel, are footing those bills.
But for an idea of costs, to charter one private jet on December 6 from Los Angeles to Manchester, we were quoted between £96,000 – £150,000 via the Air Charter Service.
Exactly who will be arriving on those jets remains a closely-guarded secret. Previous events have seen the likes of supermodel Naomi Campbell and rock star Pharrell Williams in attendance.
Chanel’s ambassadors past and present include some of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars like Kiera Knightley, Margot Robbie, Hugh Grant, Riley Keogh, Penelope Cruz and Vanessa Paradis. The guest list is also set to include 400 Manchester stars – people who have made the city what is today.
There is not likely to be a red carpet arrival at the event, but the eyes of the world will be trained on the Northern Quarter on Thursday to see exactly what Chanel has in store. And to see how Manchester has shaped this latest chapter in the Chanel fashion story.
