How the golden “Egyptian” collection of shoes “Metiers d'Art-2019” was created for the Chanel fashion show in December

In early December, Chanel Fashion House demonstrated in New York its collection “Metiers d'Art-2019” (“Art of Masters”), the Egyptian-style golden boots with heels inlaid with semiprecious stones and enamel pieces painted with beetles painted in hit the collection scarabs and brand logo in the form of crossed “C” letters. Journalists of the American edition of Footwearnews were lucky to visit the brand’s workshop and see the process of creating this unique shoe. According to Footwearnews, Chanel's "Massaro" workshop receives shoe sketches a month before its intended release from Chanel's creative director Karl Lagerfeld and brand's shoe designer Lawrence Dakada. The work on creating the finished model begins from the end, that is, with sculpting the heel mold. Then a drawing of shoes is created on the last without a top drawing. The next step is to soak the leather with water and wrap it around the last. The pieces come together to form part of the upper. The sock should be the strongest, and the leather that will be distributed along the sides should be thinner. Because of this, there is a need for a different thickness of the leather. Therefore, one of the craftsmen thinned out the details of the hide, doing it with a special knife on a piece of thick glass. Another craftsman cut pieces of leather into straps for the collection's gold "Egyptian sandals", as indicated in the comments to the sketches of the models obtained from the brand's headquarters. These parts were subsequently densely covered with cotton to strengthen the leather. As soon as the soles were attached in place, the craftsmen took up the fastening of the heels. Semi-precious stones and enamel painting for heels were created by two other Chanel workshops, the Goossens jewelers and the Desrue button makers. They worked to create metal leathers that were attached to the structure created by Massaro. In total, Massaro has developed about 8 shoe models for the December Chanel show. Starting from 2002 of the year once a year, in December, the creative director of the French fashion house Chanel Karl Lagerfeld presents a collection devoted to artistic crafts - CHANEL's Métiers d'art. Each show is a vivid demonstration of the continuous creative dialogue between designers and artisans, which supports the fashion house, and which allows you to create unique pieces and preserve the artistic, technical and cultural heritage of the brand. House Chanel was the first to interact since 1985, and then to acquire workshops and ateliers Métiers d'art, uniting them under the "Paraffection" emblem. Today "Paraffection" unites twenty-six art houses and manufactories. At the moment, it is the only Fashion House that completely devotes one of its Prêt-à-Porter collections to the invaluable know-how of its workshops, which help to strengthen the prestige of French fashion and luxury around the world. The last Métiers d'art 2018/19 fashion show took place in December 2018 in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As conceived by Karl Lagerfeld, a collection dedicated to the art of Ancient Egypt was demonstrated against the background of the Egyptian Temple of Dendur (c. 15th century BC), which is one of the exhibits of the "Egyptian section" of the Meropolitan Museum.