CHANEL · Black Shimmer Tweed Coat with Gripoix Jewel Buttons
— Paris / London Métiers d’Art 2008 · Karl Lagerfeld

• Rare Runway Collectible • Exquisite Archive Piece

// A dark, highly resolved expression of Lagerfeld’s Paris–London vocabulary //

Paris / London was never simply Chanel dressed as Britain.
Lagerfeld went back to one of the formative episodes in Gabrielle Chanel’s own history: her relationships with Boy Capel and the Duke of Westminster, and the British wardrobe that entered Chanel through them — tweed, practical knitwear, masculine ease, country clothes and the extravagant jewellery she famously wore without deference to convention.

For this 2008 Métiers d’Art, Lagerfeld did not reproduce that history literally. He unsettled it. Familiar Chanel forms were given roughened surfaces, exaggerated jewels and a darker London edge.

This black coat is especially convincing because that tension is visible in the object itself. Its architecture is pure Chanel; its treatment is not.

// Size mark 38 FR / Condition: pristine, lining is pristine, Gripoix buttons details are thoroughly intact and perfectly kept //

MATERIAL AUTHORITY

• Woven in darkest black Chanel tweed, the fabric has a dense, almost nocturnal surface threaded with minute points of reflected light

• The weave is deliberately tactile rather than pristine — soft fibres and slightly irregular tweed weave create the kind of controlled roughness that ran through Paris / London, where apparently distressed tweeds were elevated through couture execution rather than polished into conventional perfection

• The fluffy interwoven texture gives the coat substance without turning it heavy, allowing the black to feel layered rather than flat

• This is precisely where the collection’s English reference becomes interesting: not costume tweed, but tweed made less polite — luxurious workmanship carrying an intentionally rougher visual register

HOUSE CODES

• The coat retains Chanel’s canonical four-patch-pocket construction, giving the front an immediate sense of order

• Gripoix jewel buttons set with stones punctuate the front and pockets, recalling the oversized jewellery vocabulary that Chanel herself absorbed during her British years and wore in deliberately unconventional abundance

• Their darkened metallic finish keeps the jewellery within the black composition rather than allowing it to become decorative punctuation

• Around the edges runs zipper-inspired metallic trim, and this is where the Paris / London idea sharpens most clearly

• Instead of conventional braid, Lagerfeld introduces hardware with a harder register — something closer to London’s rock and punk vocabulary — while leaving the underlying Chanel coat completely legible

• It is a very Lagerfeld move: the House code is not erased; it is made slightly unstable

SILHOUETTE

• Elongated jacket-coat proportion

• High collar creating a narrow, controlled upper line

• Lightly shaped waist without aggressive tailoring

• Four pockets placed symmetrically across the body

• Inside, black silk lining restores absolute refinement, creating the quiet interior counterpart to the more charged exterior