Some crafts endure because they never stop evolving. Embroidering, weaving, working with feathers, or transforming fabric by hand are gestures that may carry centuries of history and still find new ways to exist. That is what makes savoir-faire so fascinating: preserving a technique does not mean keeping it unchanged, but allowing each generation to find its own way of carrying it forward. Today, CHANEL is taking that idea a little further with la Galerie du 19M SHANGHAI, a project where French artisanal tradition meets contemporary Chinese creativity to explore just how far savoir-faire can go.
preserving a technique does not mean keeping it unchanged, but allowing each generation to find its own way of carrying it forward.
From Paris to Shanghai
Behind a finished garment are crafts we rarely get to see. In 2021, CHANEL created le19M to bring together under one roof eleven Maisons d’art —specialized ateliers that preserve and reinvent some of haute couture’s traditional crafts— and more than 700 artisans and experts working in embroidery, feathers, flowers, weaving, and the countless details that make so much of fashion and decoration possible. La Galerie du 19M grew from that same idea: a space open to the public that brings us closer not only to the finished piece, but to the hands and knowledge behind it.
In 2026, that world is crossing continents to encounter an artisanal tradition different from its own. From September 25 to November 15, le19M and la Galerie du 19M will travel from Paris to Shanghai, taking over the entire third floor of the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP). For the first time in the city, Chinese and French creators and artisans will enter into direct dialogue with le 19M’s Maisons d’art, turning the museum into a meeting point for different techniques, materials, and ways of understanding craft.
When Two Traditions Meet
But bringing a craft somewhere new also means allowing that place to change the conversation. While this encounter takes shape through tools, materials, and techniques, it is ultimately brought to life by the people who work with them. Chinese and French artists and artisans will share the space, with some collaborating directly with le19M’s Maisons d’art to discover what can happen when knowledge learned in one place encounters a different way of creating. Two traditions —Chinese and French— come together to explore everything they might learn from one another.
And the story does not end there. Within this dialogue is another story that, much like the craft itself, has been evolving for more than a century. Lesage, the embroidery and weaving Maison founded in 1924, will arrive in Shanghai with a retrospective spanning one hundred years of savoir-faire, from some of its most emblematic creations to embroideries and tweeds made for CHANEL. It is a story shaped by three generations of artisans who have preserved Lesage’s techniques while continuing to find new ways to use them.
a space open to the public that brings us closer not only to the finished piece, but to the hands and knowledge behind it.
La Galerie du 19M: Savoir-Faire Beyond the Museum
It is one thing to admire a finished embroidery. It is another to understand the hands, hours, and knowledge it took to create it. La Galerie du 19M SHANGHAI will therefore complete the experience with talks, workshops, and educational activities that invite visitors to get closer to techniques that usually happen far from view. Touching the materials, discovering the tools, and understanding the time, precision, and knowledge behind each gesture turns the exhibition into more than a way of contemplating savoir-faire. It becomes an opportunity to understand why these crafts continue to have a place in contemporary fashion and creation.
And perhaps that is the most meaningful part of bringing le19M to Shanghai. It is not simply about showing what CHANEL’s Maisons d’art know how to do, but about creating a space where that knowledge can encounter other traditions. Shanghai is only the third international chapter for la Galerie du 19M and, after seeing how far this conversation can travel, it is hard not to wonder where it might go next. Could it one day make its way to Mexico?
We may not yet know how far this conversation will travel, but we do know what it needs to continue: new hands willing to learn, interpret, and carry it a little further. A craft can be passed down for generations, but its future depends on what each one chooses to do with it. After all, preserving savoir-faire has never meant keeping it still, but giving it the chance to keep evolving.
