The CHANEL and le19M Chair in Fashion Savoir-Faire.

In September 2021, CHANEL, le19M, and the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM) joined forces to create a Chair in Fashion Savoir-Faire, headed by Émilie Hammen.

The five-year partnership has created a centre of research and teaching excellence in fashion savoir-faire, within a school that is a global reference.

Since acquiring the Desrues costume jeweller in 1985, CHANEL has been committed to maintaining and developing its Métiers d’art and manufactures, which now include some fifty workshops around the world, 11 of which are located at le19M.

With this chair, the Institut Français de la Mode is strengthening its research in support of the educational excellence offered to its 1,300 students, by investigating the field of Métiers d’art and analysing their contribution to the tradition and innovations of the fashion industry. It also helps to raise awareness among students at the Institut Français de Mode, who are the future players in the industry, of trades that deserve greater recognition.

The CHANEL and le19M Chair in Fashion Savoir-Faire is headed by Émilie Hammen, who has a doctorate in art history from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and trained as a designer, both in applied arts at the ESAA Duperré and in fashion design at the IFM. A lecturer and exhibition curator, her publications focus on the history of fashion, its historiography, and the conections between fashion and the avant-garde.

The lectures given as part of the first year of the Chair’s research seminar are the subject of a book, the first volume in a collection, entitled Les Savoir-faire de la mode, published in French in November 2023, with in an English edition launched at the V&A Museum in London in February 2024.