In the depths of British winter, Chanel sought out the damp, cloud-cloaked climes of the unlikeliest of places for its Métiers d'art showcase in December. Wittingly or not, creative director Virginie Viard set off a chain of chatter about the chosen Manchester, not least of all among the locals. One, however, presided over all of it with philosophical bearing. “Some of it doesn't make sense, which of course, is actually kind of interesting,” Mancunian Peter Saville says, settled in a corner of Free Trade Hall. Now a hotel, the locale was once the site of the Sex Pistols legendary performance in 1976, and of Bob Dylan's 1966 world-shaking choice to go electric, to which an audience member declared him Judas.
Saville, vaunted graphic designer and bellwether extraordinaire, is equipped to evaluate the convergence of Chanel and the northern city. As in-house designer of Factory
