Behind Chanel’s—Chic, Discrete, and Very Chanel—Move Into Menswear

Right now, at the Chanel store in Soho, there are more crossbody bags and fanny packs on display (eight) than there are in the Supreme store a few blocks away (three). There is a big shelf of men’s sneakers—high tops, low-tops, hype-y, low-key, plimsoll, dad sneakers, knits, you name it—and a mesh nylon windbreaker and matching tank top in a women’s size 44 (about a men’s medium). It would look great on Future.

And just this week, Chanel announced its first capsule collection in the brand’s luxurious century-long history, made in collaboration with longtime fan-of-the-house Pharrell Williams. (Williams had teased the collection in a performance at the brand’s reprise Cruise show last October.) Williams says it’s gender fluid, and it includes hoodies, graffitied sneakers (“Women will save the world,” they read), very now shield sunglasses, loafers, bucket hats, jewelry and more in what the house calls “the colors of optimism.” All of it reads “CHANEL - PHARRELL,” as if these are now the two genders. But forgive us a moment of old-fashioned thinking: It’s all great stuff for guys, whether you’re in Miami or just running errands.

Since when is Chanel coming for men’s feet, men’s sacred hoodie collections, and—most terrifying of all, considering that aforementioned mesh jacket was $3550—men’s wallets? (And literally your wallet: one of the few dedicated men’s products in the store was, in fact, a wallet.)

Let’s back up for a moment. Chanel isn’t exactly courting a male consumer. The house has never produced full menswear collections, though rumors have circulated for years. (In 2017, for example, the house went so far as to issue a statement denying that they were planning to launch a men’s collection with Hedi Slimane.) It’s never “marketed” its menswear, which is to say it doesn’t have full dedicated runway shows, though every show includes a handful of men’s looks. (That includes the Metiers d’Arts collection, in which Williams and Alton Mason both walked, along with Chanel runway regular, the pocket-sized muse Hudson Kroenig.) It made a shoe with Williams that was available exclusively at Paris boutique Colette in 2017 (RIP!), and the brand also employed Brad Pitt to front a Chanel No. 5 campaign in 2012, with the tagline “Inevitable” (Axe had already taken “the man your man could smell like”). The house wrote in an email that a small amount of ready-to-wear and the aforementioned shoes are usually available at stores including 57th Street and Soho, as well as a selection of stores in California. But it’s not exactly raring to go turbo at Pitti.

Nonetheless—or perhaps...inevitably, depending on how much you believe in the Chanel mythos—Chanel has emerged as a coveted name in menswear in the past few years, particularly in hip-hop. Young Thug, Future, Gunna, and Lil Uzi Vert are fans. But they don’t get it by hunting through the racks like a real housewife, nor do they “Contact An Advisor,” as the brand’s e-commerce-free website suggests. For many, particularly Thugga and Future, the Chanel plug is Bobby Wesley. Wesley is regularly in contact with boutiques that have accounts with Chanel—Jeffrey, the New York boutique with an Atlanta outpost, is a go-to—as well as the standalone Chanel stores.

“My salesperson will call me and say, ‘Hey, we have this piece in a bigger size. It’s the only one,’” Wesley says. “And I’ll just buy it, just so that my client will have the exclusive piece.” The La Pausa white cashmere hoodie that Future posted on his Instagram story earlier this month, for example, is a Jeffrey’s special edition (brands will often create special pieces for long-time boutique clients).

Why are these men drawn to Chanel? “Because it’s rare,” Wesley says. “No one else is wearing it.” And that’s how rappers want to get dressed right now: “Alright, so everybody’s wearing this, so let me find something that no one else is wearing,” Wesley says. The fact that Chanel is known as a womenswear brand adds another layer of rarity: “When you have a brand like Chanel, that is so prominent, that is a big stamp in fashion—not just men’s, but womenswear—and a man can pull it off? I mean, that’s like the ultimate prize. Because every other guy is gonna want that piece that you’re wearing, but they can’t find it because it’s not in their size.”

Chanel has also found male fans outside of the well-styled world of hip-hop. The brand’s couture shows are well-attended by young male customers who pair a Chanel tweed jacket—very fitted—with high-heeled Tabi boots, one of the brand’s famous 2.55 bags worn clout pack-style, and fistfulls of costume jewelry. (Marc Jacobs, a true fashion fanatic, demonstrated the look perfectly on Instagram last July.) It all makes a certain kind of sense: most of Coco Chanel’s designs were borrowed from menswear, after all. “Guys are wearing more accessories,” Wesley says, and Chanel is clearly recognizing that. “The bags, the fanny packs, the chains. I actually just bought one of my clients a Chanel belt—the chains that say ‘Chanel’—[and] my client is gonna wear it as a crossbody…. They’re improvising, and they’re wearing it in other ways.”

Williams’s new capsule more formally taps into this energy, encouraging guys beyond the couture client and hip-hop bases to get a little more experimental. But while men’s clothing is big moolah and smart branding in the world of retail right now, this isn’t your garden-variety menswear capsule. The paucity of available merchandise, and the requisite flirtation with femininity, seems somehow just right for the brand, which has always been about guarding everything, down to its founder’s birthdate, like a state secret.

So perhaps we’re headed towards a future of double-C’s, with men carrying us there in women’s builts. And naturally (inevitably!), the two people I saw in Chanel’s Soho boutique trying on the men’s shoes were women.