Light, Seoul, and CHANEL

D-1: The stage for the CHANEL Métiers d’art 2026 show in Seoul is already glowing.

It is transparent. And into that transparency, light enters. By day, natural light filters deep inside through the glass facade; by night, the glow emanating from the building spills out into the city, giving rise to an entirely different landscape. In the end, this place is renewed by light.

The venue for the CHANEL Métiers d’art 2026 show in Seoul has been unveiled for the first time. The location: Fondation Pompidou Hanwha, set within the 63 Building in Yeouido, Seoul. Overlooking the broad sweep of the Han River, the space carries within it the DNA of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Led by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, one of France’s most celebrated architects, the project boldly departs from the 63 Building’s original structure, replacing it with a clean, contemporary facade that stands in deliberate contrast to the tower’s iconic gold exterior, embodying the coexistence, collision, and energy that define Seoul as a city.

If the Seoul of today is defined by synergy and coexistence, by collision and a certain experimental spirit caught somewhere in between, then Fondation Pompidou Hanwha, unveiled ahead of its official opening, is a fitting stage. On May 26, it will be transformed into the setting for the CHANEL Métiers d’art 2026 show in Seoul: a runway and front row where countless gazes and movements converge, while simultaneously becoming one enormous scene.

The show draws particular attention as the first Métiers d’art collection by Artistic Director Matthieu Blazy to be restaged in Seoul, following its debut in New York. There, the collection unfolded within the space of a subway, a show in which students, innovators, politicians, teenagers, and figures straight out of pop culture, each dressed in their own way, moved in every direction. Rather than simply walking a runway, the models became part of a living, breathing city, blending into the morning commute like any other New York crowd. The story told through that Métiers d’art collection, one that used New York itself as a metaphor, now continues in Seoul. A city where river and boulevard, tower and park exist side by side. Where speed and stillness overlap, and different energies converge: the CHANEL Métiers d’art 2026 show in Seoul is poised to create yet another scene within the city’s particular rhythm.

What must not be overlooked, in the end, is the light. Light spreading across the Han River, light reflecting off glass, a quiet glow seeping from somewhere along a road or down an alleyway. Seoul’s light moves between gaps and surfaces, and in doing so, it shapes the city. Perhaps what Chanel seeks to illuminate through this stage is something close to that very quality of shimmer, light that brushes past, intersects, and bleeds outward. Within it: anonymity and diversity in coexistence, and the rhythm of the city itself. That story is about to unfold, inside Fondation Pompidou Hanwha, where art and architecture, light and fashion converge.