Turning heads: Chanel-owned Maison Michel's high-class approach to hats

Turning heads: Chanel-owned Maison Michel's high-class approach to hats
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By Patricia Tavares
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Since 1936, Maison Michel has been producing stylish headpieces.

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Over the past hundred years, Maison Michel has imagined hats that are anything but an accessory. A reflection of its period, a dialogue with trends, a product that evolves as rapidly as the head it will dress: this is the mission of a fashion-house with a savoir-faire unaltered since its creation in 1936, yet constantly re-envisioned.

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As a part of Chanel’s Métiers d’Arts houses, Maison Michel collaborates with a selection of prestigious brands; since 2006, it also offers its own eponymous label characterized by the most cutting-edge creative approach.
Priscilla Royer, as its Creative Director, engages in a pragmatic reflection reaching beyond the hat to the head that carries it, geared towards the individual and his or her style.


Priscilla Royer

The aura of Maison Michel is carried by strong personalities – feminine as well as masculine—, products that combine innovative technologies, alternative cultural and historical references, wearability and attitude.

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At the Parisian ateliers, vocabularies are turned on their heads, and norms are shaken up. This way, Maison Michel perpetuates what hats have always achieved: to be a frame as well as a celebration of all faces.

1936: THE ORIGINS OF MAISON MICHEL
Auguste Michel opens his hat shop at 65, rue Sainte-Anne in Paris. At the time, women went to fashionable milliners and men to hat-makers for their headgear.

THE 1960’s: THE EMERGENCE OF READY-TO-WEAR
The post-war period saw a dramatic change in social behaviour and in the way people dressed, with ready-to-wear gradually replacing the bespoke tradition.

THE 1980s MAISON MICHEL, THE PRIVILEGED PARTNER OF HAUTE COUTURE
Haute Couture reigns over ready-to-wear, dictating the era’s fashion attitudes and trends. Maison Michel is in its element among a network of highly respected ateliers flexing their expertise.

1997: MAISON MICHEL JOINS CHANEL’S MÉTIERS D’ART PORTFOLIO OF SPECIALTY ATELIERS
Chanel, long dedicated to safeguarding Parisian know-how, acquires Maison Michel. Pierre and Claudine Debard retire in 2002.

2006: MAISON MICHEL LAUNCHES READY-TO-WEAR
Maison Michel launches its eponymous diffusion line under Laëtitia Crahay while remaining the official supplier to the major luxury houses, along with a separate bespoke service for VIP clients.

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