Chanel Shanghai

KARL LAGERFELD may have tripped as he took his bow on the catwalk, but it was Shanghai who really fell for Chanel on Thursday evening. The great and the good of the Chinese city were getting their first taste of couture at a double celebration: the opening of Chanel's flagship store in the city, and the showing of the 2009 M'tiers d'Arts collection.

The collection is a special one that Chanel produce once ayear, to honour the ateliers and craftsmen of Paris. It's particularly fiddly, and filled with the quilting, embroidery, and hats that are the ateliers' specialities and Chanel's trademark. Shown in, and based on, a different country every year, this year's collection featured extended riffs on Mao-jackets and courtesan dresses. For the second year, the collection was preceded by a film directed by Karl Lagerfeld himself. The short, called Paris-Shanghai A Fantasy, The Trip Coco Only Made in Her Dreams depicted Coco Chanel dreaming of the city after falling asleep in her Rue Cambon apartment.

It's that apartment that has inspired the new store. Designed by Peter Marino, and filled with antiques, it's designed less like the usual black and white Chanel boutique, and more as series of salons, filled with specially commissioned artworks and discreet but plentiful staff who seemed to spend most of their first day wrapping bags.

Meanwhile, Baptiste Giabiconi - the man described as Lagerfeld's new male muse - sang at the afterparty. His pompadour the most resplendent thing in the room until Vanessa Paradis took the stage: the official lips of Chanel's 2010 lipstick range purring torch songs as the evening slinked on.