Picture it: a Chanel boutique stocked with dreamy bouclé suits, quilted bags, slingbacks, and costume jewelry—except everything is made from plywood, corrugated cardboard, diamanté, and Lego. 31 Rue Cambon, Tom Sachs’ uncanny recreation of the house’s Paris flagship inside his longtime SoHo studio, is just that. It’s the latest in Sachs’s immersive riffs on brands and institutions—what he calls Gesamtkunstwerk—from McDonald’s in Nutsy’s (2003–2005) to NASA in Space Program (2007–present).
The leap to luxury fashion isn’t so great. Sofia Coppola’s recent book, Chanel Haute Couture, which Sachs calls a “punk rock zine of the Chanel archive,” describes couture as placing no limits on materials or construction. “The only things I can think of like that are art and the space program,” Sachs says. The handwork here may be couture-like, but the artifice is deliberate: much as Sachs once remade Mondrian in gaffer’s tape, exposed edges, ridged surfaces, and visibly humble materials give the game away. His insistence on leaving seams, tool marks, and material imperfections visible is central to the project.
Curated by fashion historian Colby Mugrabi, the project—named for the brand’s famous address where Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel kept her apartment—returns to themes Sachs explored in individual works like Tiffany Glock (Model 19) (1995) and Hermès Hand Grenade (1995) that recast deadly objects in upcycled luxury packaging. Chanel’s lawyers were less than amused by Chanel Guillotine (Breakfast Nook) (1998), but when it was shown at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac the following year, Ropac faxed Karl Lagerfeld a photo and received a one-line response: “I love it.” The piece is now in the Centre Pompidou’s permanent collection. Sachs’s current approach to luxury consumption feels less pointed, though the 31 Rue Cambon soundtrack mixes horror-movie scores with Chanel No. 5 advertisements. “You can’t be a critic of consumerism without being an active participant,” Sachs says with a wink.
Left: Naomi Campbell walks the Chanel fall 1995 haute couture show; Right, ‘Naomi,’ 2026. Courtesy of Tom Sachs Studio.
‘Slingbacks (Heel height, 2.6 in),’ 2026. Courtesy of Tom Sachs Studio
His appreciation for the finer things began in childhood, when his mother brought him along on shoe-shopping excursions to Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys New York. “I was this 12-year-old kid who read Thrasher magazine, but she always valued my opinion,” he recalls. After college, while working for Frank Gehry in Los Angeles, Sachs flew to New York to help with a Barneys window installation and ended up working with the retailer for years. While establishing his art practice, he helped build everything from Simon Doonan’s legendary fantastical window displays to clothing racks for Azzedine Alaïa welded from 22,000 pennies. “While all my friends were in graduate school, I was doing my time at Barneys,” he says. His boss, Adamo Di Gregorio, visited Sachs’s studio to critique the artist’s work through the practical language of presentation rather than art theory. “He helped me refine my vision through the lens of a window display,” Sachs says.
Now that same Centre Street studio, outfitted with cream awnings and wrought-iron gates, has three perfectly lit windows spotlighting Sachs’s plywood jackets, not so different from the Chanel boutique a few blocks away. Curious passersby are welcome, though, as at the real Chanel—where hours-long lines form for Matthieu Blazy’s latest designs—they will have to wait their turn. “Do I like the line culture and the exclusivity and the elitism of it?” Sachs says. “No, I hate it. But the space is tiny.” Inside, a mirrored vestibule hung with bicycle-reflector chandeliers gives way to plush beige carpeting and quilted plywood seating. Of the 31 jackets on view, 28 line the racks, reproducing Chanel looks worn by everyone from Inès de la Fressange and Naomi Campbell to Marge Simpson and Olivia Rodrigo. Sachs’s favorite is Coco Chanel’s 1960s ivory jacket, its nubby texture carved through white paint to reveal a pumice-flecked yellow layer beneath. And his wife, author Sarah Hoover, a longtime Chanel devotee and collector? “She likes everything,” Sachs says.
31 Rue Cambon is on view at Tom Sachs Studio, 245 Centre Street, New York, from September 11 through October 10, 2026; Thursdays and Fridays, 6–8 p.m., and Saturdays, 1–6 p.m.
