Moving Pictures photo by The New York Times

The Mobile Art container, which is to roam the world from 2008 to 2010 bearing installations by 18 international artists. But the real showstopper is bound to be the container itself: a Zaha Hadid-designed U.F.O. made of gleaming-white fiberglass with a ring of interactive exhibition space inside. Lagerfeld dreamed up the project after a chance encounter with Hadid in the lobby of the Mercer Hotel in New York; impressed by the starchitect’s ability to detach herself from “the totalitarianism of the Bauhaus,” he hoped that together they could reinvent the notion of a gallery while creating a spectacle that would align Chanel with contemporary art and design. The project’s curator, Fabrice Bousteau, calls it “a research investment.” Lagerfeld has already deemed it money well spent: “We could have inundated the world with ads,” he said. “But it is a more noble project.”

See also Wallpaper’s Mobile Art slideshow (photo below).

Zaha Hadid’s Chanel Mobile Art container photo by Wallpaper