By Fiona Sinclair Scott, NCS
Paris (NCS) — After a month of designer debuts — greater than a dozen throughout style weeks in London, Milan and New York — the duty fell to Chanel’s new inventive director, Matthieu Blazy, to current his imaginative and prescient for the long run of one of historical past’s most storied homes.
Bringing Paris Fashion Week to an in depth on Monday night, the extremely anticipated assortment reveal was held the place Chanel has steadily staged reveals since 2007: the historic Grand Palais, which just lately underwent a multiyear, $500-million restoration.
The set wasn’t just a complete new world, it was a complete photo voltaic system. Enormous glowing planets hung overhead; others have been put in at floor stage, punctuating the venue’s gleaming black ground. Stars together with Margot Robbie, Penélope Cruz and Pedro Pascal sat entrance row, as did the label’s newly anointed model ambassadors Ayo Edebiri and Nicole Kidman — a return of kinds for Kidman, who was as soon as the face of Chanel No.
5 fragrance.
The spectacular glass-domed constructing stands lower than a mile from Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s first couture home on Rue Cambon, a historic Paris handle the corporate nonetheless occupies. As a tribute, the Grand Palais’ foremost entrance now bears Chanel’s identify, carved in stone — a symbolic gesture that was little doubt half of the deal struck when the label contributed a reported 25 million euros ($29 million) to the restoration undertaking.
What would Coco have made of the present final night time? It’s unimaginable to know, however enjoyable to take a position.
Would she have loved the references to some of her earliest hallmarks — a basic black tweed jacket embellished with white camellias, her favourite flower, for example — or would she have advised Blazy to neglect the previous fully? She was a shrewd saleswoman, notoriously outspoken and infrequently dismissive of nostalgia. “Fashion should die and die quickly, in order that commerce may survive,” she as soon as stated. “The more transient fashion is the more perfect it is. You can’t protect what is already dead.”
Following that logic, and with each Chanel and her well-known successor Karl Lagerfeld (who shared an analogous disdain for nostalgia) gone, Blazy has artistic license to take the home in a completely new course, one thing his speedy predecessor Virginie Viard didn’t try throughout her comparatively brief tenure. Lagerfeld’s right-hand lady for many years, Viard presided over the model following his loss of life, in a task that was extensively presumed to be transitional. While Chanel carried out nicely throughout this five-year interval (as one of the numerous luxurious labels to get pleasure from pandemic-related gross sales surges), the power of the collections and reveals waned, and Viard appeared to maintain her head down.
Her strategy stood in sharp distinction to that of Lagerfeld, whose picture grew to become arguably extra ubiquitous than Chanel’s interlocking double-C emblem throughout his 36-year reign. He was largely credited with awakening Chanel from a interval of slumber after its founder’s loss of life, turning the model into the powerhouse that it’s right now.
The late German designer was additionally a showman who reveled within the consideration his signature white ponytail, black tie, gloves and sun shades attracted. By distinction, Blazy cuts a remarkably much less recognizable determine — although his low-key private fashion of denims and T-shirt, and his under-the-radar public profile, shouldn’t be underestimated.
Having risen although the style trade working for some of its most generally revered designers, together with Raf Simmons and Phoebe Philo, Blazy held roles inside the design studios of Maison Margiela, Celine and Calvin Klein. In 2021, he grew to become the artistic director of Italian home Bottega Veneta, the place he loved a brief however very optimistic run on the Kering-owned model
Taking the artistic helm of Chanel as solely the fourth inventive director to ever lead the home, Blazy has been entrusted with one of the biggest and most sought-after — though maybe not essentially the most difficult — jobs in style.
The 41-year-old French-Belgian designer has entered one of right now’s few privately owned luxurious style homes. With roughly $20 billion in annual income, Chanel is one of the world’s strongest luxurious manufacturers. But not like labels working inside conglomerates like LVMH and Kering (that are obliged to submit quarterly financials), the corporate can work on its future with just a little extra privateness.
So, whereas there’s an urgency to the challenges dealing with some of Blazy’s friends at rival style homes, who’re moving into enterprise with quickly declining gross sales amid a sector-wide slowdown, he could also be given the posh of time to seek out his rhythm. During an interview with The New York Times in December, months forward of Monday’s present, Chanel’s president Bruno Pavlovsky stated, “We are not trying to put everything on the table from Day 1,” including: “We need to give it time.”
But this debut was hardly a delicate easing in. In truth, in an unique interview with the Business of Fashion, revealed Monday, Blazy stated he designed the brand new assortment as if it was his final.
The Spring-Summer 2026 present opened with a go well with, the jacket cropped on the waist and the sleeves rolled up. The slouch of the go well with was a refined precursor to what was to return — a group full of motion. At one level, ‘90s anthem “Rhythm is a Dancer” got here on, the energizing dance monitor bringing the garments to life as they slinked, swished and bounced their method down the runway. Edges have been frayed and uncooked, expressing a softness or, maybe, youthful carelessness: Even the luggage have been scrunched up and half open, as if their contents have been about to spill out onto the ground.
Nods to Chanel’s basic codes have been seen all through, although they have been modernized — boucle jackets have been lighter, their silhouettes softer.
The remaining ensemble, a colourful, voluminous skirt that seemed prefer it had been made from a mixture of shredded flowers and feathers, paired with a easy silk T–shirt, was joyful and frenetic — very like the viewers, which gave Blazy a standing ovation as he got here out to take his first bow for Chanel.
Blazy is a designer who is commonly praised for placing craft on the heart of his design follow, and tonight’s present was one other demonstration of this. Despite all of the potential distractions and hype — the thrill of the debut, the dramatic set and the A-list entrance row — the garments got here first, that a lot was clear.
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