At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy explored fashion’s eternal duality: the practical and the fantastical, the caterpillar and the butterfly
At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy continued his dialogue with Gabrielle Chanel by staging a collection built on one of her most poetic observations: that fashion needs “dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.” In other words, the practical and the fantastical, or what Blazy framed as the caterpillar and the butterfly.
The show unfolded along that axis. Early looks grounded the collection in the house’s pragmatic heritage, with ribbed knits, bouclé tweed work shirts and blouson jackets reshaping the codes of the Chanel suit. Silhouettes drifted through the decades, from the dropped waists of the '20s through to the sharper lines of the '50s and '60s, then back to the '20s again, Layered yet lithe, the clothes were worn untucked and relaxed, oozing insouciance.
As day gave way to night in the line up of looks, the collection began to shimmer (as did the models' hair, as our keen-eyed beauty editor observed). Iridescent fabrics, beaded knit suits and gauzy, fluid dresses introduced a more nocturnal mood – what Blazy dubbed the papillon de nuit. Streamlined coats and sinuous gowns seemed made for movement, their light-catching surfaces suggesting a transformation from earthbound to airborne. Accessories completed the metamorphosis: pastel cap-toed boots that hugged the leg like a second skin, enamel and resin jewellery in saturated tones, and bags ranging from the practical suede flap to a surreal pomegranate minaudière.
Staged beneath a cluster of illuminated cranes at the Grand Palais, the set hinted at a house mid-construction, an apt metaphor for Blazy’s ongoing reorientation of Chanel. The show also arrived amid a wave of mild fashion world hysteria around the spring/summer '26 pieces landing in stores, where insiders have been queuing up for hours to get their hands on a Blazy debut design.
See the full Chanel AW26 collection below.
Photo: Courtesy of Chanel
Photo: Courtesy of Chanel
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