Amidst a cloud of seagulls mid-flight, Chanel's spring/summer 2027 show soared far above our (already very high) expectations
This season, literature has branded the fashion week zeitgeist. Just look at Valentino's book-smart Antibiblioteca, which took over the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, for an on-the-nose example. So as guests settled into the Grand Palais for Chanel's spring/summer 2027 runway show, under a swarm of seagulls, our minds naturally turned to birds in fiction: Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, and Selma Lagerlöf's geese flitting by.
That literary proclivity was made literal as the show opened. As the lights went up and the seagulls flickered to life one after the other, Nicole Kidman read an excerpt from Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography (1928). Birds cawing became her Greek chorus, all of it grounded by a rhythmic beat.
From the very first look, a sheer knee-length slip worn atop briefs and a cage bralette, reminiscent of vintage underwear, Blazy drew us in. The hem was frayed, as if birds had nipped and clawed at it in a very Hitchcockian way. We may be projecting, but knowing the erudite nature of Blazy, it feels like too much of a cinematic coincidence. Dyanira Hurbuscher, who wore that first look, carried Gabrielle Chanel's own 2.55, borrowed from the house archives.
Many-layered looks, building from transparency to opacity via knitwork, followed. Blazy's now-emblematic low-waisted tweed skirt suits, freshly detailed with Edwardian corsetry, were first up to bat, paired with crystalline necklaces exploding like fireworks from the models' necks. Unsurprisingly, camellia brooches burst from the necklines of 1920s- and 1930s-inspired silhouettes that paid homage to Chanel's halcyon days.
To truly understand the genius of Blazy, however, we have to zoom in. Dainty floral appliqués bloomed across dresses and erupted from hemlines. Standing knitted feather-and-fan collars folded out from collarless jackets. Perhaps as a response to the perfection of our algorithm-driven world, some looks carried the sense of being in process. A waistcoat with unfinished shoulder seams, for example, looked as if it had just been picked apart. It was visible in the floral-printed lining of a pocket, or a branded button.
A third of the way through the show, the everyday gave way to a swan-like palette cleanser: feathery skirts, made from layers of diaphanous white fabric that fluttered as the models walked, contrasted with constructed bodices in leather and denim. Colourful zebra print was an unexpected addition to the ladylike tailoring, as were the sequins soundtracked by Britney Spears – made less surprising by the onslaught of Y2K-era, hip-clinging extra-wide belts. Gossamer evening gowns stood out, one evocative of the sky on a summer's day, and the other of a starry night.
“Throughout their lives, women become multiple selves, different faces of the same coin," Matthieu Blazy wrote in the show notes. "It’s like a game of exquisite corpse, where one identity leads to another. It’s about the women within a woman. And here, it’s about one woman, Gabrielle, who then became Chanel.” The final chapter of the collection comes full circle, from the second skin of underwear at the start of her story – and the show – to the latest incarnation of the suit in the new ‘smocked tweed’.
The appearance of a pulp fiction trench coat sealed the aforementioned Hitchcock deal, while a birdcage minaudière, its birds flown, hinted at where Blazy's head was at. Three chapters into his conversation with Gabrielle Chanel, it is getting harder to tell where her voice ends and his begins. Birds of a feather, the pair of them.
See all the looks from Chanel's SS27 collection below.
