Chanel has always looked to the stars, but this season, the stars looked back. Matthieu Blazy’s space-age debut sent the house hurtling into orbit, swapping Parisian poise for cosmic attitude.
A Galactic Stage for a New Narrative
From the moment guests entered the Grand Palais, a hush seemed to descend. Suspended above the runway loomed a solar system with a blazing sun, rotating Saturn, and other celestial bodies mirrored on a glossy, dark floor. The theatre of the moment seemed to signal that this piece was not merely a debut but a declaration.
Blazy spoke of universality and dreams: “I wanted a universal set, but one that would inspire dreams,” he explained. The staging was not just for drama: it invited conversation about spatiality, distance, and our shared sky.
Reinvention Rooted in Legacy
What makes a new creative direction resonate is the balance between reverence and rupture. Blazy anchored his collection in core Chanel signifiers, yet he transformed them through gesture and gesture alone.
The traditional Chanel jacket was recut: cropped, raw-edged, threaded with gold chains, and deconstructed. The small “suit uniform” paradigm yielded to trousers, fluid shirting, and more relaxed volumes. Tweed itself became lighter and airy, often imbued with novel textures.
Even the storied 2.55 bag was given a new narrative: quilted but scrunched, “lived in”, and carried as if it bore memory. Oversized camellias were torn into spiky urchin forms, a deconstructed tribute to Chanel’s floral signature.
Attitude, Irreverence, and Intimacy
If this were all about aesthetics, it might feel too safe. Yet Blazy imbued his work with attitude. His approach is unapologetically irreverent, but the irreverence is measured, poetic, and tied to memory.
Rather than seeking shock, he sought conversation. He inserted humour—suits in “clownfish” stripes, joyful feathered skirts, and playful asymmetry. In a house long steeped in restraint, such moments felt like deep breaths.
He also embraced diversity, not as a token, but in framing his vision. Ayo Edebiri was named a new Chanel ambassador, and the casting and front row underlined a global, contemporary sensibility.
Reverberations and Risks
Blazy inherits a house that is both powerful and protective of its legacy. For 16 months, Chanel operated without a creative director; now the torch passes to a relatively youthful outsider.
Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel, lavished praise on Blazy’s “insolence”, while reminding him the house must never lose its footing—Chanel is, after all, a £20 billion business.
This is not merely a stylistic reset but a business gamble: new forms must sell; the daring must resonate with established clientele and lure new ones. In that balance lies the true test.
Still, in that cosmic theatre, with a spinning Saturn overhead and light shimmering beneath the models’ paths, Blazy made a poetic statement: Chanel need not be static. It can orbit, evolve, and expand.
What to Watch next?
Two things will reveal whether this moment is transformative: first, the reception by Chanel’s loyal clientele—will they embrace the looseness, the deconstruction, and the attitude? And second, Blazy’s ability to sustain this momentum—whether the theatrical flourish can morph into a fully realised seasonal vision.
Next on his schedule? Chanel will stage its next major collection in New York. That is not just a location shift—it signals ambition, audacity, and the promise of a new cosmopolitan rhythm for a brand that has long defined elegance.
Blazy’s Chanel debut was more than a show. It was a reimagining—stellar, intimate, audacious. And the fashion world is watching to see if this season is the dawn of a new constellation.
