Looks Fashion News

At long last, the moment was here. After 10 months of preparation and 14 other spring 2026 debuts, it was finally time for Matthieu Blazy’s first Chanel collection. At just minutes past 8 p.m., the scheduled start time, nearly everyone was in their seats, with a solar system’s worth of planetary orbs glowing above us. Home of countless iconic Karl Lagerfeld collections for Chanel, the Grand Palais is a massive stage and a visual metaphor for the giant leap that Blazy was about to make, as only the fourth designer to helm the house that Coco Chanel founded 115 years ago.

To point out that anticipation was high is an understatement, but to say that the 41-year-old French Belgian rose to the occasion and more is no hyperbole. Blazy’s Chanel was the season’s most compelling debut: assured, modern, and easy in a way that few of Milan’s and Paris’s more historical-leaning collections have managed, but without compromising on the finesse or savoir faire so linked with the house.

The icons of Coco Chanel’s brand are well known by all in fashion: the little black dress, the tweed suit, the body-freeing knit jersey, the camellia, the double Cs. Nonetheless, from his very first day, Blazy said backstage, he went into the archives. “I felt very overwhelmed. It was too much beauty, almost, and I didn’t know where to take it from.”

One of his first instincts, he explained, was to consider Chanel’s adoption of her boyfriend Boy Capel’s wardrobe and the rule-breaking way she made the utilitarian aspects of traditional men’s tailoring her own. The cropped pantsuit jackets that opened the show were based on a jacket of Blazy’s own that he chopped off at the waist and altered the buttons on, and the boxy button-downs that came later were a collaboration with Charvet, the famous Place Vendôme shirtmaker; apparently he added Chanel’s signature metal link chain, which makes the house’s jackets hang just so, to the shirt’s hem for a similarly eye-pleasing effect.

At Bottega Veneta, where Blazy spent nearly three years as creative director, he made his reputation as a material-minded innovator. No one will forget the tank top and jeans from his first show that were actually, unbelievably, leather. Fabric innovation was top of mind for him here too. Tweed can turn lumpy fast, but Blazy’s looked fairly weightless in comparison. “I use viscose because it gives something quite dynamic to the fabric,” he said, “and [the suits] became very light.”

Lagerfeld was at the height of his powers in the aughts. It’s been years since Chanel’s cropped tweed jacket was a cult item, wildly desirable and widely copied, but Blazy made a case for its fashion comeback. Knit V-necks with undershirts peeking from the hems and matching wrap skirts looked equally satisfying to wear, as did the sweater and skirt sets with camellias embroidered at the hem.

For all her practicality and inventiveness, Coco Chanel also had an eccentric streak; she challenged convention with such conviction it eventually became convention. That’s how striped tops and thick ropes of pearls, for instance, became not just house signatures but styles that transcended her brand. Matthieu Blazy was intent on breaking convention too. The ribbed cotton peeking out from above the waistlines of his low-slung skirts and trousers? “I was interested in the fact that the first-ever jersey Coco Chanel found to make the marinière was used to make underwear,” he explained. “And there is also a personal story—my grandfather worked in a factory of men’s underwear.”

The underwear detail added a note of cool, contemporary realness to the collection—a quality reinforced by the new 2.55 bag, which featured wire added to its flaps so the wearer can manipulate it. The idea, Blazy said, was to make it look not old but well loved. “I was interested in that kind of aspect of time and something you cherish,” he said.

Though he had Nicole Kidman and Ayo Edebiri, his new brand ambassadors, in his front row, there was nothing as conventional as a red-carpet dress. Instead, he paired satin T-shirts with befeathered ball skirts, their hems rising up a few inches in front to show off the updated cap-toe shoes. “The good thing with the codes of Chanel is that you can reduce them and they still look like Chanel,” he said. Blazy’s message: This is only just the beginning.