By Aaron Kok - published
In the span of less than a year, Matthieu Blazy has done something that many creative directors spend seasons—sometimes entire tenures—trying to achieve at their posts: Blazy has made the house of Chanel feel thrillingly alive again.
By the time fall/winter 2026 arrived at the Grand Palais, the context around the collection was already electric. Blazy’s debut spring/summer 2026 line had just begun landing in stores and, by all accounts, it had triggered a retail frenzy. Editors were queueing in boutiques, group chats were ablaze with screenshots of sold-out bags, and the fashion ecosystem—famously difficult to impress—had entered a rare state of collective desire. This sophomore ready-to-wear outing therefore carried a particular weight because if nothing else, Blazy was out to prove that lightning could strike twice.
Having already established the grammar of his Chanel in three collections prior—two ready-to-wear shows and one haute couture outing—fall/winter 2026 shows him speaking the language with real fluency.
The starting point is Gabrielle Chanel’s famous observation that fashion must serve both the “caterpillar and the butterfly”: clothes that work by day and those that fly by night. Blazy treated this as a kind of structural device for the collection itself, where the inflection of function and fantasy, reality and transformation existed in deliberate tension throughout the show.
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The opening looks are almost monastic in their restraint. A series of pared-back skirt suits—black or cream ribbed knits punctuated with gold buttons—reintroduce the Chanel suit as a foundational object. Yet even here, the proportions signal that something is shifting. Jackets are boxier, shoulders subtly softened, while skirts skim the body with a nonchalant ease that feels more Saint-Germain café than boardroom etiquette.
Blazy’s most intriguing move, however, lies in the waistline—or rather, its absence. Throughout the collection, belts sit dramatically low on the hips, creating a trompe-l’œil effect that makes silhouettes appear almost drop-waisted. It’s a clever nod to the 1920s flapper line that’s been resurfacing all season long, but rendered with contemporary sharpness. The elongated torso gives the body a languid, slightly awkward and jaunty elegance, and this was exactly the sort of tension that makes fashion interesting again. It also makes Chanel feel unexpectedly young.
That youthfulness surfaces in the outerwear as well. Tweed blousons—one of the more radical propositions of Blazy’s tenure so far—continue to evolve, appearing alongside workwear-inflected overshirts and cropped jackets. The effect is subtle but significant: the house’s most sacred textile is suddenly being worn with the casual attitude of streetwear. You could imagine these jackets thrown over jeans just as easily as they are paired with matching skirts.
And then there is the colour. For a fall/winter collection, the palette is nothing short of delicious. Electric knits ripple with graphic patterns reminiscent of early modernist abstraction. A shaggy coat explodes into a Sonia Delaunay-like swirl of yellow and crimson. Metallic gauze-like dresses glimmer in iridescent tones of peach or teal, and they seem to metamorphosize in colour with every step. The collection gradually moves from the grounded earthiness of day into the hyper-saturated shimmer of night—mirroring the caterpillar-to-butterfly arc Blazy describes in the show notes.
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The fabrics themselves are miniature feats of engineering. Tweeds are interwoven with silk jersey to achieve a surprising fluidity. Suits are knitted with paillettes or beaded threads yet remain remarkably light on the wearer’s figure. Elsewhere, slinky slip dresses shimmer with embroidered constellations, catching the light like little fireworks. Chanel’s legendary ateliers are clearly being given room to flex, and the results are exquisite.
Accessories, too, play their part in this dialogue between pragmatism and fantasy. Jewellery arrives in colour-saturated enamel and resin, sometimes paired with artificially tinted mother-of-pearl pieces that glow with Impressionistic softness. Second-skin boots—cap-toed and rendered in pastel leather—hug the leg like surreal stockings, while bags range from the practical suede flaps, which already feels destined to become a modern pillar piece, to the whimsical: a pomegranate minaudière glinting with intoxicating red enamel, somewhere between objet d’art and fashion treasure.
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Yet for all its craft and spectacle, the real achievement of this collection is its sense of ease.
Blazy seems to understand that the magic of Chanel lies not in reverence, but in context. Gabrielle Chanel herself built her revolution by borrowing from the wardrobes of working women and men—turning practicality into luxury simply by reframing it. Blazy channels that spirit with remarkable clarity. One moment he is referencing 1920s drop-waist silhouettes; the next he is proposing a tweed jacket that feels entirely contemporary. The result is a wardrobe that feels strangely believable, even when it sparkles.
By the time the finale arrives, the mood has shifted decisively into the nocturnal. Iridescent metal-mesh suits glint under the lights, slip dresses dissolve into fluid movement, and the room fills with the unmistakable opening beats of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”. It is a delightfully irreverent ending for a house that has often been accused of taking itself too seriously. The message, of course, is simple: fashion can still be joyful.
And judging by the hysteria already surrounding Blazy’s first pieces in stores, it seems likely that this collection will spark another wave of Chanel mania when it lands come September. After all, the most powerful thing a designer can do is not merely reinterpret a house code—but make people want it again. And for all that he has set out to do at Chanel, it seems that Matthieu Blazy has found the rhythm to make it sing.