Matthieu Blazy Gives Chanel a Fresh Start for Spring/Summer 2027

The opening look of Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel spring/summer 2027 show was a gauzy, sheer little dress—in white, not black, as the house so famously prefers—paired with Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 handbag. It distilled Blazy’s approach one year into his tenure as artistic director: Rather than rewriting the house’s codes, he’s revealing new dimensions within them.

Skimming the body with a feathery rosette blooming at the bust, the slip-like piece bridged Chanel’s past and present. It recalled Gabrielle’s beginnings as a seamstress in a lingerie atelier, setting the tone for a collection that folded the house’s history into the present.

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Blazy conceived the collection as a timeline, not literally to re-create Chanel’s past but to reveal its many layers. The blend of then and now (see the various “naked” and exposed underpinnings) reflected the way women dress: with a magpie’s eye for decades, mixing the ’30s with the ’50s, the ’90s, and whatever else feels right.

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A series of drop-waist skirts in a mélange of bouclé, wool, and brightly knitted fabrics nodded to Chanel’s pioneering embrace of the lowered waist, but Blazy brought them firmly into the present with “going-out” tops, tanks, and vividly embroidered jackets. These are familiar brand archetypes reassembled into something novel. Or, as Blazy put it, “Chanel-ized.”

Fragments of Gabrielle’s joie de vivre were scattered throughout the collection: a mismatched printed suit with a blue-and-orange harlequin collar, ballerina tulle dresses with Edwardian corsetry that recalled the Ballets Russes, or seemingly never-ending variations of her famed cap-toe heels.

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That idea found its clearest expression overhead. An illuminated flock of swifts and swallows crossed the Grand Palais ceiling, inspired by the migratory birds Blazy watches in Calabria. For him, they embodied Gabrielle’s journey.

“This is not a historical collection; it’s a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories,” he said. “Ultimately, Chanel took off, and each step she took led to her being free, like a bird.”

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Under Blazy, Chanel’s history has become remarkably light on its feet. Take the white-and-black drop-waist midi, one of two Lesage collaborations, for example. It recalled the Jazz Age while capturing its easy, liberated approach to dressing that resonates to this day.
That philosophy defined the collection. “Young girls playing with their grandmother’s clothes—your old Chanel can still be new,” he explained. “It’s what you decide to do with it.”

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A quartet of looks inspired by the changing sky—from dawn through night, ending with Anok Yai in a constellation-print dress—gave way to Blazy’s vision for Chanel now. Pleated miniskirts, softened tweeds, and suit jackets worn against bare skin evoked a woman caught between “seduction and dressing like a man.” “I like the idea that you wear your Chanel suit like a T-shirt,” he said.

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Blazy’s dialogue with the past never collapsed under the weight of its own meaning. The pieces remain light, wearable, even playful, a feeling crystallized by the show’s final needle drop. A mash-up of Britney Spears’s “Gimme More” sent guests, including Dua Lipa, Nicole Kidman, and Ayo Edebiri, out with a smile.

Matthew Velasco is the Fashion News Editor at ELLE. Based in New York City, he previously worked as a News Writer at W magazine and an Assistant Editor at V magazine. Outside of fashion, he enjoys interior design, tennis (both watching and playing), and a jam-packed antique store.