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It is the biggest job in fashion and Matthieu Blazy is knocking it out of the park. Chanel, the most famous fashion house in the world, with annual sales of almost $20bn (£14.6bn) and a designer lineage that includes Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, is an intimidating prospect for a 41-year-old Belgian designer who, until his appointment last year, was little known outside the industry. But this haute couture debut, his third collection for the house, confirmed that Blazy is off to a dream start.
The show concluded with a standing ovation from the audience including Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa. Backstage, veteran Chanel personnel were high-fiving each other – a remarkable display of giddiness in an industry where cool is all. In the Grand Palais venue, transformed into a willow wood of sugar-pink trees and fairytale giant mushrooms, clients tossed sable coats to the ground and clustered for grinning selfies. By every metric, approval ratings for the new-look Chanel are off the charts.
The show opened, of course, with a boxy suit, but in tissue-thin mousseline instead of traditional tweed, so that the chain traditionally sewn into the hem of Chanel garments, weighting them so they fall correctly, glittered under the lights and danced in the breeze. A slip dress with ropes of gems for spaghetti straps was glimpsed under a transparent jacket. A birdcage earring enclosed a tiny pearl. A perfectly neat little black dress turned to reveal a racer back framed by crimson feathers at the shoulder blades.
The clothes are chic and the craftsmanship heroic, but what sets Blazy’s Chanel apart is a warmth for the women who wear them, seen here in multigenerational, diverse casting. “Women who are more mature bring a completely different dimension to my clothes,” the designer said backstage after the show. “They are not just beautiful, they have lived, they are anchored, they have seen the world. I think it gives another dimension for the women who are going to buy the clothes, the idea that they can recognise themselves in something they see on the runway.”
Blazy said he wanted his first haute couture show to be light and joyful (“an adventure … I think the world is harsh”) and to include the stories of the women who would wear the clothes. He asked each model to choose something personal, to be woven into their outfit. “Some chose initials, the birthdate of someone they love, or they brought in a love letter or a line of poetry.” He mostly declined to give details – “they are intimate!” – but said that one model chose the word “kindness”. Lesage, Paris’s premier embroiderers, stitched these messages inside the garments, or on to fabric notes tucked into the pockets of quilted handbags.
The teaser trailer for the collection, with animated Snow White bluebirds dipping over Paris rooftops, had raised a few eyebrows before the show – Coco did not do cutesy – but Blazy pulled off a grownup magic trick. The trompe l’oeil winks that were his signature at Maison Margiela and Bottega Veneta continued, with denim jeans that at close quarters revealed themselves as painted mousseline – “I love a tank top and jeans”, said Blazy, who was wearing a Chanel quarter-zip sweater – and a raven-inspired dress with feathers crafted from leather. So far, the new Chanel is in a fairytale era.
