On October 6, 2025, the lights went down on a solar-system set in the Grand Palais. The Matthieu Blazy Chanel era had begun. Seven runway shows later, the house has a designer with a hand you can spot from the back row. We did not interview Blazy. This profile draws on the shows, the reviews and his published words. Each quote links to the outlet that printed it.
Chanel named Blazy, then at Bottega Veneta, its artistic director of fashion activities in December 2024, WWD reported at the time. The debut carried unusual weight. In her Vogue review, Nicole Phelps noted that Blazy, then 41, was only the fourth designer to lead the house Coco Chanel founded.
The debut that set the tone
The spring 2026 show opened with a checked wool pantsuit, its jacket chopped short. In her review for WWD, Joelle Diderich traced the look to Boy Capel, the man Gabrielle Chanel loved. She also noted shirts made with the Paris shirtmaker Charvet. Blazy explained the starting point to her plainly. “I was interested in the revolution she brought, and there was no way back,” he told WWD on October 6, 2025.
He also described how far the house codes could bend. “The good thing with the codes of Chanel is that you can also reduce them. They still look like Chanel,” he said in the same review, a line that sums up the Matthieu Blazy Chanel method.
Critics were warm. Phelps, writing for Vogue, called it “the season’s most compelling debut.” That night, Vogue also gathered first reactions from guests to the Matthieu Blazy Chanel debut. For a closer look at where that first idea led a year later, see our review of Chanel spring 2027.
A subway car in New York
Next came the first Matthieu Blazy Chanel Métiers d’Art show, on December 2, 2025. Blazy skipped the grand salon. He chose the disused Bowery station of the J and Z lines, and guests boarded a C train. WWD’s Emily Mercer reported his explanation of the styling, which turned on two everyday props. “Because you have two accessories in New York: a dog and a coffee cup,” he told WWD.
Vogue’s Phelps, meanwhile, called the collection “head-spinningly great.” Blazy told Vogue why the setting mattered to him. “I was interested in the New York subway because I think it’s the one and only city of the world where every strata of society are using it… and I think it’s a place that has no hierarchy,” he said.
Not everyone was swept up. Cathy Horyn, writing in The Cut, said the show “failed, in my view, to lift off,” although she called the collection itself “superb.” That split between staging and clothes would come up again during the year.
Matthieu Blazy Chanel couture, first round
In January 2026 came the first Matthieu Blazy Chanel haute couture collection. Harper’s Bazaar described the set as a bubblegum-pink forest of willows and Alice-in-Wonderland-sized mushrooms. The next day, The Business of Fashion looked at the new couture designers at Chanel and Dior. It noted that Blazy now stages six shows a year.
Blazy returned to his idea of subtraction. “With Chanel, you can remove everything – you don’t need the gallon, you don’t need the pockets, it doesn’t have to be tweed,” he told AnOther. “It’s still Chanel.” So the couture debut read as a stripped-back version of the same argument he had made in ready-to-wear.
Cranes, a dream and a quiet revolution
The fall 2026 ready-to-wear show took place on March 9, 2026, on a set framed by construction cranes. Blazy described the concept to Vogue in terms of building. “I was interested in the idea of building a dream, a work in progress,” he said. Then he summed up what the house means to him. “That’s what Chanel is for me… this quiet revolution, but boom.”
Phelps opened her review with the “pandemonium” in the house’s Paris stores, where, she reported, editors and models waited hours to buy.
However, the season brought the first sustained criticism. Angelo Flaccavento, reviewing for The Business of Fashion on March 10, found the collection “slightly formulaic.” After a debut with near-universal praise, that note stood out.
Biarritz and the little black dress
On April 28, 2026, the Cruise 2027 show went to Biarritz. Gabrielle Chanel opened her first couture house there in 1915. The venue was Le Casino Municipal. Sarah Mower reviewed it for Vogue, noting that Blazy played on the beach there as a boy. Matthew Velasco, writing for Elle, noted that the little black dress dates to 1926. Blazy offered his own version.
The choice of town gave this Matthieu Blazy Chanel cruise collection a clear historical anchor. It also showed how closely Blazy reads the archive. The debut drew on Boy Capel, and the cruise show on the Biarritz shop. Again and again, a show started from a chapter of the founder’s life.
A fairy tale for couture
The fall 2026 couture show on July 7 had a set that Vogue traced to “Jack and the Beanstalk” and the film Jumanji. Even so, Blazy pushed back against spectacle in his comments to Mower at Vogue. “Chanel couture is not about the big wow,” he said. As a result, the attention fell on handwork and fabric rather than on the set alone.
Spring 2027 and the birds
Then came the anniversary, and the show that closed the first Matthieu Blazy Chanel year. On October 5, 2026, Blazy showed spring 2027 at the Grand Palais under 95 suspended birds. There were 83 looks. Nicole Kidman read Virginia Woolf on the soundtrack, which ended on Britney Spears’s “Gimme More.” The show opened and closed with Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 bag. It also introduced a stretch fabric with the look of tweed.
Diderich, reviewing for WWD, called it “the year’s most successful brand revival.” Blazy framed the year in terms of range. He told WWD that he and the atelier had tried to show “not just one woman, but the many women that could enter or belong to the world of Chanel.” He was also frank about his references. “We all look at Nike,” he said.
In its key takeaways from Paris, Vogue described a “year-long success streak,” pointing to a Charvet shirt and to a shoe frenzy built on cap-toed heels, with a different heel for each of the 83 looks. Monocle placed Chanel at No. 10 on its list of the week’s best shows. “Texture has quickly become Blazy’s signature,” it wrote, citing a smocked tweed. Our full Paris Fashion Week spring 2027 coverage puts the show in the context of the week.
The codes, one by one
A year of reviews also shows which house codes Blazy returns to most. So it helps to track them one at a time.
Tweed
Tweed has changed the most. At couture in January, Blazy told AnOther that Chanel “doesn’t have to be tweed.” By spring 2027, WWD reported a stretch fabric that looks like tweed and moves like athletic wear, and Monocle singled out a smocked tweed. In other words, the look stayed, but the cloth now moves.
The shirt
The Charvet shirt also keeps coming back. WWD noted it in the debut, and Vogue pointed to a Charvet shirt again in its spring 2027 takeaways. Because the shirt nods to men’s tailoring, it links back to the Boy Capel story that opened the first show.
The bag and the shoe
Then there are accessories. The 2.55 bag, in Gabrielle Chanel’s own example, opened and closed the anniversary show, according to WWD. Vogue, meanwhile, reported a frenzy over cap-toed heels, with a different heel on each of the 83 looks.
Again and again, a show started from a chapter of the founder’s life.
What the Matthieu Blazy Chanel year adds up to
Taken together, the reviews describe a consistent method. First, Blazy goes back to the founder’s biography, from Boy Capel to Biarritz. Next, he strips a code down to see if it still reads as Chanel. Then he adds texture, which Monocle now calls his signature. Critics disagreed mainly on the staging, as Horyn did in New York, and on whether the method risked repeating itself, as Flaccavento argued in March.
Meanwhile, the commercial signals in the reports have been positive. Vogue described busy Paris stores in March and a shoe frenzy in October. The current collections are on Chanel’s fashion site.
Matthieu Blazy Chanel questions, answered
When did Matthieu Blazy join Chanel?
WWD reported his appointment in December 2024. His first show for the house was spring 2026, on October 6, 2025, at the Grand Palais.
What was the Matthieu Blazy Chanel debut like?
It took place on a solar-system set, opened with a cropped checked pantsuit and included Charvet shirts, according to WWD. Vogue called it the season’s most compelling debut.
What have critics criticized?
Cathy Horyn said the New York Métiers d’Art show did not lift off, while praising the clothes. Angelo Flaccavento called the fall 2026 show slightly formulaic.
What is Blazy’s signature?
Monocle wrote in October 2026 that texture has become his signature. Blazy told both WWD and AnOther that the house codes can be reduced and still look like Chanel.
What to watch in year two
The calendar stays crowded, since BoF counted six shows a year in the role. The open questions are practical ones. First, can the sets keep surprising guests without crowding out the clothes, the issue Horyn raised in New York? Second, will the method of subtraction keep feeling fresh, the doubt Flaccavento raised in March? His line to Vogue in July, that couture “is not about the big wow,” reads like an answer to the first.
Chanel has used December for Métiers d’Art before. Vogue recalled Karl Lagerfeld’s final one, at the Met in December 2018, and Blazy’s Bowery show came on December 2, 2025. If the house keeps that slot, the second Matthieu Blazy Chanel Métiers d’Art show will be the first test of whether year two keeps the birds or clears the stage.