PARIS — Chanel 's Matthieu Blazy is still building.
Six months into his tenure at the Parisian stalwart, the designer staged his second ready-to-wear collection at Paris Fashion Week Monday, where brightly colored cranes rose from a holographic floor — a deliberate signal that the construction is ongoing.
For Parisians who have spent years staring at the real thing above Notre-Dame cathedral, the set was perhaps less dreamy than intended.
The audience inside the Grand Palais suggested the foundations are solid: Margot Robbie, Oprah, Jennie, Kylie Minogue, Lily-Rose Depp, Teyana Taylor and Olivia Dean all turned up to watch the next floor go on.
Blazy took his cue from a quote from Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel: “We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.”
The collection was structured around that tension — plain against spectacular, function against fantasy — with a discipline his sprawling debut last October sometimes lacked.
The opening looks were austere by design.
Black knit zip-ups, tweed blousons and boxy overshirts arrived with little more than four gold buttons to signal they belonged to Chanel.
In the vast runway space, they could read as underwhelming.
{{/usCountry}}In the vast runway space, they could read as underwhelming.
{{/usCountry}}But Blazy’s point was architectural: the suit, he said, is “the first brick” — and everything else rises from it.
That logic tracks to the founder.
In her apartment on Rue Cambon, a wall is covered in gauze painted gold — something poor made precious.
Chanel built a house on that idea, borrowing from everyday dress and elevating it.
Blazy is doing the same with her codes, stripping the suit to a knit shirt jacket or pressed-tweed blouson before rebuilding it in silicone-woven fabric and metallic mesh.
The collection’s most provocative move was its silhouette.
Blazy pulled waistlines dramatically low — belts slung to mid-thigh, pleated skirts starting where blazers ended.
The references were retro flapper filtered through a modern lens: drop-waisted twinsets, patchwork dresses with floral embroidery, vivid patterned knits with a twenties pulse.
A furry coat in bold geometric color could have been worn in a chic part of London's Camden.
Whether the ultra-low waistlines will land with the well-heeled clients who pack Chanel’s front rows is another question.
Selling a radically new proportion to women with deep loyalty to the house is a different challenge than winning critical praise.
The final stretch answered that concern with force. Sequined plaid suits arrived in dazzling color. Beaded coats glinted with star-chart embroidery.
Metallic mesh was woven to mimic tweed motifs, and several models wore pastel-tinted hair to match their looks.
Fabric flowers burst from bodices.
Trailing ribbons, layered ruffles, and insect-wing detailing turned the runway into something closer to spectacle than commerce.
Blazy cast wide — teens through to women in their fifties — and let the show breathe, with a runway circuit that took models the better part of five minutes.
He framed it all with seven pared-back black and cream looks, as if to say: whatever else changes, the Chanel you know isn’t going anywhere.
If this second outing holds — on the penultimate day of fashion week — Blazy has found something rare at a heritage house: a way to honor the founder’s voice without simply echoing it.
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