Drop waists, raised stakes: Matthieu Blazy resets Chanel’s proportions
In his second collection, Matthieu Blazy plunged Chanel’s waistlines and channelled the twenties with a modern edge. The question is whether the house’s most loyal clients will follow.
From knit suit-jackets to metallic mesh tweed motifs, Matthieu Blazy rebuilds Chanel’s signatures with modern materials, then turns up the glamour for the fall/winter 2026 collection. (Photo: Chanel)
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 coloured 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.
THE CATERPILLAR AND THE BUTTERFLY
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.
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.
DROPPING THE WAISTLINE, RAISING THE STAKES
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 colour 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.
WHEN NIGHT FELL
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 honour the founder’s voice without simply echoing it.
