Once Upon a Seam: Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel Couture Debut Felt Like a Modern Fashion Fairy Tale

At the Grand Palais, Chanel’s newest chapter, led by Matthieu Blazy, unfolded not with pomp, but with poetry.

Beneath the soaring glass ceiling of the Grand Palais, surrounded by pink weeping willows and towering, candy-colored mushrooms, Blazy staged a couture debut that felt less like a power move and more like an invitation to wander into a beautifully strange fairytale. Think less royal proclamation, more enchanted forest wedding where the dress code is “ethereal, but make it Chanel.”

The Set: A Garden Where Couture Grows

The setting alone set the tone. Giant mushroom caps in fuchsia, blush, butter yellow, and cherry red formed a fairy ring around the runway, instantly transporting guests from Parisian grandeur to storybook surrealism. It was playful without being childish, fantastical without tipping into costume. 

The scene subtly nodded to Chanel’s own archive of nature-driven spectacles while feeling unmistakably of-the-moment. Front-row guests like Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa looked less like spectators and more like witnesses to a spell being cast.

The Opening Act: Chanel, Remembered Not Repeated

Blazy opened with a look that said everything about his approach. A Chanel suit, yes, but stripped of bouclé and rendered instead in sheer silk mousseline. It floated rather than strutted, translucent yet precise, like a memory of a Chanel suit rather than a replica. 

This idea of fashion as a palimpsest, layers of past, present, and possibility, became the collection’s emotional backbone. Transparency wasn’t just a fabric choice; it was a philosophy.

The Clothes: Lightness With Intent

Throughout the show, silhouettes remained airy but deliberate. Pastel tunics hovered beneath cropped jackets, wide-leg trousers softened sharp tailoring, and pencil skirts moved with an almost liquid grace. 

Blazy played with Chanel’s most familiar symbols, N°5 bottles, red lipstick, chains, the 2.55 bag, but reimagined them as embroidery, jewelry, or fleeting impressions beneath sheer layers. These weren’t loud logos. They were personal keepsakes, like secrets tucked into a bride’s clutch.

Nature wove its way into every detail. Mushroom-shaped heels echoed the set, pleated tops mimicked the delicate gills beneath a cap, and avian motifs appeared through embroidery, weaving, and feather-light constructions developed with the artisans of le19M. Birds, long part of Chanel’s visual language, emerged here not as literal costumes but as gestures: a sleeve that lifted like a wing, pleats that rippled as if caught mid-flight.

Craft Meets Emotion: Couture That Feels Lived In

Despite the dreamlike atmosphere, the collection never drifted into fantasy-for-fantasy’s-sake. Blazy grounded his vision in intimacy. Chains revealed what is usually hidden. Pockets held meaning, not just function. 

Even the most diaphanous gowns felt designed for real women with real stories, not museum mannequins. This was couture that invited movement, emotion, and ownership.

The closing look sealed the fairytale. Bhavitha Mandava appeared not in a traditional gown, but in a paillette-covered couture ensemble topped with a feathered headpiece. She wasn’t a princess waiting for a carriage. She was the heroine of her own story. Modern, light on her feet, and quietly powerful, she embodied Blazy’s message perfectly: couture is complete only when it’s worn, inhabited, and made personal.

A New Chapter, Gently Turned

In his couture debut, Matthieu Blazy proved that reverence doesn’t require rigidity. He didn’t freeze Chanel’s codes in time or overhaul them for shock value. 

He let them breathe. The result was a collection that felt hopeful, romantic, and refreshingly human, like a wedding where tradition is honored, but the vows are entirely your own.

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