PARIS – Matthieu Blazy on Monday night presented Chanel through his lens for the first time.
Guests arriving at the Grand Palais took their seats under dangling, multicolor planets. They included the reminted brand ambassador Nicole Kidman with her daughters Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret; Margot Robbie; Penélope Cruz; Jennie Kim; Ayo Edebiri, and Pedro Pascal.
The newly renovated glass-and-steel building had been transformed into a planetarium to symbolize the “Universe of Chanel.”
WWD asked fashion and Chanel experts – among them authors, buyers, curators and professors – their views of the spring 2026 collection. Here is what they said.
Isabel Bazzani, founder of the Isabel Bazzani luxury personal shopper and sourcing service
This direction marked the creative renaissance we’ve been waiting for. Modern design poetry was woven through every piece, making us fall madly in love with Chanel all over again. While initial feedback from clients has been mixed, requests are already flooding in for the accessories and sculptural tweed looks – always the first indicator of a collection’s commercial success. Additionally, some clients who drifted from the brand in recent years reemerged last night with renewed enthusiasm. Matthieu Blazy delivered remarkable variety, capturing the many types of today’s Chanel woman. Classic house codes were reset with his signature contemporary touches – deconstructed fringing, relaxed proportions, iconic headpieces, innovative textile manipulation, and a new era of “It” bags. It felt inclusive, celebratory and incredibly wearable for a confident next Chanel chapter.
Zowie Broach, head of fashion MA RCA 2025
MB has in the past talked about “replace over erase,” an elegant quiet move that is both respectful and yet leads forward to a place that his voice can be seen and understood.
Chanel is a house that has an enormous legacy, from a phenomenal woman to Karl [Lagerfeld], who was a 360-degree voice across culture and design .… So how to replace not to erase? It was a layering of Chanel’s world where he has done both… erased (the boucle check to loose grids of yarn) and replaced, and then even asked Coco to walk the show!
The design offered a sense of joy in its creation, although I wished the women had smiled more, as we all want to fall in love with a woman… one who laughs, please!
MB has multiple universes of Chanel in his pocket still to share, across all eras, and the deeper he swims the more wonderfully Chanel it will be.
Linda Fargo, senior vice president, fashion office and store presentation, Bergdorf Goodman
It’s, almost, a whole new world at Chanel! Because we don’t need a whole new world, we just want a new point of view. The awe-inspiring interplanetary set design in the Grand Palais conveyed the reach of it all. We got just enough of the codes we’ve come to love – the textures, the buttons, the jackets, the piping, the cap toe – but they were transformed through Matthieu’s modernist lens. We loved the new clean “cool” suits as much as the more elaborate woven cardigans later in the show. It was probably the proportions which shifted the most. This will undoubtedly draw a new customer to Chanel. In any case, it wasn’t a surprise that Matthieu got a standing ovation – everyone was rooting for him and Chanel with open minds and open hearts. An auspicious full moon was out tonight to bless the new Chanel universe.
Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
Dominique Maitre/WWD
Barbara Franchin, president of Fondazione ITS and founder of ITS Contest and ITS Arcademy
Even in his early work, Matthieu showed a rare gift for combining discipline and sensitivity, craftsmanship and imagination. You could sense a deep understanding of how a garment is built, and the desire to push beyond structure — to find emotion in material. That instinct has only grown stronger. His collection balances precision and poetry, discipline and intuition. I see him move between tradition and experimentation with ease, reinterpreting the maison’s codes with both respect and freedom. Memory only matters when it evolves. It’s what makes his voice resonate so naturally with the spirit of Chanel. Both share an idea of elegance as intelligence in movement, of strength tempered by grace. There is no repetition, but renewal — a conversation between past and future spoken in his own language.
Christos Garkinos, chief executive officer and founder of Covet by Christos
It was another world at the debut of Matthieu Blazy at Chanel. We were greeted by a cacophony of larger than life colorful planets and surrounded by the who’s who in fashion, including new ambassador Nicole Kidman. Bottom line: I loved it. There were nods to the house codes with the ’20s silhouettes and the masculine suiting that Madame Chanel favored. This was a forward-looking collection (seemed to be 100 looks) that felt young and fresh, but will still appeal to the core customer. Finally, the shoes and bags were super commercial. (I think I saw the reemergence of the iconic Supermodel bag.) The energy was palpable post show with the crowd highly enthused by the celestial offerings. Bravo!
Pamela Golbin, curator, author and fashion historian
For his début collection at Chanel, Mathieu Blazy achieved the rare feat of rendering Gabrielle Chanel’s original legacy extraordinarily relevant, while making the recent past feel suddenly outdated. In the Chanel universe, there is now a distinct “before” and “after” Blazy.
When asked what has been her lifelong approach to fashion, Chanel’s answer was simple: “The luxury of ease and comfort.” Blazy’s new silhouette for the house achieved exactly that by anchoring the form at the hips, liberating the upper body and waist, while enabling the skirts to emphasize the length of the leg and the amplitude of each step. “Rhythm is a dancer” dominated the show’s soundtrack celebrating the lightness, fluidity and freedom of movement.
This season marks a remarkable transition at three of France’s most iconic fashion houses – Balenciaga, Chanel and Dior. Three men from different generations are boldly embracing the past to “recalibrate,” reimagine and reinvent their codes for a thrilling new era. To Paris! To bold creativity! To the future of Fashion!
Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
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Emilie Hammen, director of Palais Galliera, director of the Chanel and le 19M chair in Fashion Savoir‑Faire at the Institut Français de la Mode
This season forces us to reconsider what has become such a guiding principle for fashion over the past few decades: the balancing act between heritage and present, between archival research and contemporary design. Ever since Karl Lagerfeld was named, in 1983, as the successor of Chanel, the definition of visual signifiers capable of convening a brand’s history has defined the design process of (almost) each new creative director arriving at a historical Parisian maison.
How dauting to be the successor of the man who conceived much of the system fashion has embraced over the past 40 years. In a way, I feel that what was expected of Matthieu Blazy with this first collection was not only a new creative take on iconic silhouettes but also a new template – one which can suggest a new creative paradigm. A new way to look at historical references and their reactivation into the contemporary.
Opening his show with two tailored silhouettes was perhaps a first sign – gone, they seemed to tell us, are the literal references to identifiable pieces. These jackets and pants didn’t remind us so obviously, for example, of Gabrielle Chanel’s 1950s tweed ensembles. Rather, they resonated with the body language – chic and ever so slightly nonchalant, sophisticated but confident – that early portraits of her captured. More than a pattern, a shoe or a bag, in this show attitudes become form.
Dom Leguay, founder and creative director of creative consultancy Alchimie Paris
Beyond the “coup d’éclat,” Chanel seeks to highlight the creation of something unprecedented. The house’s spectacle in Grand Palais and fashion show is rooted in technological, futuristic and artisanal imaginations, while experiencing a dichotomy with the reinvention of clothing, which carries a sensitive memory of the past – projecting a constellation of colors, codes and values.
Chanel thus questions the gap between the imaginations of AI and technology, and that of craftsmanship. It remains to be seen whether the culture of art, or a more advanced culture of circularity, will tomorrow help Matthieu Blazy to create a striking archetype, expressing the freedom and value of love according to Chanel.
Simon Longland, director of buying, fashion at Harrods
Matthieu Blazy’s debut for Chanel carried perhaps the most intense anticipation of a season already defined by debuts – and with it, the greatest pressure. Staged beneath a galaxy recreated inside the Grand Palais, it felt almost like a big bang: the beginning of something new.
Blazy delivered a debut that was nothing short of a masterclass. He showed complete respect for the house, its codes and its ateliers, while at the same time shifting the look and feel of Chanel into a new chapter. His modernization was both intelligent and beautiful, rooted in Coco’s own starting point – menswear codes and techniques. Nowhere was this more evident than in the crisp shirting, recalling the shirts Coco herself wore, which brought a lightness and purity not seen in recent collections.
With this collection, Blazy has achieved what felt almost impossible: creating a vision that will draw in a legion of new admirers, while remaining deeply resonant with Chanel’s loyal clientele. A new beginning, perfectly staged and brilliantly realized.
Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
Dominique Maitre/WWD
William Middleton, author of “Paradise Now: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld”
Having researched extensively Karl Lagerfeld’s first collection for Chanel — from what led up to his selection as artistic director to how his initial collection was received — I have a good sense of the pressure around Matthieu Blazy’s debut for Chanel. There was a lot on the line. It was a risk for the designer, of course, but also for the Chanel team that had chosen him, and for the larger worlds of fashion and luxury. Sitting in the Grand Palais, that spectacular space that had been personally selected by Lagerfeld to become a permanent show venue for the house, there was a tremendous sense of anticipation. So, for many in the room, there was a palpable sense of relief to see Blazy send out a collection that was so confident, innovative and filled with joy.
There was an insouciance to the new Chanel, from the colorful tweed suits that were worn loose on the body, almost like a cardigan, to low-slung pants and skirts that exposed what looks like a panel of ribbed underwear to silk T-shirts paired with floor-sweeping feathered skirts. Blazy displayed reverence for the work of Gabrielle Chanel, her force and her inventiveness, but he brought it into the world of today. It all felt so fresh.
In many ways, there was much more at stake in Blazy’s debut than there had been for Lagerfeld over four decades before. In January 1983, Chanel was a storied, historical house that was practically bankrupt. Today, it is an international juggernaut producing $18 billion in annual revenue. The stakes have expanded exponentially. One of the most succinct reviews of Lagerfeld’s first show also works today. “The German-born designer had dared to tackle the House of Chanel, a national monument with which one does not trifle,” wrote Bernadette Morris in The New York Times. “Mr. Lagerfeld did not trifle.”
Neither did Mr. Blazy.
Fabio Piras, course leader at Central Saint Martins
Chanel by Matthieu Blazy was stellar and delivered in every way, as the show’s interplanetary setting led everyone to call it definitely the “big bang” we had all been hoping for. A generational shift was at stake, and I can only imagine how difficult it must have felt to respond to such a high degree of hope and expectation. Much more was delivered as the collection unfolded, bringing the style tropes and the histories of the house into a fresh, even disruptive sophistication and a contemporaneity that returned Coco Chanel as the point of reference all at once.
A camelia appeared like a casual knot: super-light woven tweed mesh jackets, vertical striping, intense color prints, classic black and white, oversized, boxy shirts and jackets, and elongated skirt and trouser tailleurs — all speaking new bold volumes and proportions. All still managed to translate the iconic Chanel form with every aspect of the house atelier’s skill and craftsmanship given appreciation and space to shine brightly. There was also cinematic and emotional romanticism. Toward the end, a voice sang, “I would run away with you.” And truly, as the last model walked away with generous joie de vivre, who wouldn’t want to run away with Matthieu and Coco today?
Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
Dominique Maitre/WWD
Cameron Silver, founder of Decades Inc.
Mathieu Blazy’s Chanel debut was probably the most successful and most consequential of this historic season of change.
He really modernized Chanel, taking tweed jackets and dropping the shoulder or cropping the length (a trend we also saw at Dior). This was a client-friendly collection and the vintage Chanel logo-ism that’s been all over Instagram can take a back seat to a more mature, minimal and fresh collection. Blazy put a lot of emphasis on elaborate skirts paired with masculine collared shirts and essential pullovers.
At the end of the day, the accessories are going to drive the business, and the bags did not disappoint. For those that wanted a vintage-inspired collection, this was not it. I am here for the modernization of Chanel.
Alexandra Van Houtte, founder and CEO of Tagwalk
Matthieu Blazy designs for real women, and you can feel it. The respect this collection had for Coco Chanel, for the heritage of the brand, but also the intelligence he had to infuse the silhouettes with some simpler shapes and materials, incredible heels and the occasional frilled dress was spot on. All women deserve a Matthieu Blazy in their lives.
An interesting fact is that Blazy’s debut had 26 percent tweed, against 42 percent in the spring 2025 collection. Two-thirds of the collection was midi-length, while 26 percent featured slits.
The main colors of the collection were white, with a 39 percent weight in the collection, and black, accounting for 20 percent. The third color that emerged was red, from bright to deeper hues was present in 11 percent of the looks. Brown took a 5 percent slice.
The most viewed looks were:
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Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
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Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
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Chanel Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Paris Fashion Week
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