Shining a spotlight on the Southeast Asian hub of Singapore, Chanel unveiled its reprised cruise 2026 runway collection in the city-state on Tuesday, timed with the collection’s market release.
Around 1000 guests, from top Asian clients to celebrities and local media, attended the runway show at the Raffles Hotel, where Karl Lagerfeld staged a short film premiere ahead of Chanel‘s cruise 2014 runway show.
The beach-side property, a neo-Renaissance building constructed in 1887, echoes the spirit of the Villa d’Este location on the shores of Lake Como that hosted Chanel’s cruise show on April 29, unveiled in front of celebrities including Keira Knightley, Sofia Coppola and Lupita Nyong’o.
Becky Armstrong attending Chanel’s reprised cruise show at the legendary Raffles Hotel.
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Models took to the runway in looks designed by Chanel’s studio team — a last for the brand before Matthieu Blazy took over as creative director — inspired by Luchino Visconti and Romy Schneider wearing Gabrielle Chanel designs in the 1962 film “Boccaccio ’70.”
The cinematic collection was slightly tweaked and restyled for Singapore — or “Como with some twists,” as Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, described it.
A range of sunny colors and floral motifs, silk scarves tied in the hair and around the ankles, paired with bejeweled micro handbags and generous totes, brought to the fore a relaxed proposition fit for Singapore and Southeast Asia’s sunny days, where seasons meld into each other with little change.
Chanel’s reprised cruise 2026 collection.
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Guests such as Chanel ambassador Tilda Swinton, Thai British star Becky Armstrong, Thai actresses Aokbab and Baipor, Chinese supermodel Liu Wen, Filipino American actress Liza Soberano, Singaporean singers Stefanie Sun and JJ Lin, Taiwanese actress Tiffany Ann Hsu and more attended the event.
Tilda Swinton at Chanel’s Singapore cruise show.
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Post-show, guests mingled and danced the night away to surprise performances by British singer Raye, Indonesian musician Rio Sidik and a DJ set by Singaporean artist Nicolette.
For Pavlovsky, the Singapore runway reaffirmed the market’s status as a “Chanel City,” where the brand opened its first retail outpost in 1993.
The Garden City now counts two fashion boutiques and a recently opened shoe store on Orchard, the city’s luxury retail destination.
“We are trying to find ways to better engage our local clients in each of these Chanel cities, in every market. That’s why last year we went to Hong Kong, we went to Hangzhou, now we are in Singapore and we will be in New York in a few weeks,” Pavlovsky said.
As a global transit hub, Singapore counts more than 242,000 millionaires, ranking fourth worldwide in millionaire density, according to an April survey by Henley & Partners.
Despite slower GDP growth, inflationary pressures and a higher cost of living, affluent and high-net-worth Singaporeans remain optimistic about their financial outlook and continue to spend, according to research firm Agility’s TrendLens report.
According to data from Euromonitor International, Singapore’s luxury retail market is expected to surpass other major retail hubs in Asia, except Japan, and expand by 7 percent year-over-year to reach 13.9 billion Singapore dollars, or $10.6 billion, in 2025.
Sharing details about the local market, Pavlovsky highlighted Singapore’s strong ready-to-wear penetration rate.
“It takes years to set up ready-to-wear in a new market — in Bangkok, it took us about eight years; for China, 15,” Pavlovsky explained. “The most difficult thing in the luxury industry is to be seen as a fashion brand and not as an accessories brand,” he added.
Leading a series of Chanel Talks with Monocle magazine founder Tyler Brûlé, Pavlovsky shared with more than 400 local fashion students the importance of culture, craft — including the craft of retail — and ultimately, “selling emotion rather than products.”
Tyler Brûlé and Bruno Pavlovsky at Chanel Talk in Singapore.
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“At the time of the show, it’s a discovery. When we are at the boutique level, it’s a reality,” Pavlovsky elaborated. “There is a gap between the day of the show, which is more about the collection and the product, and a few months after that, when we engage with the manufacturers and the thousands of clients who make the dream come true,” he added.
Rather than commenting directly on Blazy’s market debut, Pavlovsky again emphasized the collective effort — or “a strong orchestration” — behind prepping the market for a new collection’s arrival.
“The job of the artistic direction is to be there to give the impulse; they are doing the job super well. Afterward, it’s about the teams at the global, regional and local levels. They need to be engaged and to appropriate this runway storytelling and make it happen on the shop floor. It’s an incredible collective work, much more than what we can see,” Pavlovsky said.
