In Paris, at Chanel, a flurry of birds gives Matthieu Blazy wings

On Monday evening, Chanel’s creative director, Matthieu Blazy, devised a cascade of nesting birds for his Spring/Summer 2027 show in Paris, retracing the thread of the house’s archives and instilling a sense of lightness even into its tweed.

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Beneath a sky of illuminated origami cranes reflected in the nave of the Grand Palais, like a reassuring, poetic mobile in a child’s bedroom, the Chanel fairytale was told.

“This is a collection that tells the story of Gabrielle Chanel’s many lives. Like a bird, she took flight, and each step she took led her towards freedom,” said Blazy in his statement of intent for the third ready-to-wear show by the designer who succeeded Virginie Viard in 2025.

The show opened with jersey lingerie featuring exposed boning, worn with a negligee inspired by fishing nets, before moving on to the post-war suit.

The house’s signature ballerina petticoat, in an imperial version in sugared-almond blue or ivory white, was paired with a modernised corset.

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A trompe-l’oeil tweed bearing the Chanel name, cut from fine, lightweight silk, ushered in the strict regime imposed—this time—on the fabric itself.

Blazy, 42, who seems to have set himself the task of rejuvenating Chanel’s tweeds at all costs, yet without ever tipping them over the edge, unveiled a “technical innovation” on Monday: “smocked tweed”, “a stretch fabric, a feat that was previously impossible,” he maintains.

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The house had offered a first glimpse of this distinctly avian collection in a series of black-and-white art photographs by British photographer David Bailey, built around motifs of feathers, nests and birds’ feet.

Among the faithful in the front row at the Grand Palais – whose renovation it co-funded – were actor Pedro Pascal, singer Dua Lipa and actresses Kristen Wiig and Sandra Hüller.

While other fashion houses are struggling to sustain their sales, Chanel’s are soaring.

After a difficult period, the luxury sector raised its head again in the first half of the year and returned to growth, as seen at LVMH (up 2% on an organic basis) and Hermès (up 6% at constant exchange rates), but Chanel performed even better: according to Bloomberg, its like-for-like revenue leapt by around 16 per cent.