Matthieu Blazy’s Biarritz show reinvents Coco Chanel’s legacy

From the get-go, one of the most enduring markers of Chanel Creative Director Matthieu Blazy’s vision for the next chapter of this storied Maison has been his ability to anchor his shows in singular, deeply intentional inspirations, and to expand upon their fertile tabula rasas with his uniquely verdant sensibilities. For his first Ready-To-Wear collection, his proposition was simple: to return to the romance, love, and je ne sais quoi of Chanel not merely as a house, but as Coco Chanel as a living, breathing woman. It was a radical missive of love that irreverently flipped the script on the expectations we, as journalists, stylists, photographers, and customers, often project onto creative directors when they take up the reins of a legacy fashion house. In an algorithm-led world where words like “house codes” and “archives” are thrown around like confetti, Blazy’s definitive, almost visceral, need to pin down the very woman behind this global fashion enterprise has brought about an insurmountable sense of joy and renewed vigour in the common parlance surrounding the brand.

For his first Cruise collection (and his fifth collection for the House), Blazy stuck to this almost textbook-level simplistic, yet outrageously genius, formula taking everyone to the shores of Biarritz—the seaside town where Coco Chanel opened her first couture house in 1915. Why? Because during the years of the First World War, this seaside town on the Basque coast became a major hub for artists and European aristocratic émigrés (especially those hailing from Spain), who spent their days by the crashing waves of the ocean playing tennis, shopping, and gambling in casinos. Within two years, Coco Chanel—who was selling everything from jersey sweaters to evening dresses in the store—found immense success in this boutique, which also came to include a fully functioning atelier and a private apartment.

But while the staging of this show (a first for the House in its century-long history) was a serendipitous homecoming, Blazy’s unassuming genius lay in using it as a mere starting point from which to build his own tale of fantasy. Prior to the show, the house released a monochrome film in the nouvelle vague tradition featuring model Noor Khan (Blazy’s primary muse for this collection) among the wave-battered rocks of the Biarritz coast, frolicking as an athlete, a ballet dancer, and finally as a mermaid who ultimately disappears into the waves.

A stunning surrealist portrait of the multiplicity contained within the womanhood that defines this collection, the runway show began with Khan walking in Blazy’s homage to the Little Black Dress (which also celebrates its centennial anniversary this year). Staged within the mirrored walls of the Casino Municipal, the dress came with a deep V-neck, a drop-waist shape emphasised by lines of white geometric stitching, and the most whimsical excuse for a bow-bag one could possibly imagine. In an interview after the show, Blazy explained that he spent hours in the archives, discarding the usual sketches of the LBD to settle on one whose deceptively simple front gave way to a giant bow at the back. In perfect sync with his ongoing dialogue with the Maison’s founder, Blazy’s homage now consisted of the same archival dress—except with the bow now in Khan’s hand as a trailing clutch bag instead.

Having spent many of his childhood years holidaying on the Biarritz coast with his father, Blazy’s collection was also joyously alive with details of coastal vacations. Think seashells as earrings, coral, starfish, and sea-anemone fronds turned into braiding, and an aquarium of embroidery with beach-umbrella skirts, striped-towel Chanel suits, and giant straw baskets. All of this unfolded while models walked on a sand-coloured carpet that evoked the materiality of walking on the beach and feeling sand pass through your fingers and brush against your skin.

Blazy’s commitment to elevating Chanel as a brand fit for the everyday working woman (first iterated through his Métiers d’Art show in New York last December, and followed through with his age-diverse casting for his maiden Haute Couture show in January and now his decision to have a six-months pregnant model walk his first Cruise collection) also came through in his repeated positioning of the shacket, where the stiff structure of Chanel tweed gave way to worn-in outerwear that also received its glitziest, shimmering iteration as a denim-looking sequin co-ord set. There were also the usual suspects one expects from a Cruise collection: 1920s swimwear and swim caps, mermaid and silk-scarf dresses tailored with deep austerity, lattice lace in the shape of Biarritz trees covering a suit, a gold-fringed fish-scale coat, and gilded half-sandals perched on heels like footwear befitting sylvan Greek nymphs.

After much uproar around his definitive decision to decentre the iconic interlocked Cs of the Chanel logo, Blazy finally proposed designs that incorporated the motif on his own terms. In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, bags and jerseys came embroidered with the familiar interlocked Cs—but this time imagined as dolphins. Look 23, one of my favourites from the collection, also saw Blazy extend the logo not as a branding symbol but as a decorative construction for the bodice: the model walked down the runway in a white dress hemmed with Cs embracing her entire torso like seductive lovers before rising into ruffled shoulders.

But what will most definitely be a standout talking—and selling—point for this collection is the return of the newspaper print. Seen in Looks 67 and 71, and joyously christened “Fish and Chips,” the newspaper print as fabric was first ideated by Elsa Schiaparelli, whose original prints are now on display in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s ongoing retrospective dedicated to the couturier. It has since been used on the runway by the likes of Per Spook and Jean Paul Gaultier, and perhaps most famously by John Galliano for his 2000 hobo collection for Dior. But with Blazy, this cheeky inclusion sits within a larger decision to reinterpret the House of Chanel for a modern clientele by redrawing attention to the deeply political act that making clothes signified for Coco Chanel. After all, she famously said, “I love to read newspapers, like men.” And boy, do we love a history lesson when it is being meted out by Blazy!

Image credits: Chanel 

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Also read: Chanel returns to Biarritz with Matthieu Blazy’s quietly radical Cruise debut