Margot Robbie, Oprah watch Blazy transform Chanel with colour and craft

Chanel's Matthieu Blazy is still building. Six months into his tenure at the Parisian stalwart, the designer staged his second ready-to-wear collection at Paris Fashion Week on Monday, where brightly coloured cranes rose from a holographic floor — a deliberate signal that the construction is ongoing.

For Parisians who have spent years staring at the real thing above Notre-Dame cathedral, the set was perhaps less dreamy than intended. The audience inside the Grand Palais suggested the foundations are solid: Margot Robbie, Oprah, Jennie, Kylie Minogue, Lily-Rose Depp, Teyana Taylor and Olivia Dean all turned up to watch the next floor go on.

Blazy took his cue from a quote from Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel: “We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.” The collection was structured around that tension — plain against spectacular, function against fantasy — with a discipline his sprawling debut last October sometimes lacked. The opening looks were austere by design. Black knit zip-ups, tweed blousons and boxy overshirts arrived with little more than four gold buttons to signal they belonged to Chanel.

Model walk for fashion house Chanel during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, on Monday. Reuters

In the vast runway space, they could read as underwhelming. But Blazy’s point was architectural: the suit, he said, is “the first brick” — and everything else rises from it. That logic tracks to the founder.

In her apartment on Rue Cambon, a wall is covered in gauze painted gold — something poor made precious. Chanel built a house on that idea, borrowing from everyday dress and elevating it.

Blazy is doing the same with her codes, stripping the suit to a knit shirt jacket or pressed-tweed blouson before rebuilding it in silicone-woven fabric and metallic mesh. The collection’s most provocative move was its silhouette.

Franco-Belgian fashion designer Matthieu Blazy acknowledges the audience. AFP

Blazy pulled waistlines dramatically low — belts slung to mid-thigh, pleated skirts starting where blazers ended. The references were retro flapper filtered through a modern lens: drop-waisted twinsets, patchwork dresses with floral embroidery, vivid patterned knits with a twenties pulse. A furry coat in bold geometric colour could have been worn in a chic part of London’s Camden. Whether the ultra-low waistlines will land with the well-heeled clients who pack Chanel’s front rows is another question.

Selling a radically new proportion to women with deep loyalty to the house is a different challenge than winning critical praise. The final stretch answered that concern with force. Sequined plaid suits arrived in dazzling color. Beaded coats glinted with star-chart embroidery. Metallic mesh was woven to mimic tweed motifs, and several models wore pastel-tinted hair to match their looks.

Associated Press