Matthieu Blazy Spins A Modern Fairytale For Chanel Haute Couture 2026/27

Chanel Haute Couture 2026/27 / All images: Chanel

Was Gabrielle Chanel’s life a fairy tale? That was the question at the heart of Matthieu Blazy‘s second Haute Couture collection for the House, a richly imagined offering that transformed classic stories into exquisitely crafted clothes, without ever losing sight of the women destined to wear them.

The starting point came from an intimate discovery inside Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment library: a well-thumbed copy of Les Fées: Contes des Contes, a collection of fairy tales by Charles Perrault. From there, Blazy and Chanel’s Haute Couture ateliers built a collection that felt suspended between fantasy and reality, where the extraordinary existed alongside the everyday.

Presented inside the Chanel salon, which had been overtaken by towering beanstalks, ‘poisonous’ vines and oversized flowers, the show unfolded like a storybook. References to Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Ugly Duckling appeared throughout, though never as costume.

Magic revealed itself in the details. Guipure lace echoed climbing beanstalks, while transparent silk mousseline created the illusion of light filtering through leaves. A vine curled around the heel of a shoe, a minaudière appeared in the shape of a sleeping bear, and buttons evolved from duckling to swan. Hidden painted silk linings, handwritten-style notes tucked into pockets and charms suspended from Chanel’s signature weighted chains evoked a connection to the personal.

The collection also celebrated the remarkable expertise of Chanel’s ateliers and the artisans of le19M, from embroidery and pleating to millinery, shoemaking and goldsmithing. Blazy placed particular emphasis on the dialogue between the House’s celebrated tailleur and flou techniques, using slashed seams, fluid construction and precise tailoring to create garments designed not simply to be admired but to move with the body. Deliberate imperfections and traces of makers’ hands gave the collection warmth, reinforcing Blazy’s belief that haute couture is ultimately about real women rather than myth. Instead of fantasy as escape, the show urged the importance of imagination and its vital role in the world.

“Haute Couture at Chanel is not just a fairy tale,” Blazy wrote in his notes. “In essence, it is for women, their realities and their adventures of the everyday.”