Chanel Spring Summer 2027 “The Flight of the Swallows”. Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo / Video Courtesy: Chanel.

The Exquisite Corpse Under the Glass Nave

Under the restored glass barrel-vault of the Grand Palais, a flock of illuminated wooden swallows soared against the dark Parisian evening, circling a colossal glowing moon suspended high above the runway. It was not a setting designed for polite nostalgia. For Spring Summer 2027, Matthieu Blazy staged La Conversation – Part Three – Different Faces of the Same Coin, confronting the myth of Gabrielle Chanel not as a static museum archive, but as an ever-shifting psychological continuum.

Invoking the French surrealist game of the cadavre exquis, where one hand draws a fragment that another blindly completes, Blazy approached Chanel as an assembly of multiple selves. The premise was articulated with clinical intellectual clarity: Gabrielle was never a single monolith. She was the orphan child who dreamed of independence, the rebellious rider in borrowed men’s breeches, the pioneer who scandalized high society by turning jersey underwear into outerwear, and finally the steely post-war matriarch whose braided suits conquered the world. By opening the presentation with Gabrielle Chanel’s personal 2.55 handbag brought directly from the Patrimoine archives, carried by Dyanira Hurbuscher, Blazy linked the beginning of the myth to its latest incarnation.

The Revelation of Knit Underwear and Smocked Tweed

The collection began where Gabrielle herself began: stripping away the suffocating steel of Edwardian corsets to touch bare skin. The opening gesture discarded tweed armor entirely in favor of an immaculate, sheer white silk-knit ensemble. A fine-ribbed pencil skirt was paired with a transparent knit cardigan left casually undone over an architectural brassiere, anchored at the sternum by a feathered, two-tone black-and-white camellia. The look paid direct homage to the early Deauville years, treating knitwear with the intimate transparency of lingerie while maintaining severe graphic composure.

From this intimate domestic baseline, Blazy introduced his most significant technical breakthrough: the new “smocked tweed.” Tweed at Chanel has historically carried weight and firm internal structure; here, through elasticated micro-smocking and gossamer weaves, it surrendered its mass to motion.

Consider the coral-red and oatmeal suit: a collarless box jacket with raw frayed hems was layered over a textured, knitted sheath dress trimmed with turquoise rosettes, worn casually with flat tweed sneakers. The garment hugged the figure like a pliable knit pullover while retaining the unmistakable dignity of Rue Cambon.

The classic red bouclé jacket returned in another look, framed by black grosgrain ribbon edges and worn open over a beige windowpane check tunic and a fluttering, layered cream silk skirt, accessorized with dangling chandelier earrings.

The Phantom Corset and the Aviary Gown

The dialogue between discipline and freedom escalated when Blazy tackled the strictures of historical dress. In an arresting silhouette that pulled audible gasps from the nave, a sky-blue denim-effect corset—boned with vertical hook-and-eye closures down the center—met an enormous, cloud-like ballerina tutu of tiered grey tulle. It was an ironic, theatrical subversion of the very ballgowns Gabrielle spent her lifetime dismantling: the rigid corsetry rendered in humble fabric, bursting into frothy tulle that floated above two-tone spectator flats.

Elsewhere, the hand of the atelier exploded into eccentric print collisions. A fitted cardigan jacket in dense black-and-white floral jacquard was topped by a dramatic pierrot clown collar in cobalt-and-yellow zebra stripe, paired with a crinkled red zebra-print skirt and knee-high animalier boots. The ensemble possessed the wild, collage-like spirit of the Ballets Russes, proving Blazy is unafraid to inject humor into the house’s sacred codes.

The Translucent Clouds of Daybreak and Nightfall

The formal climax arrived when tailoring yielded completely to weightless flou. Blazy developed layered silk mousselines printed to mimic the time-lapse of sky formations, charting the transition between morning mist and nocturnal velvet.

The daybreak gown glided forward in diaphanous tiers of sky-blue and cloud-white organza. Cut with voluminous cape sleeves that pooled into a high-low hemline, the neckline was encrusted with an intricate crystal collar that sparkled like frozen raindrops. The silk billowed with the air of the Grand Palais, floating behind the model with the grace of wings in flight.

Beside it walked the nocturnal eclipse: an identical silhouette cut in deep obsidian silk organza, scattered with faint, shimmering constellations of embroidered starlight. Framed by sculptural silver fringe earrings and a sprawling collar of baroque crystal spines, the dress turned the catwalk into a celestial map.

Matthieu Blazy understands that honoring Chanel does not mean embalming its founder in pearls and gold chains. By unraveling the suit down to its knitwear origins and allowing it to take flight as smocked tweed and weightless organza, he accomplished what Gabrielle herself fought for: setting the body free to move, to breathe, and to fly like a bird.

See All Looks Chanel Spring Summer 2027