2027 Cruise Fashion Shows: Heading to the United States, Biarritz and Shanghai

For the 2026 Cruise collections, the major fashion houses coordinated to hold their shows in Italy. The 2027 season promises greater diversity, though three major players have opted for the United States. Chanel, meanwhile, has chosen to play the French card in its brand saga with Biarritz, starting this April 28 at 6:30 p.m.

Since 1920, luxury fashion houses have begun offering so-called Cruise collections—inter-seasonal lines designed to accompany their affluent clientele on their trips to warmer climates in the middle of winter.

While the destination for Cruise shows is no longer as widely agreed upon for presenting collections as it was last year, the United States is garnering a significant share of the votes. Of the five major houses still holding Cruise shows, three have decided to set their scenes across the Atlantic: Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Gucci.

France is not to be outdone, with Chanel set to kick off the 2027 Cruise show season in Biarritz this Tuesday evening. A sign of persistent geopolitical instability and the growing logistical challenges of such an event, only the Italian brand Max Mara is venturing to hold a show in Asia this year—specifically in China, in Shanghai.

Celebrating United States links

For the 2027 Cruise collections, the two French giants of the global luxury industry, LVMH and Kering, have chosen to reaffirm the United States’ role in their success, in the very year marking the 250th anniversary of Franco-American relations. In fiscal year 2025, both groups saw scattered pockets of growth in North America (1% for the former and 3% in Q3 for the latter). The luxury sector leader thus boasted of rising sales, buoyed by strong local demand in the second half of the year.

Thus, two of the country’s major cities and previous venues for the event have been selected within the United States : New York and Los Angeles.

Behind this strategic choice, the two groups appear to have played it safe. It is worth noting that the final destination—or at least the country and city—was officially announced between five months and a year in advance, well before the situation in the Middle East began to escalate.

baron-alloway-GfasMnbpcAY-unsplash — © Baron Alloway/Unsplash

Dior, the first of the major houses to kick off the American season on May 13, chose Los Angeles. The California city, known for its Democratic leanings, has the advantage of being situated at the crossroads of luxury, entertainment, and the cultural industries. Not to mention that Chanel had made a lasting impression by organizing a 2024 Cruise show at Paramount Studios, right in the heart of Hollywood, with undeniable viral success. In fact, LVMH’s flagship store is currently the only one among the “Big Five” to have revealed its exact location: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

But the clash of the titans takes place on more familiar luxury and fashion ground: New York. It was, in fact, in the city’s subway system that Chanel chose to stage its Métiers d’Art show last December. In the Big Apple, Gucci takes the next step in the competition on May 15, followed by Louis Vuitton on May 20.

Both Houses have an undeniable connection to the “city that never sleeps.” The luggage maker established the foundations of a commercial unit there as early as 1914. Gucci, for its part, waited until 1953—forty years later—to open its very first physical store in the United States.

Between authenticity and accessibility

Of the five major organizers of Cruise shows, Chanel is the only one to opt for a so-called “secondary” city outside the major luxury hubs. The city of Biarritz, on the French Basque coast, is by no means a random choice: it is intimately linked to the saga of founder Gabrielle Chanel and, beyond that, to the development of the eponymous fashion house.

In fact, as early as 1915, Coco Chanel opened what would become her first atelier-boutique outside of Paris at Villa Larralde, with Deauville having served as the setting for the first physical boutique offering couture collections as early as 1913. More recently, the late Karl Lagerfeld chose Villa Elhorria as his second home. And the polymathic designer did not live as a recluse, regularly visiting the Darrigade bookstore in Biarritz in person.

The imperial city on the Basque Coast could well benefit from a renewed appeal among a globalized luxury clientele. A sign of this creeping gentrification, Chanel has just opened a pop-up store, rue Gardère, in the immediate vicinity of the Grande Plage and its iconic Barrière casino.

However, having been in the crosshairs of aspirational customers for the past year following successive price hikes, perceived as “unjustified” in terms of value for money and style, the Double C House has chosen to offer a more inclusive option with a live screening of the show on a big screen on the day of the event—April 28 at 6 p.m.—at the Gare du Midi.

The show is all the more anticipated as it will mark Matthieu Blazy’s first Cruise collection. He is not the only one making his creative debut in the off-season: Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Demna at Gucci will do the same.

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