In a grandiose setting featuring the eight planets of the solar system, Matthieu Blazy, the young prodigy from Bottega Veneta, attempted the impossible: to renew the vision of the Chanel woman without denying her heritage of 110 years of fashion design. More contemporary, experimental, and less dated, the show earned him a standing ovation and thunderous applause from the audience.
On Monday, October 6, under the majestic glass roof of the Grand Palais, Matthieu Blazy, 41, had, just like his colleague a few days earlier, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, a date with history.
And what a moment it was! He became the fourth creative director of Chanel in more than a decade, attempting to follow in the footsteps of the emancipatory and star-studded Gabrielle Chanel, followed by the polymath and media darling Karl Lagerfeld, and then the faithful Virginie Viard.
Added to this was the Herculean challenge of delivering a women’s wardrobe of 77 silhouettes, capable of appealing to both ends of the customer spectrum, from the voluble and uninhibited Gen Z to the fervent but aging admirers of old.
In other words, the pressure that Mathieu Blazy was entitled to feel that day was almost worthy of the mythical and demiurgic Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders.
Ultimately, if the applause and praise from the press and buyers are anything to go by, the young man seems to have succeeded in embracing the codes dear to Gabrielle Chanel while thoroughly modernizing the silhouette of the tweed-clad lady.
A Pyrrhic victory
Can Chanel still surprise us?
When he took up the torch in 1983 for a sleeping beauty, the designer and brilliant communicator Karl Lagerfeld had, against all odds, managed to offer a more rock ‘n’ roll and urban chic vision of the Chanel woman, silencing critics who saw the House of the double C as already “dead.”
In 2019, following the death of the Kaiser of fashion, his discreet right-hand woman Virginie Viard proposed a more feminist, minimalist, and casual vision.
On October 1, Matthieu Blazy proved that the rule of “never two without three” also applies to the House on Rue Cambon. The young designer has created a new surprise effect at Chanel. He dared to propose a fashion show that skillfully distances itself from a hitherto omnipresent past, playing fully with the codes of masculine-feminine.
Down with tweed
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Featured photo: © Chanel
