Matthieu Blazy presents a flawless collection at Chanel – yet one without its own idea. Between planets, pearls and perfection, fashion loses itself in its own radiance.
The Orbit of Meaning
Few fashion houses stage their past as loudly as Chanel – and appear at the same time so deeply trapped within it. What once stood for liberation has become a formula. Tweed, pearls, bows – the three sacred signs, endlessly rearranged yet always the same. This time, planets floated above the stage at the Grand Palais, as if the new designer Matthieu Blazy wanted to launch the brand into an orbit it had already left behind.
The Lightness of Triviality
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Alfons Kaiser described the show as “light” and “modern” – two words as noncommittal as a PR release printed on champagne paper. In truth, it was an enactment of safety, a galactically lit confession to predictability. What once made Coco Chanel rebellious – her refusal to decorate the female body rather than define it – has now become the decorative principle itself. Under Blazy, the practical is quoted but not lived, the elegant copied but not thought.
Beauty Without Risk
It was clear: this fashion no longer wanted to create, only to please. It sought connection, not departure. Its perfection lies in the familiar, its beauty in the riskless. Blazy does not dress women; he reassures clients. The fabrics are immaculate, the silhouettes impeccable – and yet everything remains without temperature. Nothing wants to provoke, nothing to surprise. It is fashion that avoids conflict because it knows its audience no longer asks questions. Thus, the collection floats between fine craftsmanship and decorative paralysis – like a luxury house holding its breath so as not to startle its own myth.
Applause as Argument
Kaiser tells the story of a “new star” who “revives the codes.” In reality, it was merely the old game of the fashion press resumed: the polite applause mistaken for analysis. The standing ovations at the Grand Palais echoed – but hollowly. People did not applaud an idea, but a confirmation. Applause replaces judgment; enthusiasm has become the currency of an industry that drowns its own fatigue in volume. Chanel lives, goes the echo. But on what, exactly?
The Shadows of the Planets
It may have been telling that the stage was darker than the clothes.
In the light of the planets one saw mostly shadows. Fashion that no longer trusts itself hides in half-light. Karl Lagerfeld would have smiled that evening – not out of admiration, but out of boredom. He, who never believed in fashion but in the ingenuity of form, would have known: when the setting outshines the collection, fashion is already history.
Knowledge Without Conviction
Blazy is no dilettante. He masters the craft – the draping, the texture, the rhythm of a show. But he mistakes knowledge for conviction. What at Bottega Veneta worked as refined austerity now feels like a compulsory exercise at Chanel. The sentence that ties everything together is missing – the thought that makes a dress necessary. Without that thought, fashion remains decoration: beautiful, but mute.
The Woman in the Extinguished Light
Chanel would probably benefit more from a creative pause than from another show. The house is as old as its icons and resembles a woman who still believes in the illusion within the mirror, even though the flattering light of youth has long faded. It continues to produce images but no longer ideas. What was once a language of liberation has become a rhetoric of self-quotation. And while the planets outside keep orbiting, inside everything remains the same – an eternal, immaculate and at the same time weary dance around itself.
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