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Chanel gave Paris Fashion Week one of its most talked-about evenings on Monday, as creative director Matthieu Blazy marked a full year at the house with a spring/summer 2027 collection built around tiger-print tweed, see-through skirt suits and a sky full of suspended birds. The show at the Grand Palais, the venue Chanel has long used for its biggest moments, doubled as a status report on a revival that has kept the label busy while other luxury names struggle for momentum.
The signature pieces came early and set the tone. According to Reuters, models walked out in skirt suits cut from sheer cream or black fabric, embroidered with flowers and beads. Others wore tweed that had been loosened into a wide windowpane check with mesh panels, or reworked in a bold red-and-white tiger print. Hems were frayed or finished with metallic beading. For a house whose tweed suit is practically a uniform for polished restraint, the effect was deliberate mischief: the fabric was still recognizable, but it looked lighter, looser and a little less serious about itself.
Footwear followed the same playful logic. Reuters described new versions of Chanel’s two-tone pumps in leopard or tiger print with a cream toe, or in baby blue and silver, while the sandals were chunky and carried a large gold interlocking C across the front. Those details matter to shoppers because accessories are where many customers first buy into a new creative era, and the loud, collectible shoe is exactly the kind of item that tends to circulate on social media long before the clothes reach stores.
Beyond the headline looks, the collection was broad. WWD counted 83 looks in what it called Blazy’s most versatile show so far, and several reviewers noted that it worked as both a summary of the codes he has set up over the past 12 months and a hint of what comes next. Zoe Report highlighted pleated miniskirts, softened tweeds and jackets worn against bare skin, along with 1930s-inspired formal gowns light enough to wear, Blazy suggested, with the ease of a T-shirt. Elements from Chanel’s archive also surfaced, including corset boning, peplum shapes, ruffled collars and curved bodices, and one model carried the house’s 2.55 handbag. Blazy described the show not as a historical exercise but as a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories, according to the notes quoted in several reviews.
That idea of layers was central. The designer said he wanted to show a side of Gabrielle Chanel that is less often discussed, the playful and costume-loving one, and WWD quoted him linking that to the way a woman can contain many different selves. In practice, it meant menswear-inspired tailoring sitting next to fluid dresses and lingerie references, a mix that Angélique Liautaud, womenswear buying and merchandising director at the Paris department store Printemps, summed up by saying the house felt as alive as ever. She credited the masculine wardrobe, the fluid dresses, the lingerie and a sense of liberated movement with bringing a new sensuality to Chanel. The idea that one should wear the Chanel suit the way one wears a T-shirt, which Blazy has said appeals to him, runs through the whole season.
The setting did a lot of the storytelling. Guests gathered beneath a flock of about 95 birds suspended in midflight, according to WWD, with other outlets counting almost 100. Beneath them, the Grand Palais glowed with a giant moon and a multicoloured glass floor that reflected the models as they walked. The set was inspired by a village in southern Italy where Blazy spends his holidays, near a river visited by migrating birds, a detail that matched the show’s theme of freedom and lightness. Fabrics lifted, floated and moved with the body, a quality reviewers said was especially clear in the sheer pieces.
The music added to the mood. The show ended with a mash-up of Britney Spears’s “Gimme More,” which sent guests out smiling, according to several accounts. Front-row attendees included Nicole Kidman, Dua Lipa, Pedro Pascal, Marion Cotillard, Kristen Wiig, Sandra Hüller, Alexa Demie and Ayo Edebiri, and reports described Kidman and Lipa dancing in their seats. As is usual at Chanel, the celebrity presence was part of the spectacle, though the commercial question underneath it is more interesting than the guest list.
That question is how a house of Chanel’s size sustains attention. Reuters noted that Blazy’s designs, which inject youthful glitter and loud colour combinations into the label’s traditional tweed suits, have drawn new customers since his first collection a year ago and kept Chanel stores busy, even as other luxury brands face tougher conditions. Chanel is privately owned by the Wertheimer family and is described by AFP as the world’s second biggest luxury fashion brand by sales, so it does not publish the kind of quarterly figures that would show exactly how the revival is translating into revenue. What can be said is that the mood around the brand, among retailers and the fashion press, has changed markedly since the era that followed Karl Lagerfeld’s death.
Blazy, who previously led Bottega Veneta, was named Chanel’s artistic director in December 2024, and his debut collection arrived in Paris in October 2025. Since then, he has shown a Métiers d’Art collection, a cruise collection staged in Biarritz, the seaside town where Gabrielle Chanel opened her first boutique, and now this spring/summer 2027 show. WWD noted that guests at the Grand Palais wore pieces from his earlier outings, with a look from the Métiers d’Art show proving especially popular, which is a small but telling sign that his clothes are being bought and worn rather than only photographed.
Not everyone was won over. A discussion among members of the fashion community site theFashionSpot described parts of the collection as ill-fitting or sloppy, and some commenters said they saw familiar silhouettes recycled with minor fabric changes. Those reactions come from an online forum and do not represent the professional critics, who were largely positive, but they are a reminder that a collection this wide-ranging will divide opinion. Sheer fabrics, drooping shapes and a deliberately undone look are choices that read as modern to some viewers and unfinished to others.
For shoppers and stylists, the practical takeaways are clear. Animal print is returning in a more graphic form, with the red-and-white tiger tweed likely to be the season’s most recognizable motif. Transparency is arriving in tailored shapes, not only in evening dresses, which makes the sheer skirt suit an unusually wearable idea for those who like to layer. The two-tone pump and the chunky logo sandal point to accessories that will probably sell on shape and colour alone. And the broader styling message is about ease: jackets on bare skin, tweed treated like cotton, formal gowns that feel casual.
Chanel’s own channels, including the house’s official website at Chanel, will carry the collection and show details as the season progresses, and the fuller trade reaction can be read in the WWD review. Retail availability for the pieces has not been announced in the coverage reviewed, and spring/summer collections generally reach stores in the months after the shows.
Readers who follow the business of fashion and technology, from luxury sales to digital retail, can find more coverage at BusinessTech Nigeria. For now, the verdict from Paris is that Blazy’s second year at Chanel has begun the way his first ended, with a collection that people want to talk about and, more importantly, to wear.
