What’s happening: Fashion’s pivotal month comes to a close with the final, and arguably biggest debut – Matthieu Blazy’s first collection for Chanel on Monday.
Tough acts to follow: So far this season we’ve seen Demna, Dario Vitale, Jonathan Anderson and others put their distinctive stamp on storied houses. Expect Blazy to do the same, though when the brand is Chanel, what he’ll do – and how much freedom he’ll have to do it – is more of a wild card. His first show will be held at the Grand Palais, the Paris landmark that has hosted where Karl Lagerfeld, and Virginie Viard, showed their collections (aside from a hiatus ending in 2024 while the venue was undergoing renovation). There will almost certainly be tweed, though Blazy may deploy the brand’s signifiers in unexpected ways.
The total package: Expectations are high because Blazy so clearly embodies what every major luxury brand says they’re looking for in a designer these days – a ”fusion of traditional Italian craftsmanship, materials innovation and a kaleidoscope of cultural references … and an eclectic cast of A-list muses,” as BoF luxury editor at large Robert Williams put it upon his hiring in December 2024.
Chanel doesn’t need a savior, but it could use a fresh perspective. Like most other luxury brands saw sales decline last year, by 4 percent to $18.7 billion, and profits contracted by 30 percent. The brand has already taken one step to win back customers, limiting price increases to a modest 3 percent in 2024 after several years of bigger hikes that had put the brand at the centre of the discourse around whether luxury could justify charging sharply higher prices for the same – or some would say, diminished – product.
Those pricing decisions were made at the corporate level, but Blazy will play a more direct role in shoring up the other pillars of Chanel’s value proposition. The designer built a reputation at Bottega Veneta for combining old-fashioned craftsmanship with technological wizardry, starting with a debut collection featuring leather printed to look like denim. That will help address quality concerns that have dogged Chanel and other high-end brands.
Blazy can also engineer the sort of viral runway and red carpet moments that were few and far between during the Viard years, which will help the brand’s marketing machine convince consumers to pay those higher prices. In interviews Chanel fashion president Bruno Pavlovsky has described Blazy’s arrrival a “new era” and an opportunity to “push the boundaries of what Chanel is.”
Patience please: Pushing boundaries at the world’s second-biggest fashion brand is still a gradual process. It’ll take time for Blazy to make his mark across Chanel’s sprawling business, including six collections per year. Back in May when the company released results, chief executive Leena Nair made clear the brand is thinking on a longer time horizon than this Monday’s show: “Chanel is a brand which has such profound depth that it takes time to truly understand and immerse oneself… We’re not focusing on what he’s going to bring to one collection, but looking at the next many collections over the next few years. The vision takes time to unfold.”
Stay tuned for Tim Blanks’ special BoF 500 cover story on Blazy and his vision for Chanel immediately after the show on Monday night.
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