Matthieu Blazy’s First Chanel Couture Show Was a Haiku in a Mushroom Grove

When Chanel returned to the Grand Palais for its Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture show, the setting felt less like a stage than a suspended world. Beneath the soaring glass nave, the House conjured an enchanted landscape of towering mushrooms and weeping willow forms, their blush and rose tones softening the monumentality of the space. It was here—within this dreamlike clearing—that Matthieu Blazy presented his first Haute Couture collection for Chanel, framing the moment as both reverent and fleeting, like a haiku glimpsed and gone.

The collection unfolded as a meditation on what makes Chanel, Chanel. Not as iconography alone, but as lived experience—clothes shaped by the wearer as much as the maker. Blazy’s vision was deliberately pared back, stripped to essentials, allowing lightness, movement, and emotion to lead. The result was a show that resisted spectacle for spectacle’s sake, favoring intimacy, tactility, and quiet transformation.

“Haute Couture is the very soul of Chanel—it is the foundation and the full expression of the House.”

— Matthieu Blazy

A Poetic Stage Set in Nature

The scenography established the collection’s tone before the first look appeared. Stylized nature—willows cascading like threads of silk, oversized mushrooms anchoring the space—created a sense of temporal suspension. The models moved through this environment as if passing through a clearing at dawn, reinforcing the show’s central idea: couture as a fleeting emotional exchange between garment and body.

This poetic framing echoed the anonymous haiku referenced in the show notes—“Bird on a mushroom / I saw the beauty at once / Then gone, flown away”—a motif that shaped both the narrative and the garments themselves. The setting was neither literal nor fantastical, but somewhere in between, allowing the clothes to oscillate between memory and imagination.

Matthieu Blazy Reexamines the Chanel Codes

The opening looks reintroduced the Chanel suit in its most distilled form. Constructed from translucent silk mousseline in tender shades of blush, dove grey, and ivory, the tailoring appeared almost weightless—an impression heightened by the way light passed through the fabric as the models walked. These suits felt less like declarations and more like recollections, layered with emotional artifacts embedded into their construction.

Throughout the collection, personal tokens emerged as subtle embellishments: embroidered love letters, miniature bottles of N°5, flashes of red lipstick. These details appeared stitched into linings, slipped into pockets, or suspended from the iconic chain that traditionally weights Chanel jackets. Even the classic bag was reimagined as a palimpsest, its interior life exposed, suggesting that couture’s true meaning often resides beneath the surface.

“These are clothes that are as much about the wearer as the designer.”

— Matthieu Blazy

Color remained deliberately restrained yet expressive—raven black anchoring the collection, followed by nuanced greys, powder pinks, and complex, feather-like hues achieved through embroidery, pleating, and weaving rather than literal plumage. Patterns shimmered and dissolved, echoing movement rather than motif, while textures invited close inspection: silk mousseline, delicately structured tweeds, and surfaces animated by handwork from the ateliers of le19M.

Metamorphosis, Movement, and the Body

As the show progressed, a quiet transformation took place. The women at the center of the collection began to suggest birds—not through costume, but through silhouette and motion. Tailored looks flowed into flou constructions; sharp cuts softened; garments appeared to hover around the body rather than cling to it. From raven-black ensembles emphasizing supreme tailoring to richly layered looks evoking exotic plumage, each piece suggested a different avian character.

Rather than relying on feathers themselves, Matthieu Blazy allowed craft to do the work—pleating that rippled like wings, embroidery that hinted at plumage, weaving that created depth without weight. The effect was symbolic rather than literal, positioning birds as emblems of freedom and individuality, or simply as beings existing beautifully on their own terms.

The finale gathered these figures together briefly—like a murmuration—before dispersing them back into the landscape. Haute Couture, the show suggested, exists in that momentary pause: intensely present, then gone.

VIPs in Attendance at Chanel Haute Couture

The front row at the Chanel Spring/Summer 2026 Haute Couture show was a constellation of global talent, underscoring the cultural cachet of Matthieu Blazy and his couture debut. Hollywood royalty gathered in support, with Nicole Kidman—the newly appointed Chanel ambassador—bringing her luminous elegance; Penélope Cruz, longtime House muse, turned heads in a sleek couture ensemble; Tilda Swinton offered her signature, androgynous glamour; and A$AP Rocky, newly aligned with the brand, added a cool, contemporary edge to the star-studded scene. Music icons like Dua Lipa shared smiles and selfies alongside fashion’s most celebrated faces, while style stalwarts and cultural tastemakers completed the A-list tableau, marking the occasion as one of the season’s most talked-about moments.