Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa sat front row at Chanel as the French fashion house gave its famous tweed suits a Noughties spin at Paris Fashion Week.
The Hollywood actress and British pop star were joined by The Last Of Us actor Pedro Pascal, actress Olivia Wilde and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for Chanel’s spring/summer 2027 show on Monday evening.
Held at Paris’s Grand Palais once again, the show marked a year since Matthieu Blazy made his debut as Chanel’s creative director.
For his latest collection, Blazy turned his attention to Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel herself, tracing the founder’s changing wardrobe through a mammoth 83 looks – from the decorative clothes of her youth and her experiments with menswear to the tweed suits that became synonymous with the house.
“It’s not a historical show,” Blazy said of the collection, “it’s a show about the histories of Chanel.”
The designer’s references may have stretched back more than a century, but much of the styling felt firmly rooted in the Noughties – a decade whose colour palette has seemed to be the chief inspiration for SS27 runways.
Chanel’s signature knee-length skirts were pushed low on to the hips, exposing belts and bare stomachs, while cropped tweed jackets were worn with nothing underneath.
Low-rise has been one of the biggest trends to emerge from the fashion month shows, appearing everywhere from Miu Miu to Prada to Saint Laurent, and Blazy found a surprisingly natural home for it in one of fashion’s most traditional uniforms.
There were plenty of the midi and knee-length skirts that have dominated the Paris runways too, appearing in burgundy leather, fraying tweed, sheer fabrics and checks.
Some were teamed with boxy jackets, others with fitted waistcoats or loose menswear tailoring, as the classic Chanel suit became less prim.
The house’s famous tweed was pulled apart in other ways.
Threads dangled from hems and cuffs and jackets were cropped with raw edges to expose the stomach. The “loose threads” trend seems to be a key motif this season, having cropped up on the runways of Dior, Roksanda and Ahluwalia.
Blazy also introduced a new, stretchy tweed made from re-embroidered organza and silk which his team has developed over the past year as a lighter interpretation of one of Chanel’s most recognisable fabrics.
These experiments chimed with the woman whose wardrobe inspired the collection.
Chanel founded her label in 1910 and helped loosen the restrictions of early 20th-century womenswear, borrowing fabrics and garments from men’s wardrobes and popularising everything from jersey to wide-leg trousers.
Blazy nodded to that history with pinstriped trousers, oversized jackets, shirts and sleeveless tailoring.
Blazy also looked to the future in this collection, introducing far more fanciful designs, such as a powder-blue fitted bodice erupting into a huge white tulle skirt, while delicate tulle skirts were contrasted with raw hemmed tops.
There were also sequins, beads and long strands of jewellery and little of the stiff structure usually associated with red-carpet eveningwear.
The collection also revisited another trend that has dominated fashion month: sheer.
Transparent knits revealed the body beneath, jackets were worn bare-chested and diaphanous dresses were layered over little more than underwear.
Even the more conservative skirt suits came with unexpected flashes of skin.
Accessories remained undeniably Chanel, with pearl drop earrings, long strands of beads and shells, low-slung belts and quilted chain-strap handbags appearing throughout.
Model newcomer Dyanira Hurbuscher opened and closed the show carrying Coco Chanel’s original 2.55 handbag, borrowed from the house archives.
Almost every look came with a different pair of heels, including versions of the house’s recognisable two-tone shoes.
Above it all hung a canopy of glowing golden birds, while the seating arrangement was inspired by a southern Italian village where Blazy spends his holidays, lending the vast Grand Palais an unexpectedly intimate feel.
Blazy took over one of fashion’s biggest jobs after the departure of Virginie Viard in 2024.
She had succeeded Karl Lagerfeld after his death in 2019, having worked alongside the German designer for decades.
Lagerfeld spent 36 years at Chanel, repeatedly playing with the founder’s tweed, pearls, quilting, camellias and chains and turning them into some of the most recognisable symbols in fashion.
A year into his own tenure, Blazy seems increasingly willing to interfere with those symbols too.
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