Chanel SS27: Gimme, gimme more of Matthieu Blazy’s magic Womenswear

There’s a magic to Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel. In the fashion world, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’s critical of his work – everyone who attends his shows leaves gushing, in a frenzy over the bags, shoes, silhouettes and soundtrack. Speaking of which, for the Belgian designer’s third ready-to-wear collection, he had the whole room dancing to Britney Spears’ 2007 banger “Gimme More”. “Sorry I’m gonna dance in this seat to this song and no one’s gonna stop me,” wrote influencer Kim Russell on social media, while the A-list front row was visibly bopping along. In an industry made up largely of girls and gays, Britney was always going to be a hit. 

Since clinching fashion’s top job and becoming Chanel’s creative director a year ago, Blazy’s soundtracks have quickly become a highlight of the entire fashion season. Created by legendary sound director Michel Gaubert, the tracks jump between Kylie Minogue, classical symphonies and The Lord of the Rings theme. The music is a perfect metaphor for what Blazy is doing at the house: blending the old with the new, while keeping it light and fun. It’s fashion that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and as a result, customers are deadly serious about owning it. 

Chanelmania doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soon, and it’s the first time in a long time that luxury fashion has prompted a global need comparable to the desperation of securing concert tickets or queuing for the latest Supreme drop. Luckily for Chanel shoppers, yesterday evening’s show revealed 83 styles of shoe (one for every look). It was the rare but wonderful type of collection where there was something new to dissect in every outfit. So without further ado, let’s get into it. 

Naturally, when the world’s most famous fashion house puts on a show, some of the world’s most famous celebrities cross the globe to sit front row. Chanel ambassadors Nicole Kidman, Dua Lipa, Ayo Edebiri, Alexa Demie and Pedro Pascal were all in attendance, but it was John Malkovich who stole our hearts this season. The actor wore a slouchy, untucked salmon shirt with denim jeans, while carrying an almost ludicrously capacious Chanel shopping bag on his shoulder. “I’m ready to shop!” rapper JT told us in a pre-show interview, which you can watch here. As the finale got underway and the holy sermon “It’s Britney bitch” boomed through the speakers, Dua Lipa had the whole frow dancing. “I got hit with Britney and all of a sudden I was so ready to dance,” the singer confessed. 

Thanks to Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel has a reputation for its impressive sets, consistently transforming Paris’ Grand Palais into something new altogether (a beach, a supermarket, a theatre, a rocket). It’s a tradition that’s been upheld by Blazy; his first show shot us into outer space, then there were the towering multicolour cranes, followed by a couture mushroom patch and sprouting beanstalks. Today, the historic exhibition hall was overrun by seagulls. Not real birds, but enormous models of them that swung from that ceiling, like an avian baby mobile dangling above a cot. We’ve known Blazy was a fan of the seaside ever since he took us to Biarritz for his debut Chanel cruise collection, and with his SS27 show, he doubled-down on the theme. 

Honouring the house’s history, Coco Chanel is present in each of Blazy’s collections. This season, he was inspired by a conversation between Coco and the French writer Louise de Vilmorin, who went on to write the designer’s memoirs in the late 1940s. One specific quote stood out to Blazy: “The child I once was is with me today… No one is closer to me than she is. She owes me everything, and I owe her what I was able to contribute to my era.” Using this as inspiration, Blazy took us on a trip back to Coco’s childhood during the Edwardian era – a time when traditional dress was structured and restrictive. Between the soft 1920s silhouettes and dropped waistlines, there were rigid corseted bodices, harking back to an earlier time and a nod to the sort of style that Coco never adopted herself. Rising model Dyanira Hurbuscher opened and closed the show while carrying an important piece of fashion history: Coco Chanel’s own 2.55 bag, borrowed from the Patrimoine archives. 

If you need any more proof of Blazy’s global influence, just look at the models he’s catapulted to stardom. Awar Odhiang melted our hearts when she closed his debut show, cheering and twirling in sheer joy. When he cast Bhavitha Mandava in his Métiers d’art collection in December 2025, she became the first Indian model to open a Chanel runway, making history and launching her career at the same time. Now he’s done it again, this time with Nigerian It Girl Rachel Ojuromi (who we interviewed earlier this year). If you don’t yet know her by name, you will have seen her viral fit checks, where she films herself turning the streets of Lagos into a runway. In one her videos, she recreated Chanel’s Métiers d’art show, which caught Blazy’s attention (he was spotted leaving comments on her post). Next thing you know, she left Africa for the first time to walk the Chanel show. If the career trajectories of Odhiang and Mandava are anything to go by, we’re about to be seeing a lot more of Ojuromi. Like we said, Matthieu Blazy is magic.