One Year of Blazymania:
Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel,
Then and Now

Can you believe it’s been one year since Matthieu Blazy’s debut Chanel collection? Time flies when you’re changing fashion history and rewriting house codes, one collection at a time. On 6 October 2025, fashion seemed to collectively hold its breath as Blazy presented his first collection for Chanel inside the Grand Palais. Expectations had reached almost impossible levels. He was taking on one of the most recognisable fashion houses in the world, following decades in which Karl Lagerfeld, and subsequently Virginie Viard, had shaped our understanding of what modern Chanel looked like.

Blazy’s answer was not to erase what came before, nor to simply reproduce it. Instead, he began pulling Chanel apart and putting it back together.

His Spring/Summer 2026 debut was staged beneath an enormous solar system, a suitably ambitious backdrop for what felt like the beginning of an entirely new Chanel universe. There were the familiar codes. Tweed, pearls, camellias, two-tone shoes and quilted bags, though they appeared slightly disturbed, loosened and reconsidered. The opening looks were unexpectedly boyish. Tailoring appeared relaxed, Charvet shirting entered the Chanel vocabulary, the House staple Chanel 2.55 appeared to have been torn apart. It felt recognisable without feeling overly reverential.

A year later, the ideas are getting clearer

Perhaps the most interesting thing about looking at Blazy’s first and most recent Chanel collections side by side is not how much has changed, but how quickly a language has developed. The initial excitement surrounding his appointment has given way to something more revealing: watching a designer take ideas that were convincing from the beginning and continue developing them. For Spring/Summer 2027, Blazy returned to the Grand Palais, this time beneath enormous illuminated birds. Where his debut looked towards the planets, his latest collection looked upwards again — exploring ideas of lightness, movement and flight. Tweed became increasingly fluid, raw and playful; tailoring rubbed shoulders with sheer fabrics, feathers, frayed edges and pieces that seemed to move differently on the body.

The theatricality might be unmistakably Chanel, but Blazy’s particular version of it is becoming increasingly easy to recognise. His Chanel can be romantic without becoming precious. It can be extraordinarily luxurious and simultaneously funny. A couture collection can unfold like a fairytale; a handbag can become an object of fashion obsession; a classic jacket can suddenly look appealing to someone who may never previously have considered buying Chanel.

Welcome to Blazymania

Of course, cultural influence is one thing. Getting people to actually want the clothes is another.

When pieces from Blazy’s debut collection arrived in boutiques in March, videos of customers descending on Chanel stores spread across social media. Waiting lists formed around desirable pieces and the phenomenon acquired a name of its own: Blazymania. Reports described demand for new deliveries and an appetite for pieces that felt genuinely new rather than simply seasonal variations of existing icons.

The bags have been particularly important.

Rather than treating Chanel’s established handbags as untouchable objects, Blazy has expanded the conversation around them. Familiar quilting and chain straps coexist with softer constructions, unusual proportions, novelty pieces and the kind of accessories that invite you to look twice.

The same applies to jewellery. Pearls, gold, costume jewellery and recognisable Chanel symbolism remain, but their styling feels less polite. The point is not abandoning the codes of the house. It is making them feel alive again.

The new Chanel cast

He has also built a world around the clothes.

There are the models who have become closely associated with his work, including Bhavitha Mandava, who followed Blazy from Bottega Veneta to Chanel and became the first Indian model to open a Chanel show when she led his Métiers d’Art 2026 presentation in New York.

The old Chanel is still there

And yet, perhaps Blazy’s smartest move has been understanding that modernising Chanel does not require distancing himself from Gabrielle Chanel.

His latest show made that especially clear.

Model Dyanira Hurbuscher both opened and closed Spring/Summer 2027 carrying Gabrielle Chanel’s own original 2.55 handbag — a remarkably literal connection between the woman who created the house and the designer currently imagining its future.

One year in, Blazy’s Chanel increasingly exists in that tension: archive and invention, fantasy and functionality, reverence and irreverence.

And, importantly, it looks as though he is enjoying himself.

The excitement around the arrival of a “new Chanel” has now largely subsided. What is left may be far more interesting. We are no longer waiting to discover what Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel will look like. We’re watching him build it.

And if the first twelve months have taught us anything, there is still plenty left to come.

Shop Blazy-era Chanel at Rewind

From the pieces that defined his debut to the Chanel signatures already becoming future collectibles, shop a select edit of Blazy-era Chanel with Rewind Vintage Affairs.

Chanel "Cheetah Print" Medium Flap Bag with Gold Hardware

And if there’s a particular piece from Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel you’ve been searching for, let us know. We might just be able to source it... get in touch.