By Seth Khouri
Helming a maison the likes of Chanel requires a deep understanding of the house’s heritage and enduring codes. Since his debut last October, Matthieu Blazy has embarked on what feels like an ongoing dialogue with Coco Chanel herself, consistently reintroducing archival Chanelisms in full perennial bloom. In keeping with the tradition of previous creative directors at Chanel, this season Matthieu Blazy transformed the Grand Palais into an unexpected construction site, punctuated by cranes rendered in a kaleidoscope of vibrant hues. It was here that Blazy drew inspiration from an interview Coco Chanel gave to the French newspaper Le Figaro in the 1950s.
“Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly. Be a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night. There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. The butterfly doesn’t go to the market, and the caterpillar doesn’t go to the ball.” shared Blazy when discussing his starting point.
The seventy-eight-look collection unfolded as an emulsion of day and evening wear. Tweed jackets were styled atop workwear shirting and relaxed pinstripe trousers, while silk drop-waist skirts and flapper dresses appeared layered beneath structured outerwear. Elsewhere, pleated skirts rendered in soundwave-like stripes and floral-embroidered knits punctuated the offering. It is here that Matthieu Blazy seemed to present the caterpillar and the butterfly simultaneously, the everyday and the transformative existing side by side within the codes of Chanel.
Look 70 encapsulated this sentiment: a peach-pink A-line lace dress adorned with baby-pink pom-poms at each shoulder and scattered floral appliqués across the torso. The ensemble was rounded out with a series of beaded necklaces and chunky pearl earrings, with lavender-purple and cherry-red pumps underfoot. Later, Look 74 introduced a metallic skirt-and-blouse set styled beneath a grey-and-red tweed jacket. The skirt shimmered in shifting tones of lime green and deep purple, finished with golden pumps on the foot and a burgundy Chanel Classic Flap Bag carried in hand–practical in the daylight, transformative in the evening.
Blazy’s strength lies in his ability to hold these two impulses in delicate balance. In doing so, he reinforces one of the house’s most enduring truths: that Chanel has always thrived in the tension between comfort and glamour. Here, the caterpillar and the butterfly coexist, not as opposing ideas, but as two essential halves of the same identity.
