PFW SS27: Like a Bird, Chanel Sets Its Heritage Free

Matthieu Blazy revisits Gabrielle Chanel’s personal evolution to show that heritage isn’t something to preserve in place, but to set free.

Chanel’s heritage has never been short of iconic pieces, from its tweed suit to the little black dress, quilted bag and pearls. For Spring/Summer 2027, Matthieu Blazy is less interested in preserving those codes than liberating them.

Presented beneath a flock of illuminated birds at the Grand Palais, his latest Chanel collection traces Gabrielle Chanel’s own evolution, from the corseted, Edwardian woman she once was to the woman who dismantled those conventions and built a radically freer wardrobe in their place. That makes the collection feel less like a trip through the Chanel archives and more like a story of transformation.

His starting point is Gabrielle herself. He looks at the different women Chanel became throughout her life and treats them as chapters rather than contradictions. As a young woman shaped by Edwardian corsetry who eventually rejected its constraints, she introduced jersey into women’s fashion and explored menswear. Later, she transformed tailoring into something softer, more mobile and more instinctive.

The collection follows that trajectory with corsetry that exposes boning, tailoring that becomes deconstructed, underwear that becomes visible and tweed that becomes flexible. As Blazy puts it in the collection notes, women become “multiple selves” throughout their lives. For him, Gabrielle Chanel simply happens to be the ultimate example.

The first looks make the argument immediately. A sheer slip reveals briefs and a cage-like bralette underneath, recalling the jersey underwear that marked the beginning of Gabrielle Chanel’s fashion story. Rather than treating underwear as something to hide beneath the clothes, Blazy brings it into the open.

Then comes the house’s most famous symbol of liberation: the suit. Gabrielle Chanel’s tweed tailoring was revolutionary precisely because it allowed women to move. Blazy takes that idea and pushes it further, stripping away some of the conventions that have accumulated around the Chanel jacket over the decades. Waistcoats appear raw-edged and unfinished, while jackets are worn against bare skin. Tailoring is loosened, layered and deconstructed, sometimes revealing what would normally sit beneath it.

The collection’s biggest technical statement arrives towards the end in the form of smocked tweed. It looks like Chanel tweed, but behaves nothing like the rigid idea of Chanel tweed we might expect. The new construction gives the fabric stretch, flexibility and movement, allowing the suit to function almost like a performance garment.

The flock of birds suspended above the Grand Palais might have looked like spectacular set design, but they carry the collection’s central metaphor. Blazy describes Chanel’s journey as one of taking flight,  each step in Gabrielle’s evolution leading her towards greater freedom. Birds appear throughout the collection as jewellery, buttons, embroidery and, most dramatically, a birdcage minaudière whose birds have escaped.

It is almost impossible to miss the symbolism. The cage still exists, but the bird is liberated. In Blazy’s eyes, Chanel’s codes are doing exactly the same thing. They’re getting set free.

Discover more of the show and collection at the official website here.

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