A Closer Look At The Chanel Collection That’s Causing A Stir In Stores

Matthieu Blazy’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection for Chanel is in stores now, and selling out quick. All photos courtesy of Chanel

If you needed more proof that longevity is the key to virality these days, look no further than the thirst for Chanel currently sweeping through the style set. As Paris Fashion Week drew to a close on Wednesday, one of the defining trends of the season—powerful enough to have editors, influencers, and models alike joining snaking queues outside stores—revolved around a collection presented last October, for a house that’s been in operation for over 110 years. Fashion critic Vanessa Friedman has dubbed it Chanelmania, and it’s an apt moniker. The buzz surrounding Matthieu Blazy’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection for Chanel is nothing short of a frenzy.

Part of Blazy’s mission when he took the helm at Chanel last year was to refresh and revive the house without breaking from style codes that have defined it for over a century. The popularity of the Spring/Summer 2026 collection, launched in stores only a few days ago, proves that he’s well on his way to success. Blazy has a compelling vision for Chanel’s future, but perhaps most importantly for the digital age, he has a knack for distilling it into eye-catching moments that leave people wanting more. Think of the Charvet shirts on the SS26 runways, the gritty New York subway milieu of the Métiers d’Arts show, or the discovery of ingenue Bhavitha Mandava—these headline-stealing moments served to build up the fantasy around Blazy’s Chanel. Ultimately, this trail of viral breadcrumbs, rolled out over months, is leading the people where every creative director in fashion wants them the most: in stores, with their wallets open.

The most coveted pieces from the Spring/Summer 2026 collection are said to be the accessories, particularly the flap bags and classic two-toned pumps. The crisp Charvet shirts in both white and coral are also a hot commodity. Ahead, we take a closer look at the narrative and influences behind Matthieu Blazy’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection for Chanel.

Cosmic Dialogue: Matthieu Blazy’s Starry Debut Collection For Chanel

Staged at the Grand Palais during Paris Fashion Week last October, Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection arrived at the tail end of a season crowded with high-profile designer debuts, yet still emerged as one of the most anticipated. After all, Blazy was stepping into a role previously held by only two designers outside of Gabrielle Chanel herself. But the question that he pondered ahead of his debut was far more philosophical than that of supply and demand: if you were given the chance to speak with any historical figure, Blazy seemingly asked himself, who would it be, and what would you talk about? For Spring/Summer 2026, it was with Coco Chanel, the maison’s eponymous founder, that Blazy chose to begin a dialogue.

This repartee unfolded against a cosmic backdrop of floating planets and mirrored surfaces. “This is a universe, the Universe of Chanel,” the collection statement read. “Within it, outside the usual constraints of space and time, a conversation unfolds.” The exchange opened with one of the house’s most recognisable archetypes: the Chanel suit, reshaped into something unmistakably modern. Boxy shoulders and a sharply cropped silhouette blurred the line between menswear and womenswear, introducing the evening’s central theme—freedom.

Blazy extended this idea by sending what appeared to be a procession of men’s shirts down the runway: crisply tailored, worn untucked and slipping languidly off the shoulders. Labels sewn into the inner plackets credited historic French shirtmaker Charvet with both technique and fabric. The backstory is as breezily nonchalant as the shirts themselves. Coco Chanel’s lover and muse, Boy Capel, was a devoted Charvet client, and she was known to borrow his button-downs as part of her own wardrobe. Even these pieces, seemingly lifted straight from Chanel’s personal life, carried Blazy’s wit and modernity—seen in pearl buttons at the cuffs and braided metal chains sewn into the hems.

The result felt both fresh and unmistakably Chanel, rooted in the idea of liberating women through dress. The constraints facing women in Coco Chanel’s era were, of course, literal—corsets that bound and restricted, which she rejected by infusing her designs with ease and movement. Blazy’s approach reflects the ambiguities of our own time. He loosens the boundaries between masculine and feminine, pairing shirts with slouchy trousers one moment and tiered, fringed skirts the next. Months later, off the runway, Australian actor Jacob Elordi has been spotted wearing Charvet shirts and tweed jackets from the womenswear line—masculine into feminine, and then masculine again.

Freedom also revealed itself in the collection’s sense of vibrancy and whimsy. Classic Chanel daywear was infused with optimism. Skirt suits were rendered in daringly transparent, hand-knotted knits; the camellia was crushed into crochet motifs and exploded into eccentric headdresses. A delicious messiness emerged. Look closely at a swingy, intricately beaded skirt, and you would notice it unravelling at the hem. Look closer still, and a neat line of stitching holds the fray in place—a carefully considered unravelling.

Not even the iconic 2.55 bag was spared. Thin metal plates inserted between the leather lining crushed and distorted its familiar form, as though it had already lived a lifetime at someone’s side. This deliberate disarray underscored the difference between reverence and affection. These were not objects to be admired from afar, Blazy seemed to suggest, but pieces meant to be lived in. Coco Chanel may have unbound women; Blazy sends them into the cosmos.

And then came the final look: a simple silk T-shirt tucked into a magnificently feathered evening skirt. Model Awar Odhiang, one of the few Black women to ever close a Chanel show, took her final lap with arms outstretched and a radiant smile. The Chanel woman is free as a bird—and when the cosmos are the limit, what is there not to smile about?

Below, get a closer look at Matthieu Blazy’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection for Chanel.