One of the coffee tables in Gabrielle Chanel’s 31 Rue Cambon apartment holds a curious centrepiece: a golden, jewelled birdcage, two intricate lovebird charms perched inside. It was reportedly gifted to Chanel by a seamstress from her own ateliers, and the designer placed it in her home as a reminder of its inherent contradiction—a woman synonymous with freedom and determination, enchanted by a gilded cage.
The birdcage was just one of the many motifs and symbols that populated Chanel’s life. These have always proved rewarding design fodder for the maison’s creative directors—in 1992, Vanessa Paradis was pictured swinging from a giant birdcage in an evocative short film advertising the L’esprit de Chanel fragrance. Then, for Spring/Summer 2025—one of the only collections designed entirely by the maison’s creative team without a lead designer—an intricate birdcage minaudière was spotted on the runway. For Spring/Summer 2027, though, Matthieu Blazy eschewed most of the obvious avian references (aside from the giant swallow sculptures suspended from the ceiling) and took a more metaphorical route: the bird in flight as a symbol of freedom, and a refusal to stay put.
Much like his debut collection for the maison, Blazy framed it as a conversation with Coco Chanel herself—except for this season, the dialogue took place with all the many facets of her personality. “Throughout their lives, women become multiple selves, different faces of the same coin,” he explained in his collection notes. “Here, it’s about one woman, Gabrielle, who then became Chanel.”
The resulting collection was like thumbing through a living, breathing photo book of Chanel’s life, each look giving us a peek into a different chapter. The show began with “Gabrielle before Chanel”, featuring a body-skimming, lingerie-like dress in sheer silk knit—a nod to how she was among the first luxury designers to favour the jersey fabric commonly used for men’s underwear. In a poignant touch, the look featured a camellia brooch and Chanel’s very own 2.55 bag, lifted from the archives.
Then came the Chanel that never was—in echoes of the Edwardian corsetry and tailoring she rebelled against in the 1930s. The very same sheer knit that symbolised freedom was then shown with high, ruffled collars and “shadow boning” mimicking the constrictions of a corset. The fuss and frills of the Edwardian era flowed naturally into another period early in Chanel’s career, where she began experimenting with masculine tailoring for womenswear. This, too, came with a twist: a sharply cut gilet shown with undone edges, or the tails of a mint-green waistcoat peeking out from under a sensible grey suit.
As the collection unfolded, many iterations of Coco Chanel joined the conversation, and more than a few came with a distinctly Matthieu Blazy slant. Many a Blazy signature was spotted: pops of mint green and coral, boxy-shouldered blazers in Prince of Wales checks, faux-skirts with belts mimicking drop waists. The designer’s penchant for lightness and whimsy was also woven throughout, seen in tiny embroidered flowers crowded onto hems and skirt suits in translucent gauze.
Even then, the designer pushed his own interrogation of the maison’s codes into new territory. The silhouettes came with a girlish romance that contrasted with his usually sleek impulses: tea-length dresses featuring reams of fluffy tulle, and cropped mini-skirts shown with midriff-baring jackets. It was a signal that even as Blazy plumbs the maison’s archives and history for inspiration, his vision is for the women of the present. Towards the end of the show, he even showed the Chanel yet to come: a classic skirt suit, reinvented for the future in an innovative smocked tweed.
It’s an idea Blazy has explored throughout his tenure at Chanel, from his design to casting choices—that the maison should embody freedom and lightness for every type of woman, from ingénue Bhavitha Mandava to veteran Stephanie Cavalli. “This is not a historical collection,” he clarified. “It’s a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories.” It ended, as many good stories do, with a callback to the beginning. The very same model who opened the show, once again carrying Gabrielle Chanel’s own archival bag—but instead of barely-there knitwear, she was now clad in a solid, structured black two-piece suit that felt Chanel to the core.
Below, see the best looks from Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection.
This article originally appeared on Grazia Singapore.
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