Only a year-ish at Chanel, but Matthieu Blazy has already made himself a household name. With the success of Chanel's Fall/Winter 2026 Haute Couture collection on Tuesday, the French-Belgian designer proves once again that he doesn't only exist in the world of ready-to-wear.
The fairytale theme wasn't chosen at random. While exploring Gabrielle Chanel's private library, Blazy discovered an antique book of fairy tales and began wondering whether Coco's own rise—from humble beginnings to building one of fashion's most influential houses—was itself a modern fairytale.
That idea became the foundation of his second haute couture collection for Chanel: garments that don't just dress women, but tell stories.
Those stories were everywhere. Flowers bloomed across Chanel's signature tweeds, vines climbed up heels, butterflies fluttered onto shoes and magpies guarded their glittering treasures in braided hair. Hidden inside garments were handwritten to-do lists, embroidered initials and tiny everyday keepsakes, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
One particularly charming detail came in the form of a leather-bound fairytale book carried by one of the models. The prop was taken from Coco Chanel's own collection of antique fairytale volumes, once housed in her Rue Cambon apartment, tying Blazy's enchanted world back to the founder's personal imagination.
The whimsy, however, never came at the expense of craftsmanship. The opening look reimagined Chanel's iconic suit in sheer guipure lace embroidered to resemble magical beanstalks, while transparent fabrics were engineered to mimic twill. Dresses blossomed with three-dimensional flowers and spiralling tendrils, buttons transformed ducklings into swans, and a minaudière arrived in the shape of a sleeping bear.
A sculptural scarecrow-esque look wandered onto the runway, because only in haute couture could straw become chic, while some garments appeared to be held together by delicate strands of beanstalk.
Yet beneath the fantasy was a surprisingly grounded philosophy. Rather than creating couture solely for grand entrances or red carpets, Blazy looked to what he described as "the adventure of the everyday."
A Matthieu Blazy show has never been just about the clothes. The set has become just as anticipated for fashion-goers as the collection itself, and this season was no exception. Equal parts theatrical stage and immersive installation, the Grand Palais became a place where childhood fantasy collided with everyday life.
Unleashed into the ‘wild fields’ of the Grand Palais, Blazy transformed the maison's couture salon into a surrealist fever dream by combining inspirational elements from Jack and the Beanstalk and Jumanji. Thankfully, the wildlife stayed impeccably dressed.
The soundtrack echoed that sentiment, with a woman narrating ordinary rituals of folding shirts, opening drawers, collecting children from school, quietly reminding the audience that real life is worthy of storytelling too.
With his second haute couture outing for Chanel, Blazy reminds us that the best fairytales aren't about escaping reality, they're about seeing the mundane differently.
