At Paris Haute Couture Week Spring/Summer 2026, Chanel delivered a moment of poetic reflection. The storied house unveiled its first haute couture presentation under creative director Matthieu Blazy, a designer increasingly celebrated for infusing Chanel’s signature codes with a lyrical, almost dream-like sensibility. 

“Haute Couture is the very soul of Chanel – it is the foundation and the full expression of the House. These are clothes that are as much about the wearer as the designer. It’s the clothes worn that give them a true story; their own story and an emotional resonance, giving women a canvas to tell their own story.” Says Matthieu Blazy.

Set against a surreal, garden-like tableau at the Grand Palais, complete with oversized mushrooms and a soft, woodland palette, the runway felt like an ode to nature itself.

Blazy reimagined the classic Chanel suit in diaphanous fabrics, celebrating transparency, lightness, and movement. Bird motifs, from delicate embroideries to feather-like pleats, became central symbols of freedom and transformation, offering couture that was as emotive as it was exquisitely made. This multiplicity of birds is realised through the rituals of the Haute Couture flou and tailleur ateliers, together with the artisans of fabric making, embroidery, and pleating at le19M.

Slipped into pockets, stitched into interiors, suspended from the famous chain that weights, or in a ‘palimpsest’ of the iconic bag; a symbolic interior life is exposed to the exterior. A love letter, both to the craft and construction of Haute Couture, and in its literal form.

The show drew a constellation of stars that underlined Chanel’s ever-present cultural cachet. Nicole Kidman graced the front row in a striking feather-covered silk midi, while singer Gracie Abrams turned heads with a chic houndstooth ensemble and a bold new pixie cut, a nod to Parisian flair that echoed the collection’s whimsical spirit.