The anticipation was overwhelming. But on Monday, the first show by Chanel's new artistic director under the glass roof of the Grand Palais lived up to all expectations. With his impeccable CV and strong personality, the 41-year-old designer has written the first page of a new chapter for the fashion house. His mission? To usher it into a new era without losing its soul.
When the announcement of his appointment came on December 12, 2024, he was in Milan, and the ground felt like it shifted beneath his feet. Two months earlier, he had presented his last show for Bottega Veneta, featuring animal-shaped leather poufs in a highly sophisticated nod to the beanbag chairs filled with polystyrene beads that decorated homes in the 1970s. That evening, to celebrate the official end of a long recruitment process, he went for a drink in a small bar with Marie-Valentine Girbal, his close collaborator. The two friends smoked cigarettes and talked in the chilly Lombard winter, then he went for dinner at the tiny seafood restaurant downstairs from his apartment. "I thought my phone was going to explode with messages and calls, so I turned it off. Where it gets weird is when the waiter comes up to me and says, 'Are you Matthieu Blazy? You've been showing up on my Instagram feed for the past five minutes.'"
Immediately afterward, the new artistic director of Chanel withdrew for a week in Calabria, where his partner lives. "There is a kind of... not collective hysteria, but... let's say everyone has an opinion about what Chanel should be. The expectations sometimes seem almost greater than any result I could achieve," said Blazy, 41, when he welcomed
M Le magazine du Monde for a first meeting on August 25 in his new office under the rooftops of Paris. The holidays were over, but the employees passing by in the corridors of the iconic fashion house on Rue Cambon in the heart of Paris still sported tans. Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, he appeared calm and took his time, just a few weeks before the most anticipated milestone of his career: Monday, October 6, the day of his first show for Chanel.
In the six months that passed between the sudden departure of Virginie Viard on June 5, 2024, and the announcement of Blazy's appointment in December, predictions, rumors and analyses saturated conversations, even beyond the fashion world. This position as artistic director of Chanel, designated since the death of Karl Lagerfeld in 2019 as "the most coveted in the fashion industry," is also one of the most demanding. It requires the person in the role to deliver no fewer than 10 collections a year: two haute couture, two ready-to-wear, one Métiers d'Art, one cruise, two pre-collections, one Coco Beach and one Coco Neige. This represents a unique spectrum, ranging from the most sophisticated French luxury clothing (that is, haute couture made of unique pieces and protected expertise) to sportswear and accessories for winter sports or the beach.
Holy trinity of fashion
Blazy previously learned his craft as a designer at Raf Simons (2008), at Maison Margiela (2011), at Céline under the artistic direction of Phoebe Philo (2014) and at Calvin Klein, where he followed his mentor, Simons, in 2016, along with his then boyfriend, Pieter Mulier. Today, with Simons at Prada, Mulier at Alaïa and Blazy at Chanel, the three men form what could be described as a kind of holy trinity of the most creative, cerebral and influential fashion designers of the moment. Yet in 2018, the French-Belgian team (Simons, Mulier, Blazy) was essentially thrown out onto the street by Calvin Klein, packing up their things in cardboard boxes with pencil holders in hand. Shaken by this "American-style" layoff, Blazy briefly considered leaving fashion altogether and made a detour to Los Angeles to work with artist Sterling Ruby.
But the fashion bug never left him and, in 2021, he moved to Italy to join Bottega Veneta (a brand owned by
French luxury group Kering), where he began working with creative director Daniel Lee, before taking his place and continuing the fashion transformation of the brand in François-Henri Pinault's group, initiated by the British designer, propelling it to unprecedented heights: turnover (€1.7 billion in 2024), desirability of a look that redefines chic and extension of the field of craftsmanship to all the brand's products. Under his artistic direction, Bottega Veneta became one of the most closely watched brands in the industry, able to seat guests in chairs designed by Gaetano Pesce (1939-2024), bring Kate Moss back to the runway and invest in research and development to breathe new life into the house's famous Intrecciato weaving technique, which makes leather look as light as poplin.
To describe the mood at Chanel in spring 2024, when the house found itself without an artistic director, there was one prevailing sentiment: It was as if the teams had lost their father, then their mother. The sudden departure, after three decades spent at Rue Cambon, of Viard – for reasons still unclear today but indicative of an atmosphere of internal tension – served as a second trauma, five years after Lagerfeld's death. Although there is no comparison, it was also under circumstances that were kept secret that the sudden divorce between Lee and Bottega Veneta propelled Blazy into the role of "the right man for the job."
Boy next door quality
His reassuring personality played an important role in his meteoric rise and his appointment at Chanel. Granted, his résumé was impeccable, but there were plenty of candidates for the position. Some openly expressed their desire to land the coveted role, while others spread rumors that they had been approached. It was impossible to untangle fact from fiction, but one thing was certain: Beyond the necessary experience and talent, there was a precise list of criteria to meet, particularly concerning the temperament of the potential recruit.
But Blazy had an excellent reputation. Girbal, who had known him since he worked at Maison Margiela, became his creative right-hand at Bottega Veneta, then followed him in this key role at Chanel, described him as "grounded." There were no scandals attached to his name, not even the slightest rumor suggesting a volatile temperament or an unfortunate incident. No stories of tantrums at Michelin-starred restaurants or demands to travel first class. From top management to the head of the atelier, everyone appreciated that, despite the weight of his responsibilities, he remained unchanged, the quintessential boy next door. On the evening he signed his historic contract with Chanel, Blazy did not go out to celebrate. Since he was in Paris, having lived and worked in Italy for the past few years, he took the opportunity to babysit the children of some friends.
In July 2024, the headhunting firm Egon Zehnder approached Blazy. Although better known for recruiting top executives for multinational companies in the energy, healthcare, technology and finance sectors, this consulting firm has a long-standing relationship with Chanel, having worked with the fashion house for years. Blazy's name quickly rose to the top of the list. Then aged 40, he was working wonders at the helm of the Italian house's style. Each of his runway shows, held twice a year during Milan Fashion Week since February 2022, created a sensation. Fashion professionals and VIPs – led by muses of the caliber of
actress Julianne Moore – were eager to discover what the French-Belgian designer would dream up next with his discerning taste, his exploration of the house's savoir-faire and the touch of playful humor that defines his work.
"To be honest, I thought I was a permanent fixture at Bottega. I was very happy there, surrounded by extraordinary people. It's a house I really loved working in and for. Especially thanks to the unique relationship I was able to have with the artisans," he recalled. Soon enough, as rumors kept swirling around the position left vacant in Paris three months earlier, he began to understand what was at stake: They were considering him to take over as artistic director at Chanel.
"I found it bizarre, it made me laugh at first. I don't quite know how to put it, maybe it's a question of upbringing, but there are things you just don't allow yourself to dream of," explained the fashion designer, whose mother is Belgian and an ethnologist, and whose father is French and an art expert. He also has a twin sister who lives and works as an attaché at the French embassy in Singapore and an older brother who is an airline pilot. Even though, on their birthday, he sometimes posts a photo to Instagram of his father holding the twins in his arms, Blazy is very much a believer in the idea that "to live happily, live hidden." It is known that he grew up in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and remains loyal to the neighborhood. He deftly and kindly dodged any attempt to expand on his parents' personalities or backgrounds.
Gentleness and determination
He demonstrated this remarkable ability to withstand any attempt at intrusion in the summer and fall of 2024. During the four months of negotiations and progress on the matter, he naturally met and spoke at length with Alain Wertheimer, Chanel's global executive president, and Leena Nair, global CEO of Chanel, both based in New York, and, in Paris, with Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion activities, and Marion Destenay Falempin, director general of creative resources, products, image and communications for fashion activities, before negotiating with the lawyers. He had to maneuver skillfully every day. And he had to continue doing his job at Bottega Veneta, preparing with his usual enthusiasm for the September 2024 fashion show and even a pre-collection. Dealing with his teams in Milan, he did not waver, respecting his obligation of confidentiality to Chanel. He said nothing, even when requests from journalists wishing to confirm or deny the rumor of his departure for Chanel flooded the press office.
Tying up her long Venetian-blond hair, with earcuffs on her ears, an oversized gray sweater, comfortable black pants and little Korean slippers in red-and-white gingham fabric, Girbal, 36, said that "Matthieu has kept his inner child," that part of himself that allowed him to preserve his curiosity and his ability to feel excitement and wonder, all while knowing quite precisely what he wanted. Raised on auction sales at Drouot – the famed Paris auction house – where his father took him as a child, he also developed a keen and original eye. He knows how to see beauty beyond price indexes and passing trends.
Drawing on his deep knowledge of art history and design, he is able to explain why something is beautiful, but he never flaunts his cultural background, preferring to hide behind the aura of an eternal student. In trying to define him, former colleagues – who wished to remain anonymous – listed a string of adjectives: "discreet," "well-mannered," "far from court intrigues," but also "ambitious," "strategist" and at times "stubborn," in short, a kind of balance between gentleness and determination. In this regard, his friend Simons said in a 2021 interview with
The New York Times that Blazy was "a great creative spirit. He comes with lots of ideas and willingness to experiment, and that is a source of great motivation for his team." He added that Blazy was also "a genius with people." The ideal combination to see a project through.
'Write a new chapter for Chanel'
Over the past 30 years, the industry has seen some remarkable designers lose their footing, worn down by the pressure and unsettled by the staggering sums of money at stake. Chanel can quite reasonably make heads spin, because it holds a unique position in the French luxury landscape. Deeply rooted in France's cultural heritage and global pop culture, the brand is more independent – and therefore freer – than its competitors, because it is not listed on the stock exchange and does not have to answer to, or contend with, outside shareholders. Chanel can also maintain its mystique, as it is not subject to the same financial transparency rules as the major publicly traded groups such as Kering (Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga), LVMH (Vuitton, Dior, Loewe) or Hermès International. That is why they needed someone with their feet firmly on the ground.
While the most prestigious brands in the sector have experienced varying degrees of turnover among their top executives and creative teams, Chanel stands out as a newcomer to this practice. Many people built their careers at the company, at every level of the organization and in every profession. The house had not recruited an outside designer since 1982, when Lagerfeld arrived. Pavlovsky, himself with 35 years at Chanel, explained with his usual pragmatic and genial manner that, "the choice of Matthieu is a carefully considered decision, but it is also a matter of the heart. We wanted to write a new chapter for Chanel that remains true to the continuity of the house's history." The fashion house enjoys a rather unique status in the luxury landscape. Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was dressing women as early as the 1910s, while Christian Dior put his name on labels in 1947, Yves Saint Laurent in 1962 and Louis Vuitton only entered fashion in 1997 with Marc Jacobs.
This longevity is coupled with a history that Pavlovsky has often compared to a series: Mademoiselle Chanel for the first season, Lagerfeld for season two. "We are starting the third season without nostalgia. We didn't hire Matthieu with yesterday in mind. We're doing this for tomorrow. The story we're writing is for the next 10 or 15 years." While not minimizing the pressure on Blazy's shoulders, Pavlovsky put things into perspective. "We know there will be ups and downs. When I started working with Karl, right at the very beginning of the 1990s, he failed! I can't say otherwise. It was the beginning of minimalism, Helmut Lang, Prada and so on. At that moment, Chanel was a brand that was anything but minimalist. We doubted, we questioned ourselves. But perseverance gets you through any storm."
Pavlovsky said that the French label, which generated $18.7 billion (€16 billion) in revenue in 2024, was "no walk in the park. You have to be brave and have a hell of a lot of culture to understand how everything works and what has happened in this house over the past century." Apparently, that wasn't a problem for Blazy, who seemed to have already digested a staggering amount of information. "He arrived only six months ago, but you'd think he's been at the house for six years," Pavlovsky emphasized, visibly impressed. Because his approach has proven effective so far, it is tempting to try to figure out the "Blazy method." In the first month – April 2025 – he did not work on the collections. He had already accumulated, through books and photographs, an enormous amount of information about the company and was afraid of getting overwhelmed. "It's like typing 'chairs' into Leboncoin [a popular French online classifieds site]," he said by way of comparison. He decided to go to meet people to understand how it worked better. He visited manufacturers in France and Italy, those who make the jewelry, bags, shoes. He wanted to get to know the patternmakers, the artisans.
With Destenay Falempin and Pavlovsky, too, he got straight to the heart of the matter. They did not spend hours talking about Chanel. Right away, the conversation turned to the teams. Of course, he arrived with a few trusted people who had worked with him in the past, and immediately mixed them in with the existing staff. He also reshuffled things internally, convinced that someone who had been in the same position for a long time could be redeployed elsewhere. "I am a hands-on designer. I was a junior assistant, assistant designer, senior designer, design director. I have really seen every position in houses of all different scales and budgets. It's very important, beyond the result and the product we deliver, that life inside the house is healthy, that people are happy to come in. Making fashion is my job. But making it with people you could spend 12 hours on a flight with, or chat to at the back of a bus, that matters. I have never seen a collection that was better just because it was made under pressure."
He continued his exploration by visiting the artisan workshops at 19M, the entity created by Chanel that brings together all the haute couture crafts. Massaro, Lesage, Atelier Montex, Lemarié, the pleaters: "It was amazing," he commented, excited at the prospect of using this fantastic tool at his disposal and still fascinated by this place located at Porte d'Aubervilliers, in northern Paris, where all the workshops communicate with one another and which reminded him of the Bauhaus spirit. "It's extraordinary to have acquired not fashion brands, but the
métiers d'
art [artisanal craft workshops]. To sustain these skills and create this place that is almost like a school. It says a lot about a brand, about how you run it and how you envision its future."
Another essential change, which he implemented very quickly, had the effect of a small revolution. Before he arrived, everyone at Chanel worked continuously on all the collections, finishing one and immediately moving on to the next. Blazy, on the other hand, decided that each collection would have its own dedicated team, to allow more time, do in-depth work and develop new fabrics. "There are 10 collections a year, that's almost one collection every month. We did Coco Beach, here we're working on the show, somewhere else we're starting to prepare the
défilé des métiers d'
art [a fashion show dedicated to Chanel's artisan workshops] that will take place in New York: I go from one office to another. This also means that if an idea isn't ready or isn't right for this collection, we can move it to another one and maybe develop it into a story."
True connoisseur of art and design
Every morning, after crossing the Seine – on foot, by taxi or by metro, since he does not drive or cycle – he enters through a service entrance on Rue Cambon. "It's not the prettiest, not the most glamorous, but I quite like it," he said. In the strange labyrinth that is Chanel's Paris headquarters – sprawling between Rue Cambon, Rue Duphot and Rue Saint-Honoré, a patchwork of buildings acquired and linked together over the years – anyone who ventures inside gets swept from staircase to elevator, from couture salon to showroom, from boutique to studio, from waiting area to corridor, from carpet to hardwood floor, from terrace to cobblestone courtyard, all the way to Mademoiselle Chanel's historic apartment. It is here that Blazy's new workspace is located.
Located on the top floor, his office is just a few steps from the one Lagerfeld once occupied, but it looks nothing like it. The windows open onto a balcony, an essential feature for a smoker like him. The room is large and runs across the building. Until recently, it had housed an office with designers specializing in knitwear. On one wall, images and samples are pinned up; a long table, accompanied by sturdy wooden chairs, are used for work and meetings, whether with two or 10 people from the teams. Blazy likes large tables, which foster a sense of conviviality. Smiling, he recalled how delighted he had been to discover, about 15 years ago, in the Le Pain Quotidien café-bakery chain in Antwerp, that people could sit together for lunch without knowing each other.
He had the carpet removed, installed a parquet floor and repainted the walls white. "I welcome the teams here who help me with research, but it is also a room where I like to work alone. I recreated an environment that is almost like an apartment. I spend a huge amount of time here, so I need to feel at home." He brought in the sofa and armchairs by Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin (1922-2020), which he bought about 15 years ago. He hung paintings that remind him of various moments of his life, when he lived in London, Belgium and New York.
A connoisseur of art and design, he collects without being particularly passionate about the art market and its inner circles. "I rarely sell what I buy, so things stay with me; I like living with them." In one corner stands a lamp given to him by Pesce, with whom he had collaborated on a Bottega Veneta runway show. Near the window is a small pre-Columbian Peruvian vase shaped like a penguin, which reminds him of Gabrielle Chanel. "The posture, the black and white... It almost looks like Chanel fabric. It struck me as cartoonish, a little wink. I put it there because sometimes you need to take things a bit less seriously, otherwise you go crazy."
The 'lightbulb moment'
At Bottega Veneta, Blazy had already demonstrated the very particular relationship he has with comic books and cartoons straight out of childhood. Calimero and Tom Sawyer inspired him to design bags for the Italian fashion house and, more broadly, a generally "on the go" look, as he described it. In other words: You sling your bundle over your shoulder and off you go! Overall, he likes movement, which he expresses in his fashion through skirts that allow for big strides and make the fabric dance. The "bouquet of flowers" look worn by model Awar Odhiang to close the Chanel runway show on Monday was a perfect illustration. The young woman could not have given him a more beautiful gift: Smiling, applauding and dancing down the catwalk as she trotted along in her armful of colorful silk and feathers, she made the rounds on social media and moved Blazy to tears.
For this first show, he, who had already read and researched so much, admits that it was when he went to see Odile Prémel, head of collections within Chanel's heritage department, that he had a kind of "lightbulb moment." Looking at, touching and reading Gabrielle Chanel's textile and paper archives, he strangely did not think of borrowing them literally to recreate them today. "No, no, definitely not!" he insisted. "It's weird, but I just realized that what I knew about Chanel was Karl's point of view."
This came as no surprise for Emilie Hammen, director of the Palais Galliera, the City of Paris's fashion museum: "Because the couturière, swallowed up by her own legend, left all the space for Lagerfeld's postmodern fashion. With all the books and films dedicated to Gabrielle Chanel, we have tended to only see the persona and paid little or poor attention to the clothes themselves. Yet Chanel was truly a virtuoso, able to show that one can do a lot with very little." Blazy, for his part, really looked at the clothes and dissected Gabrielle's creative mechanisms, suggesting that by appointing this young man, Chanel had crossed a threshold and had not just found someone to replace Karl, but a true successor to Coco.
"Today, a designer must be able to tell stories. And for me, that's an aspect of fashion I've always loved: storytelling. In the past, there were truly great couturiers, like Cristóbal Balenciaga, who had a very formal approach and certainly weren't there to tell stories. With Gabrielle Chanel, I have a multitude of stories at my disposal, many of which have yet to be explored." He seized on this with childlike delight to invent his own. One of his first moves was to build on the story that Gabrielle Chanel, madly in love with British polo player Boy Capel, would often borrow his shirts, taking it as a given that she was his equal. "It actually wasn't so much a question of style," Blazy explained, "but rather a desire to have her man's clothes against her skin."
In books not about Coco herself but on the history of fashion, Blazy discovered that Capel used to shop at Charvet, the renowned Parisian shirtmaker. He reached out to the Colban siblings, Jean-Claude and Anne-Marie, who run the shirtmaking house located on Place Vendôme, and proposed a collaboration. The result: He developed a new fabric; weighted the hem of the long shirt with a small chain borrowed from Chanel tailleurs; added a label reading "Chanel, tissu et technique Charvet" ("Chanel, Charvet fabric and technique") to the piece; and had "Chanel" embroidered on the front – where clients' initials are sometimes placed – using the exact typeface from Gabrielle Chanel's very first labels.
Another anecdote that inspired him: One day, the couturière went to a château with Étienne Balsan, a racehorse breeder, for a costume party like the ones that took place all the time. There, she dressed as a man. Nothing very original about that. "What interests me is the next day," he said. "She put those clothes back on, the same ones. She decided for herself that, she didn't give a damn, it was no longer a disguise. By expressing a 'Why not?', she shook up the very idea of womenswear for the next century." In Chanel's spring-summer 2026 collection, for Blazy, this meant taking a classic men's jacket, removing the collar and shortening it by cutting it across its width to give it the proportions of a little Chanel jacket. The sleeves, of course, were wide enough to be rolled up and the hands naturally tucked into the skirt or trousers worn with it.
Everything he managed to glean from the Chanel mythology helped him to free himself from the weight of his mission. It was the same when he sensed the universality, the openness to the world, of the designer in a little suit from 1964, horizontally striped, which he spoke to us about as early as August. "There, everyone thinks of the marinière [traditional Breton striped sailor shirt]. But it could also be a Basque stripe, African, South American... You could see something in it that didn't necessarily belong. And it freed me up. Beyond trying to understand everything, I allowed myself to say: 'Wait, you, Matthieu, what do you see in it?'"
'Do your first show as if it were your last'
He learned a long time ago, perhaps from his parents, who are both passionate about archaeological digs, that modernity does not depend on things themselves, which rarely arise from nothing, especially in fashion, but rather on how we consider them. "I think the house of Chanel had surely overused and abused its codes in recent years," Pavlovsky said with a smile. "Everyone would be disappointed if Matthieu did the same thing." Yes, the codes at this house are both numerous and specific. Is it necessary to list them? Beige, camellias, the double C, tarot cards, wheat, masculine-feminine, Coromandel lacquer screens... "I think they're funny, they amuse me," said Blazy. He began playing with them right from the moment the show invitation went out: the double C on the packaging was tiny, the size of a grain of rice, and yet perfectly recognizable. Commentators also predicted he wouldn't use tweed, because he's supposedly more modern than that. "They're idiots. If there's one thing I love doing, it's developing fabrics," he replied.
In the end, if it were not for that strange thing that now makes people recognize him in the street, his life would have remained more or less the same. He still has his group of high school friends and his family, who remain very present by his side. "I am surrounded by people who don't see me as the designer of Chanel. Just because Karl was a legend does not mean that everyone who designs for Chanel has to be one too." At the show, alongside Simons and Mulier, there were his professors from La Cambre, the renowned Belgian higher school of visual arts of which he is one of the most distinguished graduates; the husband of Maria Luisa (that highly respected fashion buyer, who died in 2015, had told him when he was working for her on Rue Cambon: "Who knows? Maybe one day you will come back here"); and also a friend of his mother who holds a special place in this remarkable career. In 2006, he did not know how to get to Trieste in Italy for the final of the International Talent Support (ITS) competition, which has recognized young fashion talents since 2002. She drove him there. He did not win, but he caught the attention of Simons, a member of the jury, who brought him onto his team. The beginning of his story.
Nineteen years later, at 8 pm on Monday, Blazy faced the weighty task and privilege of closing an exceptional season, one defined by an
unprecedented transfer market and a record number of "first shows" for new designers at renowned fashion houses. Without detracting from anyone else's achievements, Demna at Gucci had kicked off the festivities on September 23 in Milan and Blazy, for the house that had drawn everyone's attention, had come to close them out. "Some people told me I should make my mark by choosing a more original and more exclusive location, with a smaller group, but really... How could I turn down the Grand Palais? Why invite fewer people when you have the chance to keep this great, one-of-a-kind gathering that so many people are happy to attend?" asked Blazy at the end of August. After the show, he did not want to hold a dinner or an evening party, as is customary.
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When he arrived at Chanel, he could have envisioned a lavish evening beneath the gilded ceilings of the Ritz, with the house's muses, a photocall and champagne. Instead, he chose to meet with journalists backstage to explain his collection, which had been unveiled beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, in a solar system-inspired set that evoked both the idea of planets hanging from a child's bedroom ceiling and, more subtly, the notion of an orbital and stylistic revolution. Three days before the runway show, more stressed than at the end of August but still smiling, he confided during fittings: "There are two options. Either you do your first show trying to show that you know all the codes and have learned your lesson well, or you do your first show as if it were your last."
