Matthieu Blazy sees Gabrielle Chanel’s career as a fairytale—this was the theme of his second haute couture show—but maybe that’s because his is, too. Since he came to the house, the spell Blazy’s cast over women has caused an almost childlike rediscovery of the fun and delight of getting dressed. At almost a single stroke, he’s removed all the difficulties, lightened everything up, and added sprinklings of whimsy, while also just making things that are deliciously easy and sensible to wear, for a lot of different sorts of women. And that has felt like a magical transformation.
Haute couture is by nature at the most elite and exclusive pinnacle of fashion. In many a house it’s thought of as the domain of fantasy, and the question of who will really wear it in the world is banned. But Blazy was having none of that when he was talking about this collection. “I was interested in fairytales, but I was also interested in modern tales, the story of women today. I was reflecting, really thinking about couture, and specifically what it means at Chanel. Chanel couture is not about the big wow.” He added that the show had nothing to do with red carpet dressing. “We love to do that too, of course, but during the process, I cut everything that was too opulent, and we really focused on the clothes. I was inspired by the life of women every day.”
He’d decorated a faux salon at the Grand Palais with giant vines and surreal flowers—a set inspired by both the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and the 1990s movie Jumanji and its scenes of the invasion of ‘toxic’ flowers. His first look, a sheer grid of a sleeveless Chanel suit, was held together with minute strands of embroidery in the shape of bean fronds. Later, he pointed out that the model was carrying a little tan leather-bound book. It’s an original antique volume of fairytales that Coco Chanel kept in her apartment in the Rue Cambon. “I think it was waiting there for me to find it,” he laughed.
The moral of “Jack and the Beanstalk” is that it’s about someone from a humble background making their way to the top (and finding gold) through daring instinct, resilience, and their own wits. That seemed very Coco to Blazy. He leafed on, and thought about having fun with more stories: “Goldilocks,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Ugly Duckling.” Dresses were decorated with leafy spiraling tendrils and dotted with 3-d flowers. Butterflies and greenery appeared on shoes. A coat that might have been his idea of a chick appeared.
But adhering literally to themes is a pitfall Blazy didn’t fall into. The three bears moment might’ve been obvious, but the voice of a woman talking about the humdrum routine of her everyday life began to tell us another story. “It’s a woman who works in Belgium and creates music, and she’s talking about what we call the adventure of the everyday, what happened in real life, folding shirts, opening a drawer, scissors, picking kids up at school,” he said. “I like that we can talk about, you know, that fashion is always about representation and a certain idea of what women stand for. But the reality always hits back, you know, and the reality is also part of that life.”
That’s why Blazy’s age-inclusive model casting made complete sense, as did his simplest tailored things, the epitome of the chic that Gabrielle Chanel herself brought to fashion. His coat dresses, a red sequinned knee-length dress, and a perfect navy tailored coat spoke to Chanel’s original idea of how a woman can walk into a room like that and make everyone else feel overdressed and trussed up.
Fashion needs that liberation all over again these days. What with the dominance of corsetry and the idea of outrageously over-the-top one-wear dresses, it comes as a massive relief to see a designer who will reduce an evening look to one amazing black tunic and trousers. That’s why there’s been such an outpouring of enthusiasm for Blazy; he gets what the spirit of the house has always been about. Haute couture is out of reach of most women on the planet, but still, there’s a direction in Blazy’s mission that can make us all feel good about fashion again.
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