\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMatthieu Blazy<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDana Lixenberg<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\u201cShe wasn\u2019t burdened by the expectations of couture \u2013 always having to create heavily embroidered, visually striking pieces. Her couture was designed to support women in their everyday life, and that\u2019s something I found interesting: to explore whether we could make something as simple as a black skirt or pants,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cInitially, everything was more complex, and during the design process, I kept stripping things away. I took out anything that felt too heavy. We had made some huge, gorgeous dresses. It\u2019s not that they didn\u2019t work, but I felt the message wasn\u2019t clear. We were losing sight of the essence of the house, which is clothes that women actually wear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tThe 41-year-old designer has always had manufacturers on speed-dial, whether at Maison Margiela, where he was in charge of the made-to-measure Artisanal line, or at Bottega Veneta, where he turned out hit handbags including the Sardine.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHere at Chanel, it\u2019s at another level. It\u2019s just extraordinary, and you can quickly get lost in it. Everything is possible, so the real question becomes: what actually makes sense?\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a dialogue I have with the artisans themselves. Embroidery has to tell a story. We don\u2019t make things just to look pretty \u2013 it\u2019s a process, and it has to take you places.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s not to say he didn\u2019t take full advantage of Chanel\u2019s formidable capabilities, which continue to grow (more on that later.) Once he got over the smorgasbord effect, Blazy set to work with its specialized ateliers, which include embroiderers Lesage and Montex, featherer Lemari\u00e9 and pleat maker Lognon, to create his signature craft-intensive textures.<\/p>\n \n\tHe asked his team not to look at clothes, but instead to design from images of birds. \u201cThey spent three months researching techniques,\u201d he said, comparing it to preparing the ingredients in a recipe.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tChanel Spring 2026 Couture at Paris Fashion Week<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDominique Maitre\/WWD<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHe was interested in Chanel\u2019s use of humble materials, like jersey and cotton, so he had jackets and coats made from crushed or woven raffia. A sheer woven fabric was embroidered with black and white feathers to evoke the texture of tweed, while Lesage and Lemari\u00e9 collaborated on textiles with surface effects woven in.<\/p>\n \n\tBlazy doesn\u2019t like to sketch, preferring to get stuck in. \u201cSometimes you begin with the material, and that leads you to the dress. Sometimes you have a dress in mind, and then you have to find the right material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat I don\u2019t like is knowing at the outset of a collection what it will look like in the end. That just makes it static. What I really enjoy is the process \u2013 the surprises, the way it builds as you go. It also leaves much more room for conversation with embroiderers, artisans, and workshop heads. It has to feel alive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tIn order to give his teams breathing room, the Chanel design studio has undergone its most wide-ranging reorganization since Karl Lagerfeld took the creative reins in 1983.<\/p>\n \n\tWhere previously a single studio churned out 10 collections a year, the house has hired an additional 30 people and created three dedicated teams: one for haute couture, one for ready-to-wear, and one for M\u00e9tiers d\u2019Art and cruise.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI like working in a healthy environment, and I want people to have the time to follow through ideas,\u201d Blazy explained. \u201cThe workshops are happier, and everything is done with less pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tA teaser image for Chanel\u2019s spring 2026 haute couture collection.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Chanel<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, said it was time to bring the house, which generated revenues of $18.7 billion in 2024, into a new era. The new organization is designed to help Blazy steer what has become a juggernaut. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe\u2019s in charge, and there\u2019s a small army behind him to transform each collection into billions of dollars in revenue,\u201d the executive said.<\/p>\n \n\tChanel is also expanding its couture division, which saw a record year in 2025, even though the collections were designed by a studio team in the interim between Viard\u2019s departure and Blazy\u2019s official arrival.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve never seen such high demand,\u201d said Pavlovsky, citing a resurgence in events, ranging from weddings to dinners and other special occasions.<\/p>\n \n\tChanel employs 200 people full-time in its couture workshop. \u201cI think within the next two or three years, that number will be closer to 250 or even 300,\u201d Pavlovsky said.<\/p>\n \n\tIn addition, the company plans to expand Le19M with the opening of a dedicated school of haute couture, to complement its Lesage embroidery training unit.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBruno Pavlovsky<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShannon Fagan<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\u201cWe feel the time has come to invest more in supporting our teams,\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean the schools we work with aren\u2019t doing their job, but we see that when young people join us, it can take between two and five years to bring them up to speed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe classes at the new school, to be located near Chanel\u2019s sprawling Le19M facility in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers, will be run by former members of the couture workshop.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe training will be tailored to each person\u2019s needs, but we want to give them a solid foundation so that when they join a workshop, they can be effective much sooner,\u201d he said. \u201cThe goal is really to bring a new generation to a level of technical mastery that lets us be faster in the workshops and do things even better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PARIS \u2013 For most designers, getting handed the reins of an haute couture workshop is like being a kid in a candy store.\u00a0 But when Matthieu Blazy visited Chanel\u2019s craftsmanship hub Le19M for the first time, he left feeling overwhelmed. For his first haute couture collection for the French luxury house, he leaned into the maxim that elegance is refusal. Blazy set himself a challenge: to telegraph the brand without relying on its habitual signifiers. In fact, his first look \u2013 a nude chiffon version of the classic Chanel suit \u2013 felt almost like a ghost of the original.\u00a0 \u201cI wanted to see whether, when you strip away the usual Chanel signatures \u2013 the tweed, the jeweled buttons \u2013 you can still get to that essence,\u201d he told WWD in a preview.\u00a0 It marked an about-turn from his predecessor Virginie Viard, who often designed entire collections around brand codes like tweed, or camellia flowers.\u00a0But since officially starting as artistic director of fashion activities last April, Blazy has framed his work as a conversation with the house\u2019s founder, Gabrielle \u201cCoco\u201d Chanel. He noted that when Chanel opened her haute workshop just over a century ago, there was no ready-to-wear, so she was dressing women not only for special occasions. Matthieu Blazy Dana Lixenberg \u201cShe wasn\u2019t burdened by the expectations of couture \u2013 always having to create heavily embroidered, visually striking pieces. Her couture was designed to support women in their everyday life, and that\u2019s something I found interesting: to explore whether we could make something as simple as a black skirt or pants,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cInitially, everything was more complex, and during the design process, I kept stripping things away. I took out anything that felt too heavy. We had made some huge, gorgeous dresses. It\u2019s not that they didn\u2019t work, but I felt the message wasn\u2019t clear. We were losing sight of the essence of the house, which is clothes that women actually wear,\u201d he said. Trusting the Process The 41-year-old designer has a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Fashion](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Portrait-Matthieu-Blazy-credit-Dana-Lixenberg.jpeg?w=236\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\tTrusting the Process\t<\/h2>\n
![\"Chanel](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/chanel-ss-26-couture-r-dom-001.jpeg?w=200\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\tA School of Couture\t<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/chanel_spring-summer-2026-haute-couture-chanel-1-7-LD.jpg?w=253\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>![\"Bruno](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/pavlovsky.jpg?w=300\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>