Mattieu Balze Debut for Chanel Review
By Sophia Barzilai
Arguably, the most anticipated and expected for a debut of the whole season, and maybe ever, was Mattieu Blaze’s for Chanel. In my opinion, and most fashion critics, the show definitely met expectations. The show took place in the Grand Palais, which was the location for countless Lagerfeld shows. It was situated within a solar system with numerous glowing orbs. This served as a metaphor of the leaps Chanel and Blaze have taken.
He is only the fourth designer for the house despite it being founded 115 years ago. Blaze has an impressive career in fashion for his age. After school, he worked for Raf Simons, then started specialising in pattern making for Margiela until he became Daniel Lee’s right-hand man in 2020 at Bottega where he took his first creative director role. Despite this, Blaze has an extremely tough task and many did not think he could meet the task. Though there are high sales Chanel has been under lots of criticism for being ugly and boring under Virginie Viard, and many fear it could never live up to the Lagerfeld days.
There has been some online criticism of the show that there was not enough ‘Chanel’ as it was too similar to his work at Bottega. However, I disagree that all the iconic house codes are there just subtly. Additionally, as Blaze says in his interview with Nathan Heller, “Chanel is a chameleon,” and once he expanded his view of Coco Chanel as a rule breaker that was just making clothes for her time was one he could really break through.
The show starts with a men's sports coat; however, he feminised the looks, making it the archetype of a Chanel jacket, which is very wearable for any modern woman (1) . It also included many references to Chanel herself and the 1920s, using things like dropped waists (41), embroidery (10). Yet it was still extremely modern as Blaze reinterpreted house codes such as tweed and the camellias. He also refers to Largefelds famous time in the house, reintroducing the leather embossed CC (188), which will likely be very profitable.
Image Credit: Isidore Montag/Gorunway.com
Image Credit: Isidore Montag/Gorunway.com
Overall, there was a sense of joy in the collection, unlike many other Chanel shows in recent years. Awar Odhiang was the Chanel bride and ran out dancing to show the beautiful moment in the dress. This joyous atmosphere was felt by everyone at the show. Rickie de Sole (VP fashion director at Nordstrom) said it was “An emotional and important end to this fashion week.” Olivia Singer said Balze made “the codes of Chanel modern and light. The movement of the event was remarkable.” I am extremely excited to see what else Blaze brings to Chanel. This was a great start.