A hundred years ago, Coco introduced the little black dress to the world. In 1926, the iconoclastic designer published an image in American Vogue featuring a short black dress. The magazine called it Chanel’s Ford—it was, after all, a versatile style that offered serious mileage—and so a wardrobe icon was born.
On Tuesday, Blazy, 41, closed his show with a similar frock, if slightly too long at the hem to be categorized as little. At first glance, it appeared as if Blazy was tipping his hat to one of the brand’s most famous staples. But the designer, who was inspired this season by fairy tales including Jack and the Beanstalk, is rarely so literal with the legacy of Chanel.
Instead, Blazy had chosen to end his show with what he had dubbed a revenge dress, a reference to Princess Diana’s infamous black sheath worn as her estranged husband, the now King Charles III, revealed the details of his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles. It is part of the great tradition of haute couture that such dèfilès close with a bridal offering. Blazy did so on his first show in January, and while he did have a wedding look in his show this week, it was jam packed in the middle of the collection. The idea to break tradition this season stemmed around the fact that Coco was never a bride. It was an effective, if a little on-the-nose statement from the man who recently made headlines for dressing Dua Lipa for her nuptials to Callum Turner just a month ago.
Blazy has been audacious in his renovation of Chanel. This season, he extrapolated on his usual themes with embroidered dresses, sheer and barely-there couture separates, and endearing allusions to fairytale characters—there was even a scarecrow look, which Blazy managed to make convincingly chic. So earnest and charming is Blazy’s spirit and his take on fashion that such gimmicks are not just appealing, they sell. The fashion press has dubbed the runaway hit of his first collections “Matthieu mania,” and it was on display at Tuesday’s show as a handful of couture clients, including Lauren Santo Domingo, appeared in the same Chanel jacket from his second outing: A red, black, and white puzzle piece style that retails for about $8,000. Chanel, cool as it is now, remains a uniform for a sophisticated lady of a certain age.
Blazy and Jonathan Anderson, who leads Dior, have both loosened up the silhouette and make shapes that are, generally, more forgiving, even if Blazy’s touch is lighter and Anderson’s more involved. When both Coco and Christian Dior were alive, they were on opposing sides of the couture spectrum with the former’s liberated shapes and the latter’s New Look from 1947, which prompted the return of the wasp silhouette in fashion—a tiny waist above all else. Now, Blazy and Anderson are, in a way, taking a more similar approach.
