The Paris shows came to an end with fashion’s version of the Big Bang.
In a Grand Palais hung with zeppelin-size versions of the solar system — sun, earth and stars — the designer Matthieu Blazy unveiled his first collection for Chanel. And it turned out he wasn’t just remaking the world of Coco. He was remaking the universe.
Taking Chanel down to a molecular level and recombining all those well-known brand building blocks. In doing so, Mr. Blazy didn’t always create beauty. He did something more interesting. He brought Chanel back to life.
Out with that old bouclé suit, the one that tipped long ago from chic to cliché. Out with the double Cs!
There was tweed but tougher men’s wear tweed, in strong-shoulder jackets cropped at the waist and slouchy trousers. Also knit tweed and blown-up tweed that sort of resembled a motherboard and open-weave tweed so light and airy it was only notionally tweed.
Skirts hit below the knee (Chanel famously hated knees), wrapping around at the hips to attach by two buttons at one side so a leg popped out with each step. The 1920s-era dropped waist turned out to be trompe l’oeil, suspended from a ribbed white cotton yoke, like a riff on visible underwear.
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