It’s easy to disregard Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel if you judge it only by the photos on your phone. But after seeing his debut collection live last week in Paris as it arrived in the flagship boutiques – and witnessing the shopping frenzy that seemed to grip everyone there (I tell you, people were buying as if there were no tomorrow!) – I had a eureka moment. Blazy’s clothes and accessories, when touched, tried on, and worn, are so easygoing and full of optimism that it’s impossible not to fall for their charming allure. They instantly uplift the mood with their wit and effortlessness, which are woven into every painstaking detail.

With those joyful sensations in mind, I watched Matthieu’s sophomore ready-to-wear collection without the shades of skepticism that accompanied me six months ago, but with pure thrill. Yes, some elements of the collection – like tweed jackets turned into work-jacket proportions, or the 1920s-tinged dropped waists and flapper-esque ease – repeat motifs from Blazy’s first outing for the house, only subtly tweaked. But to fully shape an idea in the collective consciousness, you have to make sure it lands. The designer is building a new era – and with it, new codes.

Not that the collection lacked novelty. Some of the artisanal details made me gasp: skirt suits with “action painting” stitching; embroidered slip dresses so feather-light they were nearly transcendental in appearance; and, of course, the intricate clashes of textures, embellishments, and embroideries that made the garments look rich in substance yet somehow breezy and unpretentious. The final black dress, with its exposed low back punctuated by a camellia suspended between the shoulder blades, was simply a dream.

Backstage, Blazy quoted an observation that Chanel made to the French newspaper Le Figaro in the 1950s: “We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly, because the butterfly doesn’t go to the market and the caterpillar doesn’t go to the ball.” Matthieu’s butterfly is certainly out of its chrysalis, flying high above us all, into the moonlight.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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