Matthieu Blazy’s first couture show was also A$AP Rocky’s first show as an official Chanel ambassador, and he was dressed head-to-toe in the brand, save for fistfuls of colorful rings featuring skulls and skeletons.
“Shout out to Tim Burton,” he said of the jewels. Rocky designed the rings himself as part of a collaboration with Italian jeweler Codognato, all handcrafted in Venice. The bling served as a playful compliment to his Chanel.
“Where I’m from, we call it Cha-nae-nae,” joked the Harlem, N.Y., native. The rapper and designer also tongue-in-cheekily announced that he had changed his professional name. “Don’t call me A$AP anymore, call me ‘handsome.’”
The Grand Palais was transformed into a magical forest, with fantastical mushrooms on a scale that made models and guests appear Smurf-sized.
“The emergence of the show out of this set is just perfect,” said Tilda Swinton, gesturing at the dusty pink leaves all around. Swinton, who lives in a castle in Scotland, said her grounds aren’t quite as fairy-tale like. “It’s magical in its own way, but there aren’t pink willows. And we have mushrooms too, but they’re not quite this big.”
Tilda Swinton
Stephane Feugere/WWD
It was the first show under Blazy for the longtime house ambassador. “It’s moving to me, because I have had a relationship with the house,” she said, beginning with the late Karl Lagerfeld.
“It feels like all of that is reborn, even though it didn’t feel like it needed it. But here he comes. He’s got the new millennium in his nostrils. Somehow there’s this sense of freshening. Everything is so light and movable, but at the same time, the thing that I’m really struck by is how deeply he’s drawing on the codes of the patrimony,” she said.
Her tweed suit with a dropped waist could have been made by Gabrielle Chanel herself, she added, even though the house was founded almost a century ago. “It’s so eternal.”
The actress, who is the subject of an exhibition at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, is taking that show on the road. It will next pop up in Athens, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and London through 2027.
“So I’m like a traveling band at the moment,” she said.
Penélope Cruz’s next red-carpet appearance will be for “The Bride!,” a 1930s-set, female-centric take on Frankenstein’s wife, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. “It’s a really good movie. I loved making it,” she said.
Zhou Xun and Penélope Cruz
Stephane Feugere/WWD
The show doubled as a shopping excursion. “I’m talking to them about the looks for those premieres, which is always fun to do with them, because they’re my friends. I’ve worked with them for so many years.” She identified two pieces of particular interest, including a red gown topped with a headdress and the final look of a white suit in paillettes.
Cruz, who has an extensive collection of Chanel worn over the years, recalled that her first purchase was a vintage pink bikini once worn by Claudia Schiffer. “I’ve been a fan of the house since I was a little girl,” she said. “Matthieu’s respecting and honoring the history of the brand, the essence of the brand. He’s doing that while he’s taking a risk.”
The set sparked comparisons to “Alice in Wonderland,” or magic mushrooms, depending on one’s level of mycophilia.
“I think it has an undertone of controlled substances,” said artist Arthur Jaffa, referring to the 7-foot-tall pink chanterelles and snowdrop-capped amanita muscarias.
The artist has been friends with Blazy for a long time. Between projects — having recently wrapped a show at Paris’ Bourse and preparing for one at the Fondazione Prada during the Venice Biennale — he took advantage of the historical moment.
After changing out of her runway look, longtime ambassador Liu Wen said the most magical moment for her was walking early in the morning to the bird soundtrack that opened the show. The model, who wore a suit that appeared to be tweed but was made of light silk, revealed that Blazy’s approach to the collection was artistic in an avian sense. “When Matthieu got inspiration for the collection, he wanted each look to represent a different bird.
“I thought that was very special — sometimes you need to get an energy from fresh things,” she said.
