Chanel debuts Cruise 2026 in Biarritz
- Chanel staged its Cruise 2026/27 show in Biarritz on April 28, with Matthieu Blazy presenting his first cruise collection for the house. - The show at Biarritz’s Casino Municipal featured 79 looks, ocean-facing staging, and references to Gabrielle Chanel’s 1915 couture house in town. - Biarritz links Blazy’s debut to Chanel’s origin story and long-selling cruise business. (chanel.com)
Chanel brought its Cruise 2026/27 collection to Biarritz on April 28, with Matthieu Blazy using his first cruise show to return the house to one of its founding addresses. (chanel.com) (wwd.com) The show took place at the Art Deco Casino Municipal on the Atlantic, where mirrored columns, beige carpet and bright flowers turned the seafront venue into a salon facing the ocean. (wwd.com) (harpersbazaararabia.com) Chanel said the choice of Biarritz was a tribute to where Gabrielle Chanel “introduced her first collections” after opening her couture house there in 1915. (chanel.com) Blazy titled the collection “Sous le salon la plage,” and the clothes pulled from the house’s early sportswear language: little black dresses, sailor stripes, washed suiting, raffia skirts and swim references. (chanel.com) (elle.com.au) Women’s Wear Daily reported 79 looks, including retro swimsuits with chin-strapped caps, Basque-stripe fabrics, and a closing turquoise sequined gown with a fishtail hem worn by Noor Khan. (wwd.com) AnOther reported that Blazy opened with a little black dress nodding to Chanel’s 1926 design and revived 1920s and 1929 house motifs from sketches and archive references. (anothermag.com) The front row included Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, Marion Cotillard, Michaela Coel, Sofia Coppola, Charlotte Casiraghi and A$AP Rocky, according to WWD and MOJEH. (wwd.com) (mojeh.com) Cruise matters at Chanel because it is one of the collections that stays in boutiques the longest, AnOther noted, giving Blazy’s first outing in the category commercial weight as well as symbolic value. (anothermag.com) The Biarritz setting also sharpened the house narrative around movement, leisure and utility: Chanel’s early observations of swimmers, sailors and holiday clothes became the template for modern Chanel style. (chanel.com) (wwd.com) Blazy told WWD that Biarritz was where Gabrielle Chanel took her “first steps into fashion,” making the seaside return less a backdrop than a statement about where he wants this Chanel chapter to begin. (wwd.com)
