CHANEL Cruise 2026/27 BIARRITZ
@lovewant SHOWNOTES / Marguerite Duras was quite observant in noting “To escape is not to leave, but to arrive elsewhere in oneself.” An interesting idea that I’d like to think Matthieu was thinking of alongside the sea from his childhood, which once again casts its spell.
So upon this far and salt laden coast of Biarritz, where the Atlantic breaks itself against stone and heaven leans low upon the earth, the House of CHANEL returns once more unto the dominion of wind, tide, and light, where once with sixty seamstresses in tow, Gabrielle Chanel first unfastened woman from the tyranny of ornament and chambered confinement, insisting instead the liberty of movement, with garments fit for a woman’s work and life. It was here, far from the rituals of the Paris salon, that fashion perhaps first loosened its collar and stepped willingly into modern life. And now, for CHANEL Cruise 2026/27, Matthieu Blazy summoned a girl in a black dress who follows a procession of friends and untethered ideas, to become a mermaid. A concept that drifts like sails unmoored from any harbour. These are the new Tweeds that bear the weather of distant storms and the impossibilities of dreams. Black bows, Hawaiian like skirts, motifs, sequins and sun faded textiles pass through this Basque ocean air with the ease of slow hours.
So whats my understanding here, which some may say is both childish and simple, is that essentially there is a great joy here. Dangerous joy perhaps. The joy of garments refusing the burden of performative intellectualism and market analysis. A joyous assemblage not of clothes alone, but also friends of the house, carried ashore by a tide of all these peoples wearied by the humourless seriousness of the contemporary world. Maybe we are the mermaid, the sailors, dancers, aristocrats, children, writers, ghosts and lovers here, all wandering through the same salt mist together with Matthieu. For at the edge of this world, where foam pashes the shadow and the heavens trouble the sea like an Éric Rohmer film you refuse to return to the video ezy, CHANEL plays with our desires to arrive elsewhere within oneself entirely. Words
@bartcelestino 
