Bryan Yambao

Singapore does this thing where everything feels polished but slightly feral underneath. The glass, the heat, the palms, the malls, the humidity threatening everyone’s blowout and the airconditioning working like national security. And then there I was, carrying this gorgeous tiny blue crocodile @Loewe Mini Amazona 180 like it had better lunch plans than me. I didn’t expect to fall this hard for a one handle bag, but here we are. The Amazona has been part of Loewe’s language since the 1970s but Jack and Lazaro’s 180 version gives it a delicious little twist: a certain slouch, one handle, and just enough wrongness to make it right. That’s the point. The asymmetry makes the classic Amazona feel less polite, less expected, more off-center in the best possible way. She’s tiny but she has command of the room. A miniature with main character attitude. @Loewe #Loewe

Paris Starter Pack: a self portrait in coral earrings and burgundy embossed crocodile shoes caught in the current of a packed Chanel boutique and Saint Laurent headquarters, where Avenue Montaigne led into L’Avenue. The Le Tigre steak had bite, the French Bastards supplied the alibi. Blink and you’ll miss it but I saw myself for two seconds in The Devil Wears Prada 2 movie, which is honestly the most realistic depiction of fashion: hours of trauma seconds of screen time. The movie wasn’t bad at all! 🤣 The Eiffel Tower photobombed because she has no boundaries, and Rayon D’Or proved itself a lifesaver. Then came the spicy margarita at Lou Lou with an attitude problem, tonkatsu for emotional support, caviar and eggs at Monsieur Dior because cholesterol is couture, “Let Them Eat Cake” as a personal philosophy, Le Bristol Hotel to make everything look respectable, and a Drugs tote bag carrying exactly what Paris prescribes: receipts, delusion and excellent accessories. Paris, je t’aime! 🇫🇷

Summer is coming! Bryan and a bag! Sorry, I couldn’t resist! 🤣❤️💕

Biarritz, under a gray sky. The Atlantic Ocean was cold! The water reminded of the lake back home in Stockholm. Wind, salt, and that deep, steady sound of waves arriving and leaving, arriving and leaving. There is a kind of peace in weather that does not try to charm you. The sea was not warm, but it was kind. The sky was not blue but it was honest. And somehow, standing there on the beach, I felt held. By the water. By the silence. By the friends (sisters!!!) beside me. By the strange comfort of being far from everything and exactly where I needed to be. So good for my soul!!! CHANEL @chanelofficial CHARVET @charvet_official

Gabrielle Chanel was not one woman. She was several. She swam. She tanned. She went out. She wore sailor trousers. She wore gowns. She dressed for air, movement, visibility, and escape. Biarritz was Chanel before it became CHANEL. @Matthieu_Blazy put it very simply: “She became very creative here.” Biarritz, for Gabrielle Chanel, was not a postcard. It was a laboratory. This is where so many of the house’s instincts began to gather: cotton, beach dresses, working fabrics, stripes, sailor trousers, masculine jackets, freedom of movement, the idea that a woman could be elegant without being trapped. “She was herself swimming,” Matthieu told me. “She was also tanning, which is rare. She was also going out, wearing gowns. She was also wearing sailor trousers, sailor’s jackets.” Then the line that unlocked the collection for me: “She was all these women.” That is where Matthieu’s idea of the wardrobe becomes crucial. He is not proposing a uniform. He is proposing multiplicity…. while keeping joy, energy, freedom, and lightness in mind. The CHANEL woman is often discussed as if she were one person. Convenient for branding. Terrible for imagination. The real power of CHANEL is not one woman. It is the many women she is allowed to become. 💕❤️ #CHANEL @chanelofficial

Here’s one for the memories: I hardly ever get starstruck but Miss Nicole Kidman told me I smelled good 🙈😅😂❤️ #CHANEL @chanelofficial

Two days before @Matthieu_Blazy ’s first Cruise show in Biarritz, he walked me through the collection look by look. It began with a little black dress… except the real drama was hiding behind it. “What people don’t know is that that dress was not minimal at all,” he told me. “When it was sketched for Vogue, it was sketched just from the front.” Then he found the back: “It had a huge bow. Huge!” Matthieu seems more interested in finding the loose thread and pulling. “So what we did,” he said, “basically, we redid the dress as the sketch I saw, and the bow becomes the bag.” Of course the bow becomes the bag. That was the logic: transformation, not decoration. A bow becomes a bag. A logo becomes a neckline. Newspaper becomes almost tweed. A parasol becomes a (cashmere and raffia) skirt. Cotton becomes precious. Fishnet becomes attitude. A 3D-printed bag goes into water. And then there was the chilli. Matthieu showed me a jacket with tiny red chilli pepper buttons. He grinned. Smiling with the glee of someone who knew exactly what he was doing, he said: “I know you love chilli.” I was shocked. How does CHANEL’s Artistic Director of Fashion Activities know this tiny fact about me? That I love spicy food? It was thoughtful. Sweet. Rare. Not flattery. A human detail, placed exactly where it should be: on a jacket, a button, a necklace, blown up into an earring, and on a little bag as beaded embellishment. What Matthieu is doing at Chanel is looking properly: at backs, linings, seams, useful fabrics, forgotten sketches, Gabrielle’s wardrobe, the women around her, the way a towel wraps around a body, the way a hat can be shade and fantasy at once. My fellow Swede @DarthNoor Noor Khan opened the show in that little black dress with the bow bag and closed it in a blue mermaid look. The only model with two looks. That is the point. A woman is not one image. She is entrance and exit, discipline and fantasy, black dress and sea creature. In Biarritz, Chanel did not repeat itself. It changed form. Some houses still think transformation means changing the set. Here, the woman changed. CHANEL! What a delight! More on my Substack later! ❤️ @chanelofficial

What a delight to be in Biarritz for CHANEL Cruise! In 1915, Gabrielle Chanel inaugurated her first haute couture house here in this charming oceanside town Biarritz — the perfect setting for Matthieu Blazy’s first cruise show for the house. And what a joy to celebrate all of this in, yes, finally (!!!), Look Number 1 from Matthieu’s first fashion show for CHANEL! I feel complete. I really do. Full circle. If you have been keeping track of my shenanigans, I searched the world far and wide for this look! What a dream come true and a sentimental look I will cherish and treasure until the end of my days! More to come! #CHANEL @chanelofficial @matthieu_blazy

The more time I spend in Paris, the more I fall in love with her. I never thought I’d say that. Thought I’d do a quick Parisian pit stop before heading to Biarritz. Stayed at the wonderful Mandarin Oriental (@mo_hotels ) Paris @MO_Paris on Rue Saint Honore, literally a few steps away from everything you need in your life: food, fun and fashion! You know me, I’m a very simple girlie — any hotel that serves breakfast congee will always, always win my heart! Tina and I even went to the suburbs to visit our bestie Veronika and of course, my lovely godson! What a lovely perfect long weekend, my soul is nourished! ❤️

Simple pleasures at home with a little bit of very old Prada and a pleated pair of old Comme des Garçons shorts, which I’m so obsessed by because it looks like a pleated skirt. Sprinkle a few Chanel here and there (so happy I managed to source the red cap toe version which, like everything else, is sold out everywhere) and a Yankees cap there and you got an eclectic crazy lady outfit who doesn’t wanna cook dinner for her husband and she would rather chill at the backyard and watch the sunset instead! 🤣🤣❤️

Real life ❤️

Late night sugar craving at the gas station 🍫