Chanel spring-summer 2027: Matthieu Blazy dressed the "many versions" of a woman - from a man's waistcoat to an evening gown as light as a T-shirt

On 6 October, Chanel took over the Grand Palais in Paris for Fashion Week and showed its spring-summer 2027 collection. The fashion house, now led by Matthieu Blazy, offered a walk through Gabrielle Chanel's legacy - from lingerie to her particular relationship with the suit.

The idea is fashion as something layered and circular, where the beginning also shapes the end. "Over the course of their lives, women become several versions of themselves, different sides of the same coin. It's like a game where one person finishes another's drawing without seeing it - one identity leads to another," Blazy explained.

From that idea, men's tailoring is back at the centre: waistcoats, trousers and suits with narrow skirts. The dialogue between masculine and feminine continues in evening dresses inspired by the 1930s - with sequins, bias cuts and beads, but made so light they can be worn almost like a T-shirt. It sounds lovely. How many women will wear a sequinned evening dress like a T-shirt is another question - but Blazy's point is clear: luxury that demands a corset and patience is no longer luxury.

The strongest effect came from sheer layers of printed silk, stacked in different weights and cuts to recreate the movement of clouds and the passing of the day, from morning to dusk. Freedom is the second big thread, and its symbols are birds - the swift and the swallow, on buttons, jewellery and embroidery. The materials carry that freedom too, as do the light silhouettes.

The final chapter brought the latest edition of the suit, in gathered tweed - a proposal that ties together three ideas ever-present in Chanel's world: movement, expression and freedom. Gabrielle Chanel once said: "The girl I was is still with me. I made her plans come true. From her I inherited my severity, and she is the one I managed to satisfy."

The show was opened and closed by Dutch model Djanira Hurbuscher, carrying the 2.55 bag that belonged to Gabrielle Chanel, brought out of the house archives. It was perhaps the most honest detail of the whole evening: the collection talked about the future, and the most important object on the runway was more than half a century old.