Arriving at the Grand Palais for Chanel’s spring 2025 haute couture show, guests including Jennie, Dua Lipa, and Lily-Rose Depp were confronted with an enormous mirrored climbing sculpture that soared toward the glass barrel vaulted ceiling of the Beaux-Arts landmark. If its form wasn’t immediately obvious—like, say, the spaceship or grocery store sets from the Karl Lagerfeld era—as staff directed you onto one of two interlocking c-shaped runways to find your seat, you realized that you were scaling a Chanel logo.
Scenographer-designer Willo Perron had transformed those iconic double Cs into something like an infinity symbol. It was a fitting metaphor for the great force of this legendary maison, which this year will celebrate the 110th anniversary of its haute couture ateliers and welcome its new creative director, Matthieu Blazy. In the interim—Blazy is expected to show his first collection for spring 2026—the Creation Studio set out to remind us that although Coco Chanel famously said “black has it all,” her timeless codes of pearls, camellias, and tweed look equally amazing in color.
Inspired by the majesty of the earth’s daily rotation, the collection opened with a sunrise sequence of bouclé miniskirt suits with puffed shoulders in the softest candy pastels set to a soaring orchestral score. (When I reflexively opened Shazam on my phone the app helpfully informed me that it’s titled “River” and is an original composition by Gustave Rudman for the show.) Chanel really does do it all. The procession built to a golden hour crescendo of colorblocked looks in rich jewel tones, including two striking purple and orangey-pink combos: a tweed coat and jacquard dress and a trompe l’oeil mandarin collar blouse and hip slung skirt that was all one piece.
Reimagining the transcendent moments between day and night, many looks featured rock crystal and rhinestone buttons shaped like the sun and the moon, astronomical motifs that also appeared on black velvet belts. A series of LBDs and long-short black dresses rendered in sheer fabrics below the thigh brought things firmly back to Coco territory. And it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine the founder approving the inky-blue tone used for a number of cocktail numbers, including a sequin encrusted babydoll dress, which peeked out from underneath a long puffed cape and twinkled like the stars in the night sky.
