In the library at Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment, Matthieu Blazy found a small book called “Les Fées, Contes des Contes”. The book became the starting point for the CHANEL Haute Couture Fall Winter 2026 collection, with fairy tales intertwined with childhood memories and items associated with everyday life.
Childhood stories engraved in the memory with unforgettable images: Jack standing in front of the magic beanstalk reaching up to the clouds in “Jack and the Magic Bean”, Goldilocks tried one chair after another to find the right one in “The Golden Girl and the Three Bears”, and Hansel and Gretel stopped in front of the house made of candy in the series of the same name. It is the treasure of fairy tales that has become the red thread connecting the inspiration for the entire CHANEL Haute Couture Fall Winter 2026 collection of creative director Matthieu Blazy.
To realize the idea of bringing the fairy tale world from old pages to real life, interior designer Martin Brûlé and the CHANEL team turned the familiar Grand Palais space into a magical garden. Toxic vines and toxic flowers cover every corner, like layers of history entwined. Above, the ceiling is decorated to simulate a sky, covered in light blue with white clouds. Along the catwalk, guests sat on gilded chairs with designs that were unique to each other. However, not all chairs are on the ground. Others floated high, caught between vines and flower clusters, as if lifted by magic from their original position.
Throughout the space, giant flowers with orange, red, yellow and blue colors are arranged interwoven. Some flowers are wrapped around winding vines, some flowers are placed in oversized vases. This arrangement creates a connection to the collection, as miniature versions of pointed-petal flowers appear on many designs, accompanying camellias. As the models weaved between vines and vases, they became part of the story of CHANEL Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2026. Each step evoked the feeling of walking through a fairy tale forest.
From the inspiration of fairy tales, “Is it possible to make a connection with Gabrielle Chanel’s life?” is the question Matthieu Blazy wants to answer in the Fall-Winter 2026 Haute Couture season. What attracts him is the journey of an orphan girl who becomes the head of a fashion empire, a real-life version of Cinderella, using her strong will and creative aesthetics to change herself and the contemporary fashion landscape.
This season, illustrated pages from fables and fairy tales are pinned to the idea board. Then, they are printed on silk to make lining inside the outfit, or separated into small details that appear on the design. One button is shaped like a pair of boots, another is a cat in boots; Lucky charms, rising bean stalks or details reminiscent of the fairy tale world appeared on the catwalk. These are layers of meaning that only the wearer can truly discover when touching the inside of the outfit.
The bean detail also suggests an interesting language game. In English, “bean counting” is a way of talking about calculating profits down to each number. CHANEL is rarely mentioned in this aspect. Haute Couture may bring in revenue, but its core value lies in the heritage, craftsmanship and cultural capital that the brand has accumulated over generations. This collection thus demonstrates how Matthieu Blazy continues to enrich that treasure with a series of new ideas. Some of the experiments from last season were further developed, especially the chiffon suits that created a lot of discussion, but this time the scale was pushed further, both in terms of quantity and creative depth. Of course, the new has never been apart from the heritage at CHANEL.
“I look at a lot of pictures of Gabrielle Chanel. She didn’t pin the fabric, she cut off the sleeves“, Matthieu Blazy was impressed with the founder’s way of creating designs. That’s not an exaggeration because Gabrielle Chanel herself was famous for holding scissors and cutting fabric directly on test models while they were wearing clothes. The word “model” in English refers to both the design sample and the model trying it on. She treats both in the same way: editing immediately, not hesitating to destroy to create a new look.
On the catwalk, the surface of the tweed fabric is cut and torn so that the threads bloom into the shape of flower petals. There was a jacket that was cut at the waist as if it had just undergone surgery, then reattached with thin gold chains, tiny beads and hand-embroidered techniques. That feeling evokes the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold kintsugi, turning the tear into part of the design. For Matthieu Blazy, this approach also mirrors his own journey. The years of working with Raf Simons and then Maison Margiela left an indelible mark on creative thinking. He calls it “the relationship between function and collision of clothes”, when clothes bear traces of the process of cutting, assembling, disassembling and restructuring.
Camellia is one of the symbols associated with CHANEL, appearing throughout the Fall-Winter 2026 Haute Couture collection, but this time it does not stand alone. Interspersed among the flowers are thorny vines and sharp-shaped plant motifs, making the romantic beauty containing the elegant French spirit of the camellia become both attractive and potentially unsettling.
Matthieu Blazy said: “Fairy tales are not created to make you feel good. When opening a book, you always ask yourself: Can I step out of this story?” It was this fragile feeling between fascination and risk that became the starting point for the collection. “I like the idea of a flower that carries danger. We call them Gabrielle’s poisonous flowers“. From Blazy’s perspective, the flower that once represented streamlining now also evokes strength, temptation and even the contradictions that make up the portrait of Gabrielle Chanel: the person who always moves fashion forward not by pleasing the masses, but by making bold enough choices to change the way women dress.
Three designs inspired by the image of a straw scarecrow open another chapter of the collection. The edges of the fabric are treated like dry straw, mixed with light raffia fibers, creating the feeling like the outfit has just been pulled from a field in a fairy tale. Then, emotions flourished as the collection moved on to flowing silk dresses cut using a cross-stitching technique so the material hugged the body with its natural fall, then to new versions of the classic black dress for evenings out on the town. According to Matthieu Blazy, it’s all about telling the adventure of what happens every day.
The image of the magpie famous for its habit of picking up shiny objects is one of the main inspirations in the collection. Notes, lucky charms, souvenirs or items associated with life gradually accumulate like a collection of memories. They appear throughout the collection in the form of embroidered patches on evening dresses. Some children spread their wings among the foliage, others perched on tree branches, as if the whole fairy garden was gradually appearing on the canvas. A black design with a bejeweled collar supported by two embossed birds. They latch onto the two ends of the hem, creating the feeling that those wings are skillfully wrapping the dress on the wearer’s body. This image is reminiscent of the moment when the birds help Cinderella complete her fairy tale outfit.
Accessories also contain a dreamy spirit. Instead of the flap bag that is the symbol of CHANEL, there are metal minaudière bags, shaped like characters coming out of fairy tales. On the collars of tweed jackets, layers of charm necklaces are worn on top of each other, then combined with layered interlocking chain belts, creating the feeling of a collection of memorabilia collected over time.
Two-tone heels also appeared with see-through material replacing the leather, while the heels were transformed into small sculptures covered in gold leaf or shaped like eggs and peas with pearls. These are details that are different enough to attract the eye, but still adhere closely to the aesthetic that Blazy is gradually building for CHANEL.
Lesson: Hoang Bao – Fashion Columnist
