Sometimes, paying tribute to someone doesn’t require going far. Sometimes, it means returning to the beginning and paying attention to what was left behind once the bigger stages arrived. For Chanel, that place is Deauville. On Tuesday, 27 April 2027, Matthieu Blazy will present his Cruise 2027/28 collection there.
Long before becoming one of the world’s most recognisable fashion houses, Gabrielle Chanel was building her own understanding of clothing there. In 1912, she opened a boutique in the Normandy resort, and a year later began selling her first fashion pieces. Her work had only just begun, with years of exploration ahead and no certainty about where it would lead. Returning to Deauville more than a century later is a way of remembering that beginnings deserve the same attention and respect as the successes that follow them.
This time, the focus is not only on the House, but on Gabrielle Chanel, the woman who built it. Her name remains inseparable from a Maison that continues to reinterpret her legacy, but returning to one of the places where she first developed her fashion language allows for something more intimate: remembering the woman before the myth. That is what makes Deauville such a meaningful setting for Matthieu Blazy’s second Cruise collection. It isn’t simply about revisiting a location from the House’s history, but about physically returning to one of its first chapters. More than a century later, Deauville, the Belle Époque, fashion and Gabrielle Chanel meet once again.
