Chanel names Matthieu Blazy as new creative director of the house (#1686046)

The house of Chanel has appointed Matthieu Blazy to be its new creative director, the most coveted job in fashion, ending a guessing game that has last for six months.
 
Blazy, 40, will oversee both luxury ready-to-wear, haute couture and accessories at the house, becoming only the third designer to succeed founder Coco Chanel since her death in 1971.

 
“I am thrilled and honoured to join the wonderful House of Chanel. I look forward to meeting all the teams and writing this new chapter together,” said Blazy in a release.
 
He joins Chanel after a series of critically lauded shows for Bottega Veneta, a house he joined in 2020.

Added Alain Wertheimer, Global Executive Chairman, and Leena Nair, Global CEO of Chanel: “Matthieu Blazy is one of the most gifted designers of his generation. His vision and talent will reinforce the energy of the Brand and our position as a leader in luxury. Under Bruno Pavlovsky’s leadership, we are confident that Matthieu Blazy will continue to shape what’s next and write a new page in Chanel’s Creation.”
 
Barely one hour before Chanel announced Blazy’s arrival, Kering had announced that he was leaving his position at that house, to be replaced by Louise Trotter.
 
Blazy starts his new position in 2025. His official title is artistic director of fashion activities, Chanel.
 
“I am delighted to welcome Matthieu Blazy. I am convinced that he will be able to play with the codes and heritage of the House, through an ongoing dialogue with the studio, our ateliers, and our Maisons d’Art. His audacious personality, his innovative and powerful approach to creation, as well as his dedication to craftsmanship and beautiful materials, will take Chanel in exciting new directions,” said Pavlovsky.
 
Three years ago, very few people knew Matthieu Blazy. He has a reputation as being curious, passionate about his job, respectful of his teams, a hard worker, ultra-competent, bubbling with creativity. The fashion industry and critics acclaimed him ever since he took over the reins of the Bottega Veneta studio, succeeding the British designer Daniel Lee, whose right-hand man he had been since 2020.
 
Lee, whom he had met at Celine, had invited him to join him the Italian luxury house. At the time, it was rumored that Matthieu Blazy’s contribution had been decisive, and that he was behind some of the most sought-after products, helping to revitalize the brand’s image as it relaunched.

His profile is that of the famous number two designers, who have design and product expertise and immediate credibility with the in-house teams. Beyond his skills, he is a reassuring figure for the companies in these turbulent times. In fact, he immediately brought serenity back to the teams, who had been rather shaken up by Daniel Lee.
 
‘I was a junior designer, I was an intern, I worked in the workshop. I think I know what it takes to create a collection because I’ve worked in several different worlds. I think there’s a dynamic to the process that I really understand,” he told Dubai-based online fashion magazine Savoir Flair in November 2022, insisting that he had “always worked in the atelier”. Intuitive and attentive to the suggestions of his team, Matthieu Blazy is also very close to the artisans with whom he works hand in hand, as he demonstrated again recently with his first perfume and fine jewelry collections, each time immersing himself in these new trades with relish.

It is this love of beautiful, innovative, uncompromising products that are both desirable and functional, in keeping with Bottega Veneta’s very upmarket and exclusive positioning, that has enabled him to guide the company to success. Bottega Veneta has been the only company in the Kering galaxy to hold up well and even grow despite the crisis. Between 2021 and 2023, its sales rose from €1.503 billion to €1.645 billion, while in the third quarter, despite the turbulence, it managed to hold its own with growth of 4% to €397 million.
 
By turning away from the diktats of fashion and focusing on quality, timeless highly crafted pieces, ‘that evoke emotion’, the Franco-Belgian designer has succeeded in infusing the brand with a new, more subtle language. Rather than quiet luxury, he prefers to talk about ‘quiet strength’.

He offers a product that is strong, but never ostentatious. Like the obvious look of Matthieu Blazy, who opened his first show in February 2022 for autumn-winter 2022/23. The famous white tank top and blue jeans, two everyday pieces that are as simple as they are sophisticated, because they are made from an unsuspected supple leather, the fruit of long research. Added to this are the unexpected, often immersive and artistic stagings of its fashion shows, which are one of the highlights of Milan Fashion Week every season, as well as highly targeted communication, usually outside social networks, through relevant partnerships with artists or players on the cultural scene, such as the architect-designer Gaetano Pesce or the New York bookshop The Strand.
 
His father was an expert in pre-Columbian art and his mother an art historian, so this designer and art collector has a huge interest in architecture and design. Growing up in a stimulating environment that included trips to the ends of the earth, auction rooms and paleontological digs.
 
He was reared in the 14th arrondissement of Paris with his brother and twin sister. After a stint at a Catholic boarding school in the countryside, then a military school in England, the turbulent pupil finally found his way to La Cambre, the prestigious fashion school in Brussels, where he graduated in 2007. During his studies, he took his first steps in the luxury goods industry with an internship at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière, then at John Galliano.
 
In 2006, he took part in the ITS competition for young designers in Trieste. A finalist, he didn’t win the competition, but was noticed by Raf Simons, who was on the jury. Without knowing him, he approached the Belgian designer he admired, telling him how much he appreciated his work and how he would like to work for his brand. A year later, Raf Simons recruited him as a men’s designer in his studio in Antwerp. It was there that he met Pieter Mulier, Alaïa’s current creative director, who would become his partner for sixteen years.

Focused for five years on menswear, Matthieu Blazy wanted to try his hand at women’s ready-to-wear too, and at the end of 2011 moved to Maison Margiela, owned by Renzo Rosso’s Italian fashion group OTB, to oversee the experimental ‘Artisanal’ couture line, while Demna Gvasalia was at the helm of the label’s main line. When Gvasalia left for Louis Vuitton at the end of 2012, Matthieu Blazy took both lines under his wing. His work is highly appreciated. He experienced success and the beginnings of visibility thanks to the American rapper Kanye West, a fan of his creations for Maison Margiela, who asked him to design his wardrobe for the “Yeezus Tour”.
 
At the end of 2014, he left Maison Margiela to join Celine as a senior designer under Phoebe Philo. Two years later, he re-formed the ‘dream team’ with Pieter Muller and Raf Simons, who took him to Calvin Klein in New York. They stayed for three years, before being dismissed. Before returning to Europe, Matthieu Blazy stopped off in Los Angeles to help artist Sterling Ruby with a fashion collection, which Ruby was to present at the Pitti Uomo trade fair in Florence. On his return, he accepted the job at Bottega Veneta.