COSMIC PROPORTIONS

The biggest reveal of the Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2026 season has reached a ripe crescendo with Matthieu Blazy's inaugural collection for the house of Chanel.

- BENJAMIN WONG

Fashion is reliant on context. Just as much as it is an extension of self-expression, sartorial consensus en masse is also often reflective of social conventions, or a defiance thereof, from a particular period in time. For instance, purple garments were once symbols of wealth, owing to how difficult it was to obtain the key ingredient in the manufacture of ancient Tyrian purple dye: sea snails. On the other hand, zoot suits of the 1930s were conceived by Harlem's Black and Latino communities as a means of rejecting the Caucasian, middle-classed lens of respectability, while offering room for movement during swing dances that were popular during the time.

Similarly, what constituted popular fashion as defined by Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel came about out of necessity. As European societal expectations called upon a return to painstaking beauty and unapologetically feminine elegance with the conclusion of austere wartime rationing, the illustrious designer pivoted in a different direction. In place of the typically restrictive architecture of boned corsetry, she elected to take inspiration from her longstanding romance with English shipping merchant and polo player Arthur 'Boy' Capel's wardrobe.

Jersey sweaters were converted into roomy dresses for the day, while oversized blazers added a touch of masculinity to the easy drape of Chanel's iconic suits, which continue to remain a symbol of resilient female independence to this very day, especially in a boardroom setting. The emancipated Chanel woman was sartorially encouraged to seize the day on her own terms, an independence that was made possible on a bedrock of one universal language understood across time and space—love. She was synonymous with a peculiar modernity, with a willingness to step off the beaten track, walking to the beat of her own drum in comfortably chic bliss.