Six months after Virginie Viard stepped down as the creative director of Chanel, the French luxury brand has finally found a successor to step into what many consider fashion’s biggest job. While the rumor mill was spinning off its axis with predictions, Matthieu Blazy’s name emerged publically as a candidate in the past few weeks. Today the French house officially announced that Blazy, most recently creative director of Bottega Veneta, is trading in woven leather for trademark tweed as the new creative director of Chanel.
In his new role, Blazy will oversee all of fashion, couture, and accessories for the house, overseeing ten collections a year. He will officially join the team in April and make his runway debut in October 2025 as part of the spring/summer 2026 presentations during Paris Fashion Week. Until then, Chanel’s studio design team will continue to work on the upcoming couture collections in January and June, as well as the fall 2025 collection in March, just as they have since Viard’s departure in June.
“We have a lot of confidence in Matthieu’s capacity to bring modernity and a different approach to Chanel,” Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president for fashion, told The New York Times. “We want him to push, to test, to go where he feels is right. We don’t want to give the feeling that the brand is stuck.”
It has been a whirlwind year for fashion’s HR Departments, with designers constantly hopping from job to job at a rate not seen in years. Blazy’s coronation may be the biggest and most surprising. Not only was his name nowhere to be found among the suspected contenders for the Chanel position, but the French-Belgian designer had been very successful at Bottega. During his time at the brand, Blazy turned the Italian label into one of the hottest of the moment. Originally working as design director of Daniel Lee before being appointed creative director in his own right in 2021, Blazy pushed Bottega forward with his sophisticated, modern designs, specifically his use of leather to create mind-bending, trompe l’oeil works of wearable art. His runway shows became one of the hottest tickets during Milan Fashion Week, with his front rows filled up with A-list celebs, including A$AP Rocky and Jacob Elordi. Blazy could have thrived at Bottega for years to come, but now, the designer will have the opportunity to return to his home of Paris and lead one of the most storied houses in fashion.
Zendaya in custom Bottega Veneta at the Dune 2 premiere in Mexico in February 2024.
ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
The 40-year-old designer was born and raised in the French capital, though he attended La Cambre in Brussels for school. While working toward his degree, Blazy interned at Balenciaga and John Galliano, and went to work for Raf Simons following his graduation. In 2011, he joined the Maison Margiela design team where he eventually became responsible for the artisanal and women’s ready-to-wear collections before moving to Phoebe Philo’s Celine as a senior designer in 2014. From 2016 to 2019, he reunited with Simons, this time at Calvin Klein as the design director of mens and womenswear. He left Klein with Simons, but soon emerged again at Bottega. To many, Blazy was an unknown name at the time of his promotion, but fashion insiders knew of his talent and felt it was only natural he finally got his hands on his own brand. Blazy has long held high regard among the fashion community, and time and time again he has proven that his reputation is warranted.
Numerous designers have been responsible for Chanel over the years, but only two have truly succeeded: house founder Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, who reigned over the house from 1983 until his death in 2019. The company hopes Blazy can be the third. “I hope that Chanel can support this vision for many years, and to do it with an impact,” Pavlosky told the Times.
As for if Coco Chanel would approve of the house’s new creative director, Pavlosky said “probably she would find Matthieu nicer than Karl.”
It was simultaneously announced on Thursday that Louise Trotter will take over Blazy’s former position at Bottega Veneta. Trotter was previously creative director of Carven, but her departure from the French brand was also revealed on Thursday. She will take up her post at Bottega at the end of January, becoming Kering’s only female creative director.
