Cruise (otherwise known as Resort) shows have long had their critics. Some find them to sit awkwardly between the ‘real’ collections, a kind of commercial interlude between ready-to-wear and couture. But that in-between quality is also what can make these collections so intriguing.
Freed from the usual demands of the fashion calendar, Cruise is where designers can loosen up – these are collections rooted in escapism, after all. Designed with travel and leisure in mind, they can allow for a more playful or experimental instinct than the stricter frameworks of ready-to-wear. And Matthieu Blazy certainly put on full display with Chanel’s Cruise collection 2026/27.
Gabrielle Coco Chanel was, in fact, the first designer to introduce the concept of Resort back in 1919, designing a womenswear collection for those vacationing on France’s West Atlantic coast, where she opened her first made-to-measure boutique in Biarritz just four years earlier. So there’s a neat sense of return in Blazy choosing the same stretch of coastline for his first Cruise collection as creative director.
Under the title of ‘Sous Le Salon La Plage’ (beneath the salon, the beach), the collection explores movement between worlds: the formal and the relaxed, tradition and absurdity, structure and fantasy. There are seaside references, of course, but Blazy pushes them somewhere stranger. Quilted bags are coated in blue resin to make them waterproof. Jackets are overlaid with newspaper print and fishermen’s nets. Raffia skirts shimmer against fish-scale sequins. The nautical mood is there, though delivered with enough wit to avoid veering into costume.
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The house signatures remain, though slightly undone for the coast. Tweed jackets come relaxed and oversized, styled with goggle-like sunglasses and swim caps. Classic bags are reworked in distressed denim and sun-faded Basque stripes.
And for anyone still inclined to dismiss Cruise as purely commercial, the more eccentric pieces make a convincing rebuttal. Swim hats, thigh-high rubber wader boots, and a literal take on the barefoot sandal bring a dose of playfulness.
“Chanel found in Biarritz different ways of being and seeing, of movement and freedom. It is a place that offers the perfect balance between function and fiction,” wrote Blazy in the show notes.
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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Chanel Cruise 2026/27
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“Among artists, workers, nobility, sailors, and the natural world, everyone and everything shared the same stage, living together as a norm. All had a role to play,” he concludes. That sense of overlap runs through this collection: between worlds, characters, fantasy, and function, and within that, discovering something that can be freer, looser, and more unusual.
And, as Blazy suggests, if everyone has a role to play, Chanel Cruise 2026/27 gives every character in this seaside cast something rather fabulous to wear for the part.
