At Chanel, the carpet was white, the air hushed, the mirrors omnipresent. It was as if the house had exhaled—retreating into itself before Matthieu Blazy’s arrival, before the inevitable tide of transformation. Held in a cloistered, salon-style setting above the Grand Palais, Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2025 couture presentation was less spectacle, more séance. Coco’s beloved Scottish Highlands lent their wintry palette to ivory tweeds, feathered capes, and black suiting softened by frost-kissed texture, each look a meditation on purity and memory.
For all the exquisite lace and wisps of chiffon, the mood beneath the surface was clear: transition. The atelier’s technical prowess was on full display, yet the collection felt like an ellipsis, not a statement. Still, it gave clients those fluent in Chanel’s intimate codes the tools to dream. Blazy, who will unveil his first couture vision next season, remains a phantom presence, but his name alone haunts the runway like a challenge: what comes next?
Meanwhile, the old guards and new vanguards lit up Paris with their own interpretations of what couture should mean now. Iris Van Herpen returned with gravity-defying biomorphism, Robert Wun continued his myth-making, and Giambattista Valli delivered his expected confectionary drama. And then there was Demna: his farewell to Balenciaga, comes at a moment of deep reckoning for the house. As for Maison Margiela, Glenn Martens’ couture debut may yet redefine previous John Galliano’s legacy with a raw, visceral flourish.
The official calendar is lean this season, but loaded with symbolism. With Dior absent—its creative handover from Chiuri to Jonathan Anderson underway—and Jean Paul Gaultier skipping the season after naming Duran Lantink as its new steward, the weight of legacy looms large. And perhaps that’s why the quietest moments, like Chanel’s whispered retreat, ring the loudest.
In the midst of all this reverence, nostalgia crashed the party—in the most Y2K way possible.
The Fendi Spy bag is back. First launched in 2005 and immortalised by the Olsen twins and Nicole Richie, Silvia Venturini Fendi has reissued the cult classic with a sleeker, more intimate sensibility. The 2025 iteration features updated finishes, a miniature size, and that same covert charm—a secret compartment tucked beneath the flap, wrapped in a golden arc.
“I liked the idea of the secret compartment because a bag is a place where you keep your most intimate belongings. It’s an extension of yourself,” Silvia Venturini Fendi said. On the runway, actor Ren Meguro personified the new-era Spy: structured, knowing, but still mischievously private. It’s a bag that doesn’t beg for attention—it trusts that you’ll notice.
Maybe that’s the through line of couture this season: discretion over drama, intimacy over excess. Amid legacy shifts and seismic creative transitions, fashion is choosing to whisper. Don’t mistake that for silence.
Featured Image: Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2025. Photography courtesy of Schiaparelli.
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