3 Very Important Clients on Fashion's 'Great Reset,' Part II

I am traveling this week, so there isn’t a typical “Loose Threads” today but a quick word on Matthieu Blazy’s second collection for Chanel:

The Métiers d’Art or pre-fall collection is considered Chanel’s fanciest next to couture. Blazy staged the show in a decommissioned New York City subway station. Karl Lagerfeld would have recreated the subway station in Paris’s Grand Palais (he ginned up a fake grocery store, iceberg, and plane). As with Blazy’s spring 2026 collection (more on that in today’s big story), Chanel clients seem unhappy and fashion press and influencers seem delighted by the whole thing. The clothes again look like Blazy’s Bottega, though more uneven than his spring show, but I think what bothers me about it more is that it was a cliché. Chanel printed out “La Gazette” newspapers to accessorize the spectacle. A phony newspaper has been a marketing gimmick since the dawn of the Instagram age. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, whose brand Goop has been stuck in the 2010s, relaunched her clothing line prior to fashion week with a “Goop Gazette.” As for the subway station, Tom Ford staged a show in 2019 in the very same decommissioned subway station, arguably to more elegant effect. (Blazy was inspired by a trip Coco Chanel took to New York in 1931.)

The show also included a bag that resembled a squirrel, which people are saying they like. At least he didn’t do a rat.

A couple weeks ago, I published the first installment of a two-part story about what three VICs (Very Important Clients, or the 2 percent of wealthy shoppers who account for 40 percent of luxury fashion sales) really thought of the spring 2026 shows. With 15 major creative director debuts, The Business of Fashion termed the season the “great reset.” It was supposed to be the season that changed everything, clearly and beautifully transitioning us from the brown pantsuit-littered runways of the early 2020s to the “boom boom” tacky second half of the decade in a way we could all understand.

Instead, everyone is confused.

The old Chanel clients don’t like the new Chanel look under creative director Matthieu Blazy. Meanwhile, the Chanel-curious say they might buy it now that Blazy’s there. Jonathan Anderson’s Dior, meanwhile, has drawn intrigue along with plenty of confusion. And prices for all this stuff have gotten so high that no one seems to understand what, exactly, they are paying for.

Ahead, the second part of the story, including testimonials from a fed-up Chanel ready-to-wear buyer; a New York VIC who wanted to love Michael Rider’s Celine; and a Dior buyer who explains why she canceled her pre-order of the brand’s coveted new clover bag.

Earlier:

The Chanel Ready-to-Wear Buyer Who’s Fed Up