In Fashion’s Game of Musical Chairs, Matthieu Blazy Takes the Throne at Chanel

The long-simmering fashion vibe shift is officially underway. Matthieu Blazy, who until this morning was the creative director of Bottega Veneta, is the new creative director of Chanel. Blazy will reportedly oversee ready-to-wear, couture and accessories at the flagship French fashion house, and will make his debut in October during Paris Fashion Week.

In a year where the fashion industry has undergone a profound creative upheaval, with over a dozen designers departing from high profile luxury brands, the Chanel job—vacated by Virginie Viard in June—was the biggest prize of all. Chanel is the second-biggest fashion house in the world, and among the most historically influential. Blazy beat out the competition (which is said to have included Hedi Slimane, Marc Jacobs, Simon Porte Jacquemus, and others) following a three year run at Bottega Veneta where he transformed the Kering-owned Italian luxury leathergoods brand into a beacon of creativity and craft.

Following his departure, Bottega Veneta wasted no time naming a successor in Louise Trotter, whose exit from French heritage house Carven was confirmed this morning.

The Chanel and Bottega Veneta shakeups are the latest in a head-spinning series of designer drops, trades, and call-ups in recent months. Just yesterday, hall of fame couturier John Galliano announced his exit from Maison Margiela. The 2025 fashion calendar is already brimming with new energy: Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford, Sarah Burton at Givenchy, Michael Rider at Celine, Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten, and now Blazy and Chanel and Trotter at Bottega Veneta, whose debut runway show is also set for October in Paris.

The pace of change comes during a period of economic uncertainty and a broad sense of creative stagnation in fashion, but it’s no less unprecedented. In 2018, men’s fashion underwent a major creature realignment with the emergence of Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, Kim Jones at Dior, and Hedi Slimane at Celine, which jolted the rest of the menswear establishment and created a groundswell of hype.

In Blazy, Chanel is getting an artsy, nuanced designer who also has a hot hand when it came to inserting his work into broader cultural moments. The French-Belgian 40-year-old got his start as a protege of Raf Simons, who hired him straight out of fashion school in Brussels. Blazy joined Bottega Veneta in 2020, and took over as creative director in November 2021 following Daniel Lee’s abrupt departure from the post. The understudy quickly proved he had what it took for prime time. His clever, crafty jeans and plaid button-ups made out of trompe l’oeil printed leather became defining garments of the moment, making Bottega synonymous with understated opulence. But he could also do va-va-voom with showstopping—and jaw-droppingly expensive—leather coats and floaty, feathery dresses.

Though known as a designer’s designer, Blazy had a keen sense of pop cultural timing. He recruited Jacob Elordi and A$AP Rocky to lead his ranks of VIP ambassadors; their campaigns and leather-clad appearances had a way of setting the Internet alight, despite the fact that the brand remained Instagram-less. Blazy also brought Bottega into close conversation with the art world, launching a regular collectible fanzine and collaborating with artists like Gaetano Pesce on custom furniture and runway sets.

Speaking of Elordi and Rocky—will the style dynamos follow Blazy to his new digs? That depends. Chanel has a growing rank of male customers and has released limited capsule collections of men’s clothing in the past, but it doesn’t have a fully fledged menswear arm. Rumors have circulated for years that the house is planning to enter the men’s space. Blazy’s history with Simons and his funhouse-chic menswear at Bottega suggests he might be the designer for the job.