A Symphony of Illusions and Elegance – The CHANEL Fall-Winter 2025/26 Ready-to-Wear Collection

Designed by the CHANEL Creation Studio, the collection bends dimensions, playing with proportions, scale, and perception, while scenographer Willo Perron’s sweeping black ribbon installation transforms the space into a living tableau of movement and mystery.

A collection that waltzes between structure and fluidity, it reimagines the House’s cherished signatures – bows, pearls, ribbons, and flowers – through a poetic interplay of contrasts. A mini jacket in a delicate mélange of blue, white, and pink tweed is juxtaposed with dramatically elongated trousers, elongating the form like a brushstroke of modernity against classic tailoring. A voluminous poplin shirt cascades to the ankles, defying convention, while a petite black tweed jacket, adorned with braid, reinvents itself as a coatdress, its jewelled buttons glistening like scattered stars.

The collection revels in the grandeur of embellishment, where bows bloom across silhouettes like poetic flourishes – adorning collars, dancing at the hems of dresses, or flowing down blouses in waves of delicate drama. A single pearl forms the heel of a shoe, while a cross-body bag mimics the illusion of an exaggerated pearl necklace, playing with the boundaries between adornment and accessory. Rhinestone jewels, maximalist and bold, twinkle like celestial constellations, amplifying the dreamlike quality of the collection.

Transparencies whisper secrets beneath the fabric, revealing and concealing in equal measure. A diaphanous flounced cape in black or white illusion tulle flutters over a champagne tweed suit, its sheer elegance softening the tailored precision beneath. Elsewhere, a white tulle shirt billows over an ecru jacket-dress, its puffed sleeves lending a delicate drama to an otherwise structured silhouette. With every step, the shifting layers create a mesmerizing dance of light and shadow, as though the garments breathe with the wearer.

In the world of CHANEL, the unexpected reigns – silk woven in a manner to mimic tweed and a hooded black organza parka adorned with ethereal bows. Ankle boots and satin bouillonné shoes elongate the foot with effortless grace, while removable ruff collars bloom like corollas, nodding to the romance of centuries past. Black wool lace trench coats, enriched with faux fur, and black sweaters adorned with 3D petal plastrons punctuate the collection with a poetic touch.

The Fall-Winter 2025/26 Ready-to-Wear collection is a love letter to illusion, to the art of dressing as an act of storytelling – an ode to the eternal ballet of contrast, balance, and beauty.