A Good Conversation

The show was tomorrow. The clothes had not yet been hung, the music had not yet played, and the city had not yet seen a thing. The day before the show, I sat across from Matthieu Blazy.

I began the conversation by saying it was good to meet him. That was the truth. From the moment I heard he was coming to Seoul, I had been waiting for this. Matthieu Blazy. Now one year into Chanel. One year means ten collections, he said with a laugh, tossing the number out like a joke — but it was no joke. It meant one person had drawn a new world ten times over in the span of a single year.

There is no need to say at length how pivotal a figure he is for the present and future of fashion and culture. The Artistic Director of Chanel — and if one more word is needed, the one entrusted to carry the spirit and creation of Gabrielle Chanel fully into a new era.

Where we sat across from each other was Seoul. Next to the 63 Building, the kind of place you might have visited once on a school trip as a child — the new museum ‘Centre Pompidou Hanwha,’ presenting a Cubism exhibition. He had brought  his first Métiers d’art collection, shown in New York. What you might call the replica show , now becoming yet another legacy of Chanel. I thought of an interview where he described New York as a city of coffee and dogs, and I wondered whether Seoul might be something like mobile phones, fried chicken, and beauty.

It’s very funny because, you know, we first did the show in New York. And then when it came to restaging the show, Seoul felt like an obvious choice for a few reasons. I was already talking about it with the team, but basically what I found fascinating about what’s happening in Korea and the culture is that it has a global influence across many different fields. Of course there’s music, not just K-pop, but also K-pop — you watch television and there are a lot of programmes about Korean food. I watched this programme and there was this absolutely incredible chef outside Seoul. Then there’s cinema — Oldboy, one of my favourite movies, Minari, and the Netflix shows. And also what’s happening in beauty — so Seoul is a very interesting city because it still lives within tradition, and Korean culture is very deeply rooted, but at the same time I always think there is something very innovative, looking to the future. And especially — you know I love the arts in general — every scene that happened post-war. Nam June Paik. Lee Ufan. It’s a city that I’m extremely curious about.

Seoul is also a city of the future jungle surrounding AI, and a gallery city enchanted by art.
He, too, said he had fallen completely for Centre Pompidou Hanwha, the venue of the show.

In France there probably would not be an exhibition like this, at least not of this size, maybe because Cubism started in France and French people feel like they know a lot about it already. So it’s been a long time since we saw it. Yesterday when I had a tour of the collection, I was really amazed because Cubism arrived before the war, yet it predicted the future. It’s really an idea of the future, almost like a collage of different things, and it represents different states of mind, what I call a “mindscape”. I’m not necessarily trying to make a link with Korean culture or Korean artists, but I do see a connection with the idea of designing for the future. For example, when you look at Nam June Paik — the access to technology, representation, saturation of image, and more and more and more on the TV screen.  And it’s also interesting to present this show in the context of a new museum. Anyway, when it’s about culture//creation, it can never be wrong.

He spoke at length about the Centre Pompidou, about a Cubism exhibition that could no longer be seen in France. And then he paused at the word Cubism.

“Cubism arrived before the war, but it predicted the future.”

The past sees the future first. He called it a ‘mindscape.’ A collage of disparate things stitched together. A landscape where different states of mind overlap on a single screen. Thinking of Nam June Paik’s screens, the approach to technology, the saturation of images, what endlessly accumulates on the screen — he said perhaps only he could see that connection. But I saw it too. A city that breathes within tradition while racing toward the future. That was the Seoul he saw, and the Seoul I see every day.

The New York show was held in the subway. A scene without hierarchy. A place where people at different stages of life simply brush past one another. In Seoul, he chose a gallery. A place where anyone can come to see beauty. Grandmothers with their grandchildren, businesspeople, students, scholars, artists, punks. If New York was a place where everyone was meeting, this was a place where everyone came to look at something beautiful, he said.

When I arrived at Chanel, there was only a very specific representation of the Chanel woman. And I thought it was almost like a uniform — which can be good, too. But I thought we could add a little bit more to the story, and more women. Not a single woman — women in their multiplicity. And I like a lot, for example, the movie The Hours, where you had different women whose lives somehow crossed. And I thought the New York subway was a beautiful landscape because there can be a lot of different people at different stages of their life, and they just meet. And there is no hierarchy. And I feel a little bit the same with the gallery. Everyone is welcome to see the art. You can meet a grandmother with her grandchildren, you can meet a businesswoman, you can meet students, art people, punks. It’s a place that is for everyone. New York is a place for everyone to travel. Here, it’s a place for everyone to look at something beautiful. That’s the story. Voilà. I could have done it in the subway here, but then I thought it had already been done.

Matthieu Blazy is a masterful storyteller. He weaves together different eras in hybrid ways, breathing vivid life into every character. It was the same with the Métiers d’art collection in New York. I asked how he mixed different periods — from the 1970s all the way to Gabrielle Chanel’s 1920s. He said which era something comes from is not so important to him.

I think this collection very much reflects the world of today. For example, I recently went to pick up my brother’s son from school. He’s 12 years old. I was looking at his class, and he told me they are obsessed with vintage. If you look at people nowadays, vintage has become a big part of our culture. You can wear something from the ’80s, something from the ’50s, and I think this kind of style-per-era is disappearing, and everything can coexist together. I’m very fascinated by a documentary called The Cockettes. They were hippies in San Francisco in the ’70s, and they had a band, really amazing. But they were among the first to really wear vintage. In the ’70s, they would wear everything from before the ’40s. And it created these kinds of incredible figures, almost creatures. The decades for me, they’re not so important. I think you can just borrow from different eras and then translate .

What is good fashion? Even knowing that fashion is a difficult, exhausting, and complex industry, we still ask.

The intention comes first. Because clothes are clothes — I think what makes a good piece of fashion is an idea, something you want to communicate. Or the person who wears it wants to express. Then there is function — the fact that you can wear it and it doesn’t wear you. Unless you want to — sometimes it’s so big it becomes wonderful. And then I think the last thing is the test of time. Some clothes can be out of fashion, but do you want to pass them down to your kids? Or to your friends? Or do you want to keep them because they have an emotional value? I have a Charvet shirt that belonged to my grandfather who wore his entire life. I can’t wear it anymore because it’s completely destroyed. Why is it so good? Because he wore it all his life. Now I have it. Do I want to give it away? No, because it has an emotional value. So this is what makes a good design: function, fiction and ideas.

“This is what makes a good design. Function, fiction and ideas.”

He turned his attention to equality and freedom through the New York show.

The foundation of Chanel for me is a woman who designed clothes, tried them on herself first, and then offered them to women. And what I found fascinating — when we talk about hierarchy — is that she borrowed from the working class: seamstresses, café workers… And then she recontextualised those clothes for the aristocracy. And it was very interesting because her first fashion designs kind of erased the hierarchy of class. This is extraordinary. It’s very modern.

And then the second thing — which is really the foundation of the house for me — is the idea that the clothes are designed for someone who needs to move. By creating those clothes, she allowed women to have jobs, to be on the go, to run, to have kids and work at the same time. She freed them from a social status that was determined by their gender. She gave women’s clothes the same function as men’s.

And today it’s the same.  Not every woman wears Chanel, but when it comes to dressing in the morning to go to work, any woman who wears a T-shirt or a suit or even pants — it mirrors the very foundation of what she brought to fashion. So — Gabrielle Chanel, wow.

His voice was at its most resolute when speaking of Gabrielle Chanel. The person who designed clothes, tried them on herself first, and then offered them to women. The person who took the clothes of the working class — seamstresses, café workers — and gave them new meaning as garments for the aristocracy. In doing so, Gabrielle’s early fashion erased the very hierarchy of class. And then she made clothes for people who had to move. Gabrielle did not make women the equals of men — she gave women’s clothes the same function as men’s. Every woman who puts on a T-shirt, a suit, a pair of trousers this morning to go to work reflects again, each day, the foundation Gabrielle brought to fashion.

Toward the end of our conversation, he said he is often asked why he focuses so much on Gabrielle Chanel. It is not focus, he said. It is simply that one must know where something began to know where it can go. A kind of quest, he called it.

You know what’s funny? Now I’m finishing my first year at Chanel. One year is ten collections. It’s a lot. When I meet journalists, they often ask me, ‘Why do you focus so much on Gabrielle?’ It’s not that I focus on Gabrielle — it’s because in my research I need to understand where to start, because if I know where it starts, then maybe I can understand where to go. So it’s almost a kind of quest. You dig into the past to unlock the future. But I’m also really looking forward to creating new codes at Chanel, exploring the work of Karl as well, and then writing another future — that is not just about the past, but about what can be. If you look again at Nam June Paik, as an artist he created a whole world yet it still remains rooted in something traditional. In the East you have incredible artists and the new generation is everywhere. It’s really booming.

“You dig into the past to unlock the future.”

Someday he wants to create new codes at Chanel, to explore the work of Karl Lagerfeld, and to write another future — not about the past, but about what can be. Returning to Nam June Paik, how one artist created an entire world. In the East there are extraordinary artists rooted in tradition, and the new generation is everywhere, truly booming right now, he said.

That is what a good conversation is. You listen to one person’s past, and before you know it, you are talking about everyone’s future.

“When it’s about culture, it can never be wrong.”

These are the words of Matthieu Blazy. His vision and character, and the experience of meeting them face to face. Culture is made that way — between one person and another. That is Chanel. And so, for everyone, there is Chanel.