Karl Lagerfeld dreamt it. Matthieu Blazy did it.

For his first Chanel cruise collection, Blazy alighted in Biarritz, more than a century after Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel founded her first couture house in the French seaside town, laying the foundation for what became known as “the Chanel style.”

Guests including Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, A$AP Rocky and Sofia Coppola gathered at the Art Deco-style seafront casino, whose interior was transformed with beige deep-pile carpet, mirrored columns and flower arrangements in acid bright hues. 

The late Lagerfeld, who had a holiday home in Biarritz, always wanted to stage an event in the resort, known as the European capital of surfing. In 2003, he famously shot a campaign that featured two models in skirts and heels carrying Chanel-branded surfboards but never held a show in the town.

Blazy, who’s been coming to Biarritz since he was a kid, made a natural connection with one of his personal obsessions: mermaids. Model Noor Khan starred as a sea creature in the charming black-and-white teaser film for the show, and closed the display in a turquoise sequined gown with a fishtail hem.

It was one of several whimsical looks in the collection, but at its root, this was an homage to the streamlined style codes that Chanel established in the 1920s, borrowing from sportswear, workwear and sailors’ uniforms.

“This is where she took her first steps into fashion,” Blazy said after the show. “What’s very interesting about Biarritz is that she basically observed. She watched the swimmers. She tanned. She watched the sailors.”

Stripes were a key motif in his lineup, from colorful fabrics inspired by traditional Basque home linens to a sailor stripe quarter-zip sweater — Blazy’s personal uniform — worn over a full skirt in a graphic pattern drawn from vintage beach umbrellas.

Coco Chanel was not only catering to the European aristocrats who descended on the Hôtel du Palais — she was surrounded by avant-garde artists. 

Her costume designs for “Le Train Bleu,” a 1924 ballet on which she worked with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, were echoed in retro-style swimsuits worn with swimming caps fastened with chin straps. Straw versions sprouted little Sonic the Hedgehog spikes. 

They say the beach is the great leveler, but Chanel also injected a workwear aesthetic into her evening looks. Her original little black dress, created exactly a century ago, was inspired by the clothes worn by maids and shop girls, and was echoed in the first look of the show.

“I call it the first revenge dress,” Blazy said, noting that Chanel used the design to level the field between grand ladies and the women who served them. 

She continued to break rules by incorporating giant double-C logos into the construction of her clothes. Indian model and Chanel ambassador Bhavitha Mandava wore an example: a black-and-white skirt suit directly copied from a drawing from the archives.

“Is it branding? Is it a manifesto? Is it new pattern-making? Is it like the rock T-shirt from those days?” asked Blazy. “It’s interesting because it was probably very awkward back in the day. You know, Jean Patou did it small, but she makes it huge.” 

He pointed out that several looks in the show, including a knit skirt suit with zigzag edges, were reproductions of original designs. 

“We call them ‘blast from the past.’ There are things that are so good that you don’t need to do anything,” he said. At the same time, he emphasized his job is not limited to mining Chanel lore. “Those are starting points for me and then with the team, we add other layers of fantasy. It’s not just by the book.”

Thus he cemented some of his own brand signatures, like the genderless pantsuits that models wore with swimsuits, and influencer Bryanboy, sitting front row, paired with a pair of high-heeled two-tone slingbacks. Blazy’s viral Charvet shirt was back, this time with a front panel made of guipure lace. 

But this was also his most playful collection to date, peppered with preposterous accessories like rubber wading boots, earrings shaped like red peppers — a local specialty — or “shoes” consisting of little more than a heel cap, that are bound to stoke the Chanelmania triggered by the arrival of his debut collection last month. 

Blazy threw in some Easter eggs, sending out Mona Tougaard with a ludicrously capacious version of the straw basket launched last week as part of the Coco Beach line, or dressing Kaya Wilkins, who is six months’ pregnant, in a bikini top with a tweed skirt suit — little baby shoe charms dangling from her bag.

It was the closest he’s come to paying homage to Lagerfeld, a genius at spinning pop cultural moments. The designer explained that for his debut collection last fall, he needed to go back to the fundamentals of the house. 

“It becomes almost like an obsessive, meditative work on Gabrielle. But when it comes to [the] Métiers d’Art and cruise [collections], I also think what Karl brought as a pop monument needs to integrate those collections. So Karl is always there,” he said with a smile. 

With its variety of options, ranging from featherlight ’20s-style knit sets to billowing ballgowns, the collection seemed designed to erode resistance among old clients and fuel desire among the new. Blazy acknowledged the profusion of patterns and embellishment on his scarf dresses, robe coats and sarong-style skirts verged on a pileup. 

“At some point, someone told me, ‘It’s too much,’” he said, recalling a discussion with his design team. “And then we saw this amazing photo of the seashore that was recolored from 1910, and you have all the tents with the Basque stripes and it’s such a mess, it’s such an explosion. I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s go!’”

As models emerged for the finale to the tune of Charles Aznavour’s soaring ballad “Emmenez-moi,” guests jumped to their feet and cheered. The Middle East conflict may be pouring cold water on the luxury sector’s budding recovery, but it turns out joie de vivre is a potent currency.

While helming the Chanel juggernaut is considered one of the most stressful jobs in fashion, Blazy appears to have coasted through his first year at the house, working alongside president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky and global chief executive officer Leena Nair. 

“It’s precious when you feel in the right room with the right people, and you’re allowed full creativity, as well as being a partner in crime with your CEO. We talk a lot, so I’m lucky because I have all the conditions to explore, but also to take decisions, to sometimes also wonder and not be sure,” he said. 

“We work hard, as everyone in fashion does, but it’s very joyous,” the designer continued. “It seems to translate, so the people who wear the clothes are also happy to wear them.”

Still, he prefers to take Chanelmania with a pinch of salt. “It’s kind of overwhelming,” Blazy confessed. “We can talk about it in 10 years. It’s a marathon. It’s not just like this one drop — there will be many other drops.”