Inside Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2025/26 Haute Couture Salon

The show opened not with drama, but with restraint. Presented in the newly restored Salon d’Honneur at the Grand Palais, the collection leaned into intimacy, as well as tradition This wasn’t a headline-hunting spectacle, but rather a quiet assertion of couture’s enduring values: silhouette, texture, and craft.

The show was arranged in a simple setting as an homage to some of the first haute couture salon’s Chanel dawned upon, resembling Coco Chanel’s original apartment at 31 Rue Cambon. Montréal born Designer Willo Perron recreated the legendary space in full scale. Mirrored walls, neutral banquettes, gold detailing, transforming the Grand Palais into a serene salon. The ambiance was less runway than lounge, or sitting room, offering a subtle reminder that haute couture began in spaces like these: private, and deeply intentional.

The clothes mirrored the tone of the room. A hushed palette of earthy greens, soft mauves, ivory, and taupe grounded the collection in natural textures. Tweed– a Chanel signature, took center stage, reworked with trompe l’œil techniques to mimic velvet, sheepskin, and fur. Long coats read as weightless, sculpted jackets were softened by plumes, and flared skirts had barely-there shimmer. The craftsmanship was intricate, but never exaggerated.

Courtesy of Chanel Haute Couture Final Look; Courtesy of Chanel - 2010

Embroidered ears of wheat, a symbol personally intimate to Chanel and often associated with prosperity and rebirth, were frequently scattered throughout the collection, most strikingly on the soft chiffon of gowns and encompassing the bridal looks. It was a subtle theme, offering both continuity and quiet symbolism in a season otherwise light on overt storytelling.

Courtesy of Chanel Haute Couture Look 03

Feathers featured heavily as a tactile counterpoint to tweed and mohair: trimming coats, blooming from shoulders, or cascading down capelets. They added not drama, but motion. Even the embellishments–sequins, brooches, silk rosettes– felt intentional and dialed down. This wasn’t a collection built for the front row’s phone cameras. It was built for proximity to clothes that require our full attention.

While Chanel shows are often expected to deliver at least one theatrical moment– a carousel, a rocket, a beach– this presentation made no such gestures. The most extravagant detail might have been the absence of extravagance itself. The final bridal look, a near-sheer white dress dusted with wheat embroidery, closed the show not with exhibition, but with serenity.

While still a studio-led effort, the collection read less as a placeholder and more as a gentle nudge forward into new beginnings. For a house built on binaries, masculine and feminine, restraint and embellishment, this season suggested a recalibration. Still calm, still careful, but unmistakably aware that change is underway.

Courtesy of Chanel Haute Couture look 43

Though Virginie Viard’s departure and Matthieu Blazy’s appointment loomed quietly in the background, this collection didn’t ignore the shift: if anything, it hinted at it. Haute couture tends to oscillate between theatrics and technique, and this season, Chanel chose the latter. The show reaffirmed what couture still means in a post-performative age: the show wasn’t an “Instagramable” bait, but generational skill. Not shock. Study. As the house prepares for its next chapter, this collection acted less as a conclusion and more as a continuation. In a landscape of industry-wide reinvention, sometimes, the most radical gesture is simply remaining unmoved.

Inside Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2025/26 Haute Couture Salon