Despite the global frenzy stoked by Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection, Chanel’s president of fashion has a mid-term goal of 5 percent to 7 percent annual growth.Despite the global frenzy stoked by Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection, Chanel’s president of fashion has a mid-term goal of 5 percent to 7 percent annual growth.
BIARRITZ, France – After decades of traveling the world for destination shows, Bruno Pavlovsky welcomed some 900 guests in his hometown of Biarritz for Chanel’s cruise 2027 collection.
In tandem with the reveal of creative director Matthieu Blazy’s debut resort line, the brand opened a summer pop-up store at the Villa de Larralde, where Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel launched her first couture house in 1915.
Stocked with the new Coco Beach collection, the boutique drew steady lines over the weekend, as Chanelmania crept down to the beachside resort known as Europe’s surfing capital.
While the store will close on Sept. 27, Pavlovsky revealed the building will permanently join a list of Chanel heritage sites that includes the recently restored villa La Pausa near Monaco. The idea of a year-round presence was initially floated by the late Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s longtime designer who owned a summer home in Biarritz.
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In an interview with WWD, Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, explained how the brand intends to harness the frenzy surrounding Blazy’s first collection into steady medium-term growth, and touched on topics ranging from the Middle East war to Chanel’s growing popularity with men.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
WWD: What has been the local response to Chanel staging its cruise show in Biarritz?
Bruno Pavlovsky: Locals are very proud to see Chanel return to Biarritz.
They’re aware the couture house was born here. In 1915, Gabrielle Chanel established a workshop that employed some 60 seamstresses, eventually rising to almost 400.
Her sister ran the couture house, and for four or five years, it was the heart of her activity. After the war, she returned to Paris, but the real origin of the couture house was here.
WWD: How does it feel for you to welcome guests on your home turf?
B.P.: It’s more than just a dream location for a show. It’s rooted in the history of the house.
Karl talked about it a lot and he spent a lot of time here. He did quite a lot of research on Chanel and Biarritz and had talked about doing an event here, but it never came to pass.
Buying Villa de Larralde involved six years of efforts and negotiations because Chanel never owned it. She rented out the building, but it was later subdivided into 85 properties, so we had to buy them back one by one.
We now own the entire villa and will restore it over the next five years, based on detailed research about its past use. We have until the end of the year to select the final project. It will take another two or three years to get it done, and it will allow us to have a permanent Chanel presence here.
There will certainly be a store, but it’s too early to say whether it will be a seasonal pop-up or a permanent boutique.
We’re also working on the idea of a gallery, inspired by Le19M in Paris, to share the history of Mademoiselle Chanel, her inspirations and Art Deco. This location truly represents the heart and soul of Chanel.
Dana Lixenberg/Courtesy of Chanel
It’s one of the first projects I discussed with Matthieu when he joined. He knows Biarritz well. He often came here on vacation as a child and has close friends here. He’s not in uncharted territory, so it just felt natural.
WWD: This is the first show since Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection landed in stores in March, triggering global Chanelmania. How are you coping with demand?
B.P.: The first collection was very well received by the press in general. In parallel, we worked hard with our store teams to make them comfortable with the new collections.
There is no Old Chanel and New Chanel. Chanel continues to use materials historically associated with the house, though some were less visible in recent years. All the work Matthieu has done on jersey is based on items found in the archive.
What I love about Matthieu’s approach is that he didn’t try to keep writing the same story – he made it his own. We gave him the freedom to put his stamp on the house, and that’s worked really well.
The timing of the first collection drop was perfect, because it was smack during Paris Fashion Week when all the fashion crowd was in town. Everyone wanted to come to the stores. Luckily, they liked what they saw. They posted a lot and our customers, who were also waiting to see the new products, got caught up in the excitement. We’ve seen great uptake across ready-to-wear, handbags and shoes.
We were concerned about the customer reaction because after the first show, not all our clients were convinced this new, looser silhouette was for them. Those fears have been laid to rest.
Though it’s only been a month and a half, all our major clients came. For sure, we also have a new clientele. We’ll need six months to get a clearer picture. We were very cautious in managing open-to-buy, because we want to build up the business gradually and not get caught up in the frenzy. In terms of the targets we set ourselves, it’s been very successful.
In the meantime, we launched the Coco Beach collection worldwide last Thursday with three dedicated pop-ups in Biarritz, Taipei and Shanghai. We’re seeing an incredible energy around it.
Courtesy of Chanel
I’m also very optimistic about the Métiers d’Art collection because we’ve already received a lot of inquiries. Some key pieces are sold out before even arriving in stores.
WWD: We hear sales of ready-to-wear are up 30 percent for the first collection. Can you confirm that?
B.P.: It’s growing, but not by 30 percent, because we didn’t buy the quantities required to fuel 30 percent growth. We’re seeing double-digit growth, which is great, as we already have a sizeable business in ready-to-wear.
WWD: Do you try to meet estimated demand, or are you purposely creating scarcity?
B.P.: We work with our buyers and we try to align with their forecasts. Every time we’ve experienced slowdowns in the past, it’s because we overestimated demand. Two or three years ago, we allowed a few collections to be over-purchased.
Our roadmap now is clearer than ever. We know that controlled growth will make the brand even stronger.
We’re not trying to do 20 percent a year. It has to be solid growth, with price and volume contributing evenly.
The target is between 5 percent and 7 percent reported growth per year.
If I look ahead to the next five years, the idea is not to double revenues, but to achieve sustainable growth by engaging our clients in stores. Unlike many other brands, we work with a fairly limited number of clients because we have very loyal customers, with a high proportion of VICs. Our objective is to keep them coming back to the brand, while recruiting new customers through categories like accessories.
We want to stoke buzz around the brand while putting it on a firm foothold for the next 20 years.
WWD: Where did the collection perform best?
B.P.: The response was fairly unanimous, but some regions stand out.
We’ve been seeing strong growth in the United States for the last 18 months, with a steady acceleration over the course of last year. U.S. customers were especially keen to see Matthieu’s collection, and expectations are even higher around the Métiers d’Art collection.
We’ve also managed to turn around a lot of our Asian businesses in the last six months.
WWD: You will publish annual results in May. Can we expect an improvement in 2025 revenues versus the previous year?
B.P.: There was definitely an improvement.
We logged a solid performance in 2025. I can’t make a forecast for 2026, because it’s only been four months.
Courtesy of Chanel
WWD: What’s been the impact of the conflict in the Middle East so far?
B.P.: We’re in wait-and-see mode in the Middle East because tourist flows have dried up. Some local clients have also left, but we’re seeing them in stores in the countries where they’ve moved.
Deliveries of the first collection to the Middle East were delayed by two weeks compared to the rest of the world due to logistical issues tied to the war.
All of our stores are open in the Middle East, and once the collection arrived, it did very well with local customers in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
What we’re missing is the usual tourist traffic. The major malls like Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates are much quieter than usual and we’re feeling the impact like everyone else.
It will be interesting to see whether people return after the hot weather season. It’s going to depend a lot on how the situation evolves.
During the pandemic, when everything ground to a halt, it took a few years for travel to return to normal. I’m no specialist, but given the scale of the disruption, I expect it will be a long time before the region fully recovers.
WWD: Despite the volatile outlook, reports indicate you raised handbag prices by 3 percent and 5 percent in early April. Is that correct?
B.P.: Indeed, we raised our prices in April by an average of 3 percent.
We had not raised our prices in euros in 18 months, although we did make regular adjustments locally to take into account fluctuations in exchange rates.
The price increases affect mainly carryover lines like the classic flap handbag.
It was time to raise prices to keep pace with cost inflation.
WWD: That 18-month pause came on the heels of a succession of price increases that triggered growing client pushback. Are you seeing less price resistance in light of the current buzz around the collections?
B.P.: We’re definitely getting fewer questions about prices, but above all, there’s been a lot of work to add value to the products, and that’s something clients have noticed.
The price of our classic flap handbag did not reflect the 180 steps involved in its production and the quality of the leather, which is why we decided to gradually ramp up its price after the pandemic and to bring it where it needs to be. To me, it’s an iconic bag that embodies all the values of the brand.
Today, we no longer want to increase prices beyond what the economic situation warrants.
Dominique Maitre/WWD
WWD: Did you ever think Chanel would sell a classic flap handbag that looks like it’s been run over by a car?
B.P.: No, but I’ve gotten used to it. I spoke to a few clients who bought it, and I understood why they thought it was fun. It’s not so much a handbag as a statement. It’s a symbol of Matthieu’s audacity. We talked a lot about how to revisit this bag, how he could shake it up a little.
WWD: You’ve also brought a lot of newness to your classic bag assortment.
B.P.: On the one hand, you have creativity without limits, with these bags that are almost collector’s items, and on the other, you have bags for daily use, which we’ve always had, but which had maybe lost a little momentum.
Matthieu, thanks to his recent experience working in Italy, brought with him a different point of view on leather goods. We also strengthened the teams with new designers, and you’re seeing the results of that now.
WWD: You’ve also named several male brand ambassadors, including Pedro Pascal. Has Chanel become a genderless brand?
B.P.: Everyone is welcome in our stores. Gender fluidity is a social reality today.
We’re not going to develop a men’s line. We’re granting ourselves the freedom to make a few pieces here and there that appeal to men.
True luxury is freedom, so we want everyone to have this freedom. I see more and more guys around me carrying Chanel bags – I think it’s great.
