Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa watch Chanel’s creative revival at Paris Fashion Week

PARIS (AP) — Chanel’s artistic director Matthieu Blazy sent the fashion house's suits stretching towards sportswear and evening dresses drifting through clouds, with Nicole Kidman, Dua Lipa and Pedro Pascal in the audience as he unveiled his spring-summer 2027 collection.

The Monday night show underscored that a year into his creative revival, Blazy has made the house feel newly unpredictable.

The former Bottega Veneta designer succeeded Virginie Viard, who took over after Karl Lagerfeld ’s death in 2019. Viard’s tenure brought record sales but Blazy’s contribution has been to restore a sense that Chanel’s familiar ingredients can produce something unexpected.

That renewal is visible in his treatment of the house’s symbols: tweed can stretch; formal jackets sit against bare skin; quilted bags turn slouchy.

The appeal lies in giving established clients something recognizable, and newer ones something to reinterpret.

Beneath illuminated birds at the Grand Palais, Blazy's collection traced Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s passage from Edwardian constraint towards the freedom she sought in dress.

“It’s about the women within a woman,” Blazy wrote in his notes.

Across 83 looks, that meant expanding the possibilities of a Chanel wardrobe: knits that skimmed the body, masculine tailoring, airy eveningwear and sharply abbreviated skirts.

Raw-edged waistcoats and narrow skirt suits reworked men’s formal clothes. A pearl-embroidered corset top paired with black trousers brought the tension between restriction and ease into focus.

Older fashions lingered in ruffled collars, peplums and traces of corset boning.

The strongest development was Chanel’s new “smocked tweed,” designed to stretch and move with something of athleticwear’s ease. It was a useful proposition for an expensive, familiar garment: preserve its character while improving its possibilities.

Competing patterns and frothy tutus sometimes tipped towards costume. Dresses made from layered, printed silk were more persuasive, turning cloud formations and changing light into shifting color.

Model Dyanira Hurbuscher opened and closed the collection — carrying Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 handbag, borrowed from the famed archives.

That element neatly framed the collection’s ambition: continuity with room for change — a balance Blazy’s revitalization of Chanel rests on.

He has made Chanel's heritage feel available for play, backed by serious work in the ateliers.

Lipa wore a sleeveless skirt suit with pink heels. Kidman attended with her daughter Faith Margaret.

Marion Cotillard poses upon arrival at the Chanel Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

Sandra Huller poses upon arrival at the Chanel Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

Keonho poses upon arrival at the Chanel Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

Carole Bouquet, left, and Marion Cotillard pose upon arrival at the Chanel Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

Designer Matthieu Blazy accepts applause after the Chanel Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

PARIS (AP) — Protesting pupils blockaded their high schools again Tuesday, a day of planned demonstrations that will test the resilience and energy of a weeks-old nationwide movement demanding more resources for the school system.

At the Hélène Boucher lycée, or high school, in Paris' 20th district, protesters laid trash cans and bicycles on their sides to create a makeshift barricade in front of the school.

Like hundreds of others around the country, the school was closed. Authorities began shutting schools last week to take some steam out of the demonstrations after widespread damage to schools and mounting injuries among staff, students and police.

French media also reported protests in other cities and towns on Tuesday morning, as labor unions called for workers to demonstrate later Tuesday in support of the high school movement that is rattling the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

The government's response has been muscular: Police made more than 5,000 arrests last week, 85% of them minors. But the police's widespread use of arrests, tear gas and riot-control weapons against teenage demonstrators is fueling defiance and angering some parents and teachers.

At Hélène Boucher, parents and other adults on Tuesday positioned themselves between protesters and police forces that kept watch.

School blockades and protests started in the Paris region in mid-September and spread to other cities and towns. Demonstrators are expressing an array of grievances, often centered around complaints that resources and opportunities for advancement are sorely lacking for students in disadvantaged schools despite the promise of France’s national motto: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”

Pupils have focused attention on run-down classrooms that lack basics such as desks and chairs, roast without air-conditioning in summer, and are even rat-infested. Other widely shared complaints are that schools lack sufficient staff and that pupils' workloads are exhausting. French high schoolers’ compulsory school hours are among the highest in Europe.

Students gather on the street before a demonstration against under-resourced schools, in Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Students hold a banner reading "Youth in anger" as they gather before a demonstration against under-resourced schools, in Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Students gather on the street before a demonstration against under-resourced schools, in Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)