French luxury brand Chanel has opted for 40-year-old Matthieu Blazy as its new creative director instead of one of the industry's established celebrity designers.
The Franco-Belgian Blazy may be low-key but is hardly an unknown, having headed Italian brand Bottega Veneta for the last three years and being long-talked-about within the industry as a future star.
Now, having beaten better known figures such as Hedi Slimane to the coveted vacancy, he is set to take over the world's second-largest luxury clothing brand in a career-defining moment.
Said to have impressed with his in-depth presentations during the recruitment process, he embodies "a new generation with sincere humility", Chanel fashion president Bruno Pavlovsky said of his nomination on Thursday evening.
Along with his creativity, the compliment about his character underlined another of his perceived qualities: the lack of a huge ego in an industry famed for them.
Serge Carreira, a fashion expert at Sciences Po university in Paris, said Chanel's discreet family owners, Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, were looking for a loyal figure as only the fourth creative director in the brand's fabled history.
"Chanel is a privately owned family house," he told AFP. "The brand can take a long-term approach and allow time for things."
Handed the reins of Chanel with its nearly $20-billion annual sales, Blazy will be tasked with moving the brand on from a 40-year period defined by its legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld.
For the last five years, it has been directed by Virginie Viard, the late Lagerfeld's handpicked successor before his death in 2019, who has steadily grown sales.
- 'Hottest tickets' -
Blazy has won widespread praise for his work at Bottega Veneta since 2021, helping modernise the look of the classic Italian leather-goods house, making it more playful and daring, while also expanding its product range.
He oversaw the launch of its first fragrances and high-end jewellery, and updated the brand's classic "intrecciato" woven patterns with hit bags such as Kalimero, Andiamo and Sardine.
One of his first projects was designing a pair of $7,000 (6,700-euro) jeans from leather printed with a denim pattern that makes them look like the cotton versions.
His shows at Milan Fashion Week attended by celebrities such as Julianne Moore and Jennifer Lawrence quickly became "a top highlight, consistently among the hottest tickets", The Business of Fashion's luxury editor Robert Williams told AFP.
Chanel is a different scale, however, meaning that "the pressure to back up that creative edge with wearable designs is certainly a lot higher", Williams explained.
"The volume of products and collections that he will have to oversee, as well as the images going out the door, is much higher. But so are the resources. It's a very powerful machine."
A heavy smoker, often modestly dressed in just jeans and t-shirt, Blazy collects art and is close friends with Belgian fashion master Raf Simons, a mentor and former boss on two occasions.
He grew up in Paris with his art expert father and historian mother, along with a twin sister and brother.
"Tom Sawyer was my childhood hero," he told The New York Times in an interview last year, referring to the free-spirited character of Mark Twain's novel.
His own teenage rebelliousness led to him being sent to boarding schools in France and England.
- Sacked in NY - Blazy studied fashion at La Cambre art school in Brussels and was hired after graduation by Simons, kickstarting a career that has seen him rapidly rise through major European and American labels.
He first came to public attention while designing as part of an anonymous collective that put together a collection for France's Maison Margiela in 2014.
Iconic British fashion journalist Suzy Menkes was so impressed by his work using rare fabrics that she "outed" him in an article in Vogue, writing that "you can't keep such a talent under wraps".
That helped propel him further, leading to jobs at Celine as well as Calvin Klein where he worked under Simons again, this time in New York.
Their two-year stint in the United States ended abruptly when they were fired in 2018, leaving Blazy standing in the street with a cardboard box containing his office possessions.
"It felt like a movie," he told The New York Times.
The setback did nothing to slow his rise, with the latest step taking him to the pinnacle of the fashion world. —AFP
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