HAUTE COUTURE
AT CHANEL
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE HOUSE
Gabrielle Chanel opened her couture house in 1915. Throughout her life, she dedicated herself entirely to Haute Couture—creations tailored to her client’s bodies. The codes she invented laid the foundations for the vocabulary of CHANEL’s Fashion. Absolute luxury, CHANEL Haute Couture reinvents itself season after season in a constantly renewed balance between excellence and creativity.
Designed for day and night, CHANEL Haute Couture stands out for its utmost and subtle refinement: the precision of the line, the extreme sophistication of the linings, the impeccable drape of the garments, the perfection of the braiding, the jewelled buttons...
The oldest Haute Couture house still in operation, its epicentre remains located at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris, the only address for CHANEL Haute Couture in the world. Today, the CHANEL Haute Couture collections are imagined by Matthieu Blazy, and brought to life in the Haute Couture ateliers by the expert hands of the couturières and couturiers.
MATTHIEU BLAZY’S CREATIVE APPROACH
“Haute Couture is the very soul of CHANEL—it is the foundation and the full expression of the House. These are clothes that are as much about the wearer as the designer. It’s the clothes worn that give them a true story; their own story and an emotional resonance, giving women a canvas to tell their own story.”
Matthieu Blazy
Artistic Director of CHANEL Fashion Activities
The starting point for Matthieu Blazy’s Haute Couture collections for CHANEL, is the female body, in all its uniqueness. The garments are tailor-made for each woman, emphasising freedom of movement and telling their personal stories.
THE EXPERIENCE OF ULTIMATE LUXURY
A creation of one’s own
A CHANEL Haute Couture garment is the unique experience of a creation of one’s own, that enhances every woman’s beauty. Haute Couture creations are created on the client’s body to offer complete freedom of movement—a concept at the heart of all the House's collections. A garment as a second skin, referring to Gabrielle Chanel’s unique way of working with fabrics directly on the bodies of her models. Each piece is a one-of-a-kind creation, with every proportion recalculated according to the client’s measurements to adapt to her unique features and enhance her silhouette. A mannequin modelled on the client's measurements enables the couturières to work on their unique order. The client can also delve into the House archives and order pieces from any previous collections. Each piece is personal, born from the unique emotion it awakens in the woman who chooses it.
THE SAVOIR-FAIRE OF
THE HAUTE COUTURE
ATELIERS
CHANEL Haute Couture requires a special kind of savoir-faire: creating, tailoring and shaping the garment to fit each woman’s body.
For over 110 years, precise, passed down, repeated, and reinterpreted savoir-faire gives life to each new collection in the three “tailleur” [tailoring] and two “flou” [soft textiles] ateliers at 31 Rue Cambon, in Paris. The only one of its kind in the world, the “galon” [braiding] atelier, is fully dedicated to the creation of this emblematic code of the House.
Haute Couture takes time, requiring patience and meticulous attention to detail: entirely handmade, the pieces can take several hundred hours of work, depending on their complexity. Even the most skilled hands must be trained in the techniques of the CHANEL ateliers. The creation of braiding, the topstitching, the “passage de fil” and the placement of the golden chain that defines the drape of the jackets are part of a repertoire of unique crafts whose sophistication now inspires Ready-to-Wear.
A field of experimentation
A veritable laboratory for experimentation, CHANEL Haute Couture encapsulates the codes of the House while allowing for limitless creativity—unbound by material, technical or time constraints and made possible by handcrafting.
Unique creations are crafted from a wide variety of materials (including raffia, jersey, muslin), enhanced by the savoir-faire specific to Haute Couture such as inlaid lace, ladder stitch, smocking and box pleats.
Haute Couture
Fall Winter 2026
Spring Summer 2026
Haute Couture
The slow pace
of Haute Couture
At the heart of Haute Couture lies the personal and intimate experience of the wearer. Accompanied by a Haute Couture advisor and a première d’atelier dedicated to creating her garment, it is also an experience of “le temps CHANEL” that requires patience and commitment. The client follows every step of the creation process, which lasts six to nine months. This slow pace contributes to the magic of Haute Couture. An Haute Couture creation spans generations, can be revisited as many times as necessary throughout its lifetime, and is passed down over time.
Embroidery, pleating, textured tweed, textile embellishments: through a wide range of precious ornaments, the Maisons d’art contribute significantly to the Haute Couture collections. Based at le19M, Lesage, Lemarié, Lognon, Goossens, Desrues, Atelier Montex, Massaro and Maison Michel showcase their savoir-faire and help create the magic of every Haute Couture collection.
THE SAVOIR-FAIRE OF THE MÉTIERS D'ART
Haute Couture thus offers a unique field of expression and experimentation that sets it apart from the Ready-to-Wear collections. It is the art of shaping fabrics, transforming textiles, and inventing intricate details to create unique pieces defying traditional craftsmanship and technical limits in the service of exceptionalism.
