One Year On, Chanel’s Bruno Pavlovsky Talks Sales Growth, Retail Strategy and Matthieu Blazy Impact
“It could not have gone better,” the executive said of the critical and commercial reception of Blazy's first collections.
PARIS — A year after Matthieu Blazy’s debut show for Chanel, Bruno Pavlovsky is a happy man.
“Chanel is reenergized,” the brand’s president of fashion told WWD. “There’s a wonderful energy both inside the house and among our clients. People are picking up on that positive momentum, which we had perhaps lost a little before Matthieu’s arrival.”
The creative director’s collections are flying off shelves, despite market volatility that continues to weigh on global luxury sales, and Chanel has topped the Lyst rankings of the world’s hottest brands for the last two quarters.
Blazy is set to present his spring 2027 collection at the Grand Palais on Monday night, before hitting the road with a replica cruise show in Sydney on Nov. 5 and a Métiers d’Art unveiling in Rome on Dec. 2.
“This is almost the hardest part. Last year, we thought the first year would be the most difficult. Now, as we enter the second year, the bar is high, so we’re feeling the pressure. That’s part of the game, but I’m very confident, and it could not have gone better,” Pavlovsky said.
Social media has been awash with videos of hourlong queues at Chanel boutiques and ecstatic unboxings, in what has been termed “Blazymania.” The designer’s first main collection went on sale in March, and his most recent, for fall 2026, landed in stores on Sept. 20.
While Pavlovsky declined to comment on leaked first-half figures, which said comparable revenue rose 16 percent during the first six months of the year, the executive confirmed Chanel is ahead of the pack.
“We’re significantly outperforming the market,” he said. “The numbers are good. Almost all our boutiques are selling more product, more ready-to-wear. It’s a very exciting phase. The question is: how do we sustain this momentum in the months and years ahead?”
While the United States, Europe and Japan are all performing well, China and the rest of Asia have also proved surprisingly resilient, he reported.
“Despite the challenging context, our sales are growing. At a time when everyone is struggling, the quality of our collections and execution have helped us weather the storm,” he said. “But as far as 2027 is concerned, I remain extremely cautious.”
Managing Scarcity
For Pavlovsky, the main challenge now is to keep his faithful customers happy. Chanel doesn’t take pre-orders, so collection launches are typically frantic, as clients swoop down on previews to secure the best pieces.
“Right now, we’re all about managing scarcity, but it’s not because we’re not ordering enough. It’s because of the shelf life of our collections, which is two to three months on average,” he explained.
“Our pieces are produced in limited runs of 80 to 1,200 pieces per design. But say you have 1,200 pieces — you still need to divide them among 250 boutiques, so each boutique will receive no more than four or five pieces,” he added.
While that distribution model has remained unchanged since Blazy’s arrival, the process has come under growing scrutiny as demand for key runway looks often outstrips supply.
“That’s the beauty of fashion. There’s what catches your eye and sparks desire during the show, and there can never be enough of those pieces — we could make 10 times as many and still not have enough,” Pavlovsky admitted.
In order to give Blazy’s teams breathing room, the Chanel design studio has undergone its most wide-ranging reorganization since Karl Lagerfeld took the creative reins in 1983.
Where previously a single studio churned out 10 collections a year, the house has hired an additional 30 people and created three dedicated teams: one for haute couture, one for ready-to-wear and one for Métiers d’Art and cruise.
But the manufacturing network, which encompasses some 1,000 entities between tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers, has remained largely unchanged, even as the brand has broadened its offering into unisex designs and acquired historic French shirtmaker Charvet.
“When Matthieu designs more boyish items like men’s jackets, we obviously have to reach out to real men’s tailoring workshops to make those, and not just repurpose women’s jackets for men. That forces us to seek out new manufacturers, but at least 90 percent of our suppliers are the same as before,” Pavlovsky said.
The creative refresh has required specialized workshops to adopt new techniques, resulting in some delays, while certain collections naturally have shorter production windows.
For example, the spring line is slated to arrive in stores in late February or early March, and since much of Italy shuts down during the year-end holidays, it has to be completed in less than four months. That compares with a five- to six-month production window for the Métiers d’Art collection, timed to the pre-fall season.
“We are adapting not only the assortment, but also how to maximize the impact of this assortment in stores to try to better satisfy the needs of our clients. But we have enough merchandise in stores,” Pavlovsky said.
‘No Regrets’
Chanel continues to renovate seven to eight boutiques per year, and open another two or three. Following the opening of a Palo Alto unit in June, it plans to inaugurate a new store in San Diego on Thursday, a pop-up in Shanghai for the launch of the Coco Neige winter sports line on Oct. 14, and a renovated location in Melbourne on Nov. 11.
Ahead of the replica cruise show, Chanel is also opening a temporary store at the Chatswood Chase shopping center in Sydney on Oct. 16. “Australia is another promising market,” Pavlovsky said.
“We’re upgrading our retail network to offer the best possible experience to our growing number of clients, as more and more of them want access to our ready-to-wear collections. But not all of our boutiques around the world have enough space or a sufficient number of fitting rooms,” he noted.
The interior of the Chanel boutique in Palo Alto
The interior of the Chanel boutique in Palo Alto. Courtesy of Chanel
Chanel’s clients have been with the brand for nine years on average, he said. “Your expectations are not the same as when you push open the doors of a boutique for the first time,” Pavlovsky noted.
While he reported no major turnover in clientele, some categories have helped the brand recruit new fans.
“We’re meeting, for example, with our shoe collections, customers who may have felt previously that Chanel shoes weren’t fashion-forward or edgy enough. Now we’re attracting more trend-conscious customers who see something they like in the shoes,” he said.
While Chanel rides its fresh momentum, its former creative director Virginie Viard last week published a book lifting the lid on her dismissal in 2024, offering a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the privately held firm, owned by the secretive Wertheimer family.
“During Virginie’s tenure, including after Karl’s death, we pushed the house forward and prepared it for the current phase, so the mission was accomplished — and that, to me, is what matters the most. Of course, I understand her bitterness, but I didn’t want to read the book. I will read it for sure, but not right now,” Pavlovsky said.
“Chanel has always supported Virginie. I have no regrets,” he added. “We all know we’re just passing through. That’s the beauty of what we do. We find a house one way, and we leave it in another. What matters is that it keeps on growing.”
