Luxury house CHANEL presents its Fall Winter 2025.26 campaign starring top model Lulu Tenney lensed by fashion photographer Anthony Seklaoui. The series introduces a collection that takes house codes – bows, pearls, ribbons, tweed, and two-tone – and pushes them into new proportions through experiments with scale, layering, and trompe-l’œil detail.
Bows serve as the most visible theme. Instead of remaining small decorative details, they grow into oversized structures that dominate collars, cuffs, and accessories. They appear as flourishes on blouses and dresses, accumulate along necklaces, and extend dramatically down to the ankles of outerwear. A knitted ribbon spirals around knitwear before finishing as a shoulder bow, while voluminous or openwork designs give the motif a sculptural presence. Through these variations, CHANEL shows how a symbol of femininity can shift into a design element that alters the entire silhouette.
Pearls, another of the house’s signatures, also take on new roles. They become the foundation of accessories: a single pearl supports the heel of a shoe, and a cross-body bag mirrors the structure of a giant pearl necklace. A wallet expands into an oversized clutch, and jewelry is drenched with rhinestones to exaggerate scale. In this collection, pearls redefine proportion and construction, adding a sense of surreal transformation to accessories.
Layering reinforces the theme of reinvention. Outfits are structured in ways that stack garments to create depth and motion. Through layered jackets, skirts, trousers, and gilets, the body is reframed with multiple outlines, each garment interacting with the next to reshape the figure. Transparency intensifies these effects: black tulle covers tailored suiting without obscuring it, while illusion tulle adds volume over dresses and jackets. These treatments allow different silhouettes to be visible at once, creating an interplay of structure and fluidity.
Fabric choice further expands the sense of illusion. Denim is suggested through chiffon, silk is treated to resemble tweed, and ribbons are printed as floating motifs. Outerwear continues this experimentation, with a black organza parka scattered with bows. Footwear mirrors the theme, ranging from sock boots to satin designs detailed with bouillonné ruching along the vamp. These shifts in texture emphasize transformation as one of the season’s driving forces.
The collection also introduces theatrical accents. Removable ruff collars shaped like flowers, black wool lace trench coats lined with faux fur, and knitwear embroidered with three-dimensional white petals punctuate the season with sculptural detail. These flourishes suggest a poetic edge, keeping the collection tied to imagination while rooted in technical craft.
