25 February 2026
There’s a certain irony in the fact that one of fashion’s most storied houses — known for the petite quilted flap that elegant women have tucked under their arms for decades — is now championing the art of going large. Under the creative direction of Matthieu Blazy, CHANEL’s Spring/Summer 2026 RTW and Métiers d’Art 2026 collections have sent a clear signal: the era of the oversized, generously proportioned bag is well and truly here, and CHANEL intends to own it.
When Blazy took his first bow as CHANEL’s creative director at the newly renovated Grand Palais in October 2025, fashion insiders were watching every detail — the clothes, yes, but more importantly, the bags. Blazy, a designer celebrated for his deep material intelligence and poet’s sense of restraint, framed his debut as “an imaginary conversation” with Gabrielle Chanel herself. And like Coco, he looked to utility as a guiding principle.
The runway delivered on an impressive lineup: Maxi Flap Bags, Maxi Hobo Bags, large Shopping Bags, and generously sized Totes that prioritize what a modern woman actually needs to carry through her day.
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
The standout large silhouettes from the SS26 collection range from the dramatic to the decidedly practical. The “Maxi Flap Bag” arrives in lambskin, reimagining the house’s most iconic shape at a scale that commands attention.
The “Maxi Hobo Bag” in shiny lambskin, signals perhaps the most significant shift in CHANEL’s bag vernacular. Slouchy, generous, and utterly of-the-moment, it speaks directly to the broader fashion appetite for bags that look as though they’ve been effortlessly thrown over a shoulder on the way somewhere wonderful.
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
Then there are the Shopping Bags — a category CHANEL has returned to with renewed enthusiasm. The “Maxi Shopping Bag” in grained nubuck calfskin is a genuinely architectural piece, while the Shopping Bag in calfskin bridges the gap between structured tote and relaxed everyday carrier.
The “Chanel 25” — the hobo-style bag featuring the house’s signature quilting, chain strap, classic CC closure, and cargo details — has also been presented in large formats, cementing its status as a key player in CHANEL’s new large-bag chapter.
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
Spring/Summer 2026 RTW
The Métiers d’Art 2026 bags were built like status symbols but styled like real life — held close, worn crossbody, swung on chains that feel practical rather than ceremonial. New shapes emerged, including an all-new hobo-tote hybrid in a beautiful blend of suede calfskin and shiny lambskin — a piece directly inspired by the fawn suede sofa in Mademoiselle Gabrielle’s Paris apartment. The collection also introduced two-tone bags in the house’s signature beige and black, translating the iconic two-tone slingback pump into a functional accessory with the same visual intelligence. For those drawn to drama, a maxi leopard jacquard flap bag and a pony hair cheetah Chanel 25 rounded out a lineup that felt simultaneously rooted in craft and alive with city energy. The artisans of CHANEL’s specialist ateliers — Lesage, Lemarié, Montex, Goossens, Massaro, and Maison Michel — poured their extraordinary skills into pieces that had to hold their own against one of the world’s most cinematic runway settings.
Métiers d’Art 2026
Métiers d’Art 2026
The resurgence of the large bag is not a CHANEL-specific story, but CHANEL is telling it better than most. After years during which the fashion world celebrated micro bags — tiny, sculptural confections designed more for the photo than for the pavement — there has been a decisive swing back toward practicality with polish. The XL oversized bag trend that gained momentum in 2025 has only intensified.
For CHANEL, the embrace of larger formats feels particularly meaningful because it represents a return to Gabrielle Chanel’s founding impulse: freeing women from the impractical. Blazy has spoken about wanting bags that feel “lived, something cherished” — pieces that gain character through use rather than sitting pristine on a shelf. A maxi flap or a generous hobo is, in that spirit, a deeply Chanel idea. Blazy’s debut also reflects the wider cultural appetite for 2000s-inflected nostalgia. The early 2000s were, of course, the golden era of the oversized It bag — when a woman’s status bag was often the most voluminous thing in the room. CHANEL’s Maxi Flap and new hobo shapes feel like the luxury industry’s most considered answer to that nostalgia: not a direct reproduction of the past, but a grown-up, beautifully made recalibration of it.
Métiers d’Art 2026
CHANEL 25 Campaign
Métiers d’Art 2026
No bag achieves It-bag status without the right women (or man) carrying it, and CHANEL’s new large silhouettes have wasted no time attracting fashion’s most photographed. Among them: Jennie of BLACKPINK and Margot Robbie, longtime CHANEL global ambassadors, IT-girls Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber, and repping the boys, Pedro Pascal, A$AP Rocky and G-Dragon. If it needs underlining – CHANEL under Blazy is the conversation everyone wants to be part of.
Dua Lipa, who fronts the CHANEL 25 campaign alongside Jennie, has also been seen with multiple variations of the large CHANEL 25 bag.
Margot Robbie
Hailey Bieber
A$AP Rocky
Kylie Jenner
Pedro Pascal
Jennie
G-Dragon
Beyond the cultural moment, there is a deeply pragmatic argument for the large CHANEL bag. You can accommodate a full-size wallet, a phone, keys, headphones, and a notebook without compromising its structure. Slip it over the shoulder and it moves with the body in a way that a boxy top-handle simply doesn’t. It transitions effortlessly from morning meetings to evening dinners. For women who have long loved the CHANEL aesthetic but found themselves reaching for a larger tote from another house every time real life intervened, Blazy’s new chapter offers something genuinely exciting: the possibility of living entirely within CHANEL.
Matthieu Blazy has arrived at CHANEL with a clear point of view, and large bags are central to it. Whether expressed in the celestial grandeur of the Grand Palais or the gritty romance of a New York subway platform, the message is consistent: a CHANEL bag should be worth carrying, not just worth photographing. The maxi flaps, hobo silhouettes, and generous shopping bags of SS26 and Métiers d’Art 2026 represent the house at its most modern and most Chanel simultaneously — roomy enough for real life, beautiful enough to make real life feel like an occasion. In a fashion landscape where the pendulum has swung decisively back toward the useful and the substantial, CHANEL has arrived not a moment too soon. Go big, or go home — Gabrielle herself would likely agree.
