Summer 2026's mermaidcore moment has an unlikely reference point sitting a few months back in the fashion calendar: Chanel's Cruise 2026/27 collection, presented in Biarritz, France, on April 28, 2026. As shimmering scales, sea-glass hues and aquatic textures keep resurfacing across resortwear and social feeds this season, Matthieu Blazy's first Cruise collection for the house reads less like a runway relic and more like a working blueprint for how the trend can leave the beach and the costume box behind.
The show was staged in the coastal town where Gabrielle Chanel opened her couture house in 1915. According to Chanel, the Biarritz operation brought the boutique, ateliers, salons and apartment under one roof and helped shape the house's early design language. The location therefore positioned Blazy's first Cruise collection as a return to one of Chanel's foundational settings.
The marine references were direct without tipping into costume. AnOther Magazine described a lace dress that appeared to move like coral over the body, while flowing silk scarves were knotted into handkerchief hems and coats billowed like ocean swells. Newspaper-patterned pieces introduced another seaside association, and the final sequined dresses used fin-like details and saturated aquatic colors to push the collection toward mermaid imagery without abandoning Chanel's established silhouettes.
Texture carried much of that ocean language on its own. AnOther described tufted, towel-like fabrics alongside striped canvas evoking sun-bleached beach huts, giving several pieces a tactile, sand-and-surf quality rather than a glossy, literal mermaid finish. The closing looks leaned further into the water theme, with the outlet noting sequined dresses styled to suggest figures "dredged from the ocean," their models sent out with deliberately tousled hair.
Retro-style swim caps with chin straps appeared throughout the show, reinforcing the collection's references to early seaside dressing. Paired with knit caps and tricot tunics reminiscent of vintage bathing portraits, they became the collection's most overt beach signifier, but their placement alongside tailoring kept the effect playful rather than theatrical.
The palette moved between seafoam-adjacent greens, turquoise, coral red, black and cream, with the finale shifting into brighter sequined territory. AnOther described the closing Lesage-embroidered dresses in "blazing azure" and "koi orange," finished with fin-like details that pushed the collection's marine imagery into eveningwear. Chanel's signature tweed appeared alongside Basque-inspired stripes, while tailoring and beachwear repeatedly shared the same looks rather than being treated as separate wardrobes.
That mix is the throughline for how the collection avoids reading as costume. Rather than dressing models as literal mermaids, Blazy applied ocean imagery to structures Chanel already owns: tweed suiting, Breton stripes and the house's foulard silks. The result functions as a set of individual reference points—a net-textured layer, a coral-toned knit or a shell-like embellishment—that can be adopted piecemeal rather than worn as a complete aquatic look. That approach is closer to how the wider mermaidcore trend has been interpreted for summer 2026, according to coverage from Who What Wear and Glam.
Although the collection is positioned for a later retail season rather than as an immediate summer purchase, it already works as a reference point for how a heritage house can translate an internet-driven aesthetic into sophisticated clothing. Coral without the costume and nautical references without the novelty make Blazy's Biarritz collection one of the clearest luxury templates for mermaidcore beyond the beach.
