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.
