Chanel has brought its Cruise 2026/27 collection to Sydney, staging its first official runway show in Australia on Thursday, 5 November. The Chanel Cruise presentation at The Cutaway in Barangaroo drew Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue, and marked the French house’s first runway on Australian soil in its more than a century of history.
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FAKTA
- Chanel staged two showings of its Cruise 2026/27 collection at The Cutaway in Barangaroo, Sydney, on Thursday, 5 November 2026, at 2:30pm and 6pm — the house’s first official runway show in Australia.
- The collection was designed by Chanel creative director Matthieu Blazy. It is his first Cruise collection for the house, originally unveiled in Biarritz, France, on 28 April 2026.
- The collection is titled “Sous le salon, la plage” — beneath the salon, the beach — and revisits the house’s coastal heritage through nautical references, fluid silhouettes and elaborate embellishments.
- Guests included Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Kylie Minogue, Joel Edgerton and director Baz Luhrmann. Minogue performed a medley of her hits at the after-party at Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay.
- Model Julia Nobis opened the presentation in a black drop-waist shift dress with white stitching. Singaporean model-actress Sheila Sim returned to the runway after more than a decade away.
- Blazy did not attend the Sydney presentation. The event was a replica show, a format Chanel uses to bring previously unveiled collections to different markets.
- Biarritz is the seaside town where Gabrielle Chanel opened her first couture house outside Paris in 1915.
- Chanel framed the Sydney shows as a step in deepening its Australian presence, with a new Sydney flagship opening and a renovated Melbourne store due later in November.
A First for Australia
The occasion was particularly significant for the Australian fashion industry: no international luxury house had ever brought a full runway production to the country before. The presentation took place at The Cutaway, a cultural venue beneath Barangaroo Reserve on Sydney Harbour, with the harbour as its backdrop. Two showings were held so that clients, editors and celebrities could all attend.
Barangaroo itself carries a deeper history. The precinct is named after an influential Cammeraygal Aboriginal leader and matriarch of the Eora Nation — a significance Blazy and the house acknowledged in choosing the location, set against the harbour and the city skyline.
From Biarritz to Barangaroo
The collection first appeared in April at the Art Deco Casino Municipal in Biarritz, the French seaside town where Gabrielle Chanel opened her first couture house outside Paris in 1915. Its title, “Sous le salon, la plage”, translates as “beneath the salon, the beach”, and the clothes follow that idea: the elegance of the salon above, the ease of the beach below.
Rather than introducing a new collection, the Sydney event was a replica presentation — the same clothes, restaged for a new audience. It is a format Chanel uses to bring previously unveiled collections to different markets, and it allowed Australian audiences to see Blazy’s first Cruise collection for the house on home soil.
Barangaroo and the Sydney skyline, seen from Balmain. The Chanel shows were held at The Cutaway, beneath Barangaroo Reserve.
The Chanel Cruise Collection: Beneath the Salon, the Beach
Blazy’s first Cruise collection takes its cues from the sea. Nautical references run through the clothes — sailor stripes, rope details and maritime colours — alongside fluid silhouettes and elaborate embellishments that recall the house’s codes: tweed, camellias and the two-tone shoe. The show opened with Australian model Julia Nobis in a black drop-waist shift dress with white stitching, a quiet, relaxed look that set the tone for the seaside story that followed.
Several casting choices carried their own history at the house. Blazy had already cast Yolngu model Tarlisa Gaykamangu in his Bottega Veneta autumn 2023 show, and cast Latahlia Hickling and Tatyana Perry in his debut spring 2026 Chanel show. In Sydney, Singaporean model-actress Sheila Sim walked for Chanel more than ten years after her last runway appearance.
A Star-Studded Front Row
The front row read like a roll call of Australian stardom: Nicole Kidman, who attended with her daughter Faith Kidman Urban, Margot Robbie, Kylie Minogue, Joel Edgerton and Baz Luhrmann. After the two shows, Minogue closed the day with a live set of her biggest songs at the harbourside after-party at Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay, with Kidman and Luhrmann doing the introductions.
The collection was set to land in Chanel boutiques the day after the show, turning the runway moment into an immediate retail event for Australian clients.
Why Sydney, Why Now
For Chanel, the Sydney shows are more than a one-off spectacle. The house framed them as a planned step in deepening its Australian retail presence: a new Sydney flagship is opening, and a renovated Melbourne store follows later in November. Bringing the runway to the market, rather than asking the market to come to Paris, is how the house is building its business in the region — and Sydney, with its harbour, its film and fashion stars, and its appetite for luxury, was the natural place to start.
Conclusion
Chanel’s first Australian runway was a homecoming of sorts: a collection born in Biarritz, the town where Gabrielle Chanel first took her house beyond Paris, brought to a harbour city that shares the same love of the sea. For Australian fashion, it was a first. For Chanel, it was the start of a bigger presence in the country.
