Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel is in high gear, manifesting clarity of vision, intention, artistry and modernity expressed in the Coco Beach 2026 Campaign.

The images have been out for a good while; and our original plan was to say little and just back date the campaign for the archives. However, I began thinking about the black sand and colorful stripes. The surfboard got my attention.

Graphic Composition and Precise Placement

Nearly everything associated with volcanoes causes me to fall down the rabbit hole, and black sand is no exception. Down, down I went for a story worth writing. Before sharing my discovery, let me try to do justice to Blazy’s Coco Beach 2026 campaign.

Creative director Sheila Single [IG] and photographer Julien Martinez Leclerc [IG] deliver an atypical summer campaign that is driven by graphic composition and precise placement. We are suspended in stillness, our brains playing with paper dolls posing as models Elodie Guipaud, Rebecca Leigh Longendyke, and Sun Mizrahi. / Hair by Lukas Tralmer; makeup by Christelle Cacquet

Matthieu Blazy’s Hard Stop

There’s no emotion, no joy in the atmosphere, and no ocean waves. The Chanel creative team delivers a summer still life that serves as a moment to decompress over what is emerging as one of the strongest rejuvenations of a luxury brand in fashion history.

Blazy’s women are so on the move — much like Coco Chanel herself or Chanel’s fabulous CEO Leena Nair — that being suspended in stillness, even lying motionless on black sand — they are out-of-predicted behavior mode.

From a business perspective, they may be down but not out. We see pieces with plenty of detail, surely enough to add them to our personal love-it list.

AOC’s Mycelium Man outsmarts us with a hard stop. I know; I know. Here she goes again with the mushrooms. Get used to it.

Mycelium Carpets Planet Earth

Nature’s underground mycelium network is always on my mind; as is Maria Grazia Chiuri’s ‘Less I, More Us’. It’s the absolute opposite view from the Sun King’s perspective.

Blazy’s entire process is so horizontal and so is Leena Nair’s, that I had to ask AI a technical question about volcanic sand, rock and ash.

My entire venture into creative artisan jewelry was inspired by lava — alive or dead — or inert and waiting patiently for wandering mycelium to make contact. Dear friends, mycelium is the life force waiting to combust in the most self-defeated, volcanic ash, soil and sand beaches known to humanity.

Somehow, I knew the answer before I asked the question. Is that black sand truly inert — or could the Mycelium Man magically bring it to life?

The Phoenix or Mycelium

Surely you recall Jonathan Anderson’s opening salvo with his first men’s show on June 27, 2025, with his burn down the house film and question: "Do you dare enter…the House of Dior?" He fancies himself as the Phoenix, according to the PR. He and Dior are one as he births a new Dior from the ashes.

Meanwhile, Chanel CEO Leena Nair was probably watching the show while sipping a fresh glass of lemonade. She couldn’t resist chuckling “Anderson, Matthieu and I are about to launch a bullet train coming straight in your direction. Don’t get too comfortable in that elevated Sun King chair. Remember Icarus.

The male Phoenix was a late creation in the annals of mythology and human history, Anderson. It was a sad phase, in fact a stupid phase when men actually convinced themselves that all vital fluids, all DNA to make babies belongs to them. Women were unnecessary, basically existing only as ovens to bake the baby, which was all male. The defective males were girls, Aristotle pontificated.

Like I said, Anderson. Remember Icarus if you fancy yourself as being the Phoenix. Icarus took a big fall.”

A Real Life Miracle

Female/male mythology is another story from the house of MGC. Let’s stay with mycelium and Chanel. It’s a far more inspiring creation story and it’s a reality of life on Planet Earth.

Not only does mycelium grow in volcanic soil, it delivers a dazzling performance as one of nature’s supreme ecological first responders. Rather than being stopped by the harsh, nutrient-poor conditions of fresh volcanic deposits, specialized fungal networks are often the exact tools the Earth uses to rebuild life from the ashes.

The story will continue in a separate post, so as not to totally lose track of the Chanel Coco Beach 2026 Campaign.

By coincidence, if you see green shoots growing in Blazy’s next hot weather campaign, you know the Mycelium Man is still making his own little miracle; it’s an exciting one to behold. ~ Anne