Subway Dreams

The New York subway has hosted young women with big dreams for decades. We have arrived from all over America and most every country in the world. Armed with intelligence, big dreams for our futures, no fear of really hard work and — yes — ambition, the vast majority of us shared a common experience.

We rode the New York subway — all of us — typically with long days, initially low salaries but increasing responsibilities in positions all over Manhattan. We weren’t wearing Chanel, but we had the determination and true grit to trade our Zara dresses and pant suits for Chanel one day in the future. The sooner the better.

Depending on the years, many of us were also social activists committed to lofty ideas like freedom and independence for all. We had work lives and weekend lives; and they were often very different in every possible way.

Meet Bhavitha Mandava

Irony runneth over for rising model Bhavitha Mandava, an India-born and educated architect who moved to New York City to join NYU’s program in assistive technology. One day this gorgeous young woman with a big brain and a ‘smile to die for’ was scouted as an exclusive in Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2025 show.

That event was only the beginning for Mandava. When Blazy moved to Chanel shortly after, the new girl went with him. In record time, this young woman ambassador for the uber-challenging, big rewards for women winners breaking through barriers in New York City would open the Chanel Métiers d’Art 2026 Show in New York City.

Subway Symbolism

Where did we find Bhavitha Mandava the night of December 2, 2025? Back in the subway.

There were faux gasps from the know-nothings, incredulous that Blazy could be so confused about reality that he thought Chanel clients rode the subway. Au contraire. Matthieu Blazy understands the dreams of women of every age on every continent. Those dreams are peppered with more than privilege. We are motivated by most of the same goals as men.

Yes, there is a special joy over the New York experience and our ambitions to give our best to reaching out goals, whatever they are.

Blazy’s very clear message to us is that he is with us however we worship, whatever our skin color, gender identity, age and economic status everywhere in the world. We don’t need any pretense of aristocratic blood in our veins because Chanel has gone democratic and entrepreneurial, in the spirit of Coco Chanel herself.

We don’t need a man telling us what books to read. Women have lived that life for thousands of years; and now that women are taught to read, we want to choose our own books. In America it’s a very Republican idea to choose our books for us — and with no explanation about why they are books worth reading in the first place.

I will break down this perspective down for you, as it revealed itself in the January 2026 couture shows in Paris. Proceeding with such great caution as if I’m writing a piece for The New Yorker, Anne has spent over 40 hours of research before sharing these thoughts. I have spoken live with psychoanalysts, researchers, historians and symbolists before opening my mouth about the very distinct choice that has emerged on two runways.

Dior Honors French Imperialism . . . but at Chanel . . .

Let Dior go oh so lofty, honoring French imperialism with the jacket of a French general negotiating a treaty for Haitian independence so financially ominous, coercive and debilitating that French president Emmanuel Macron issued a formal apology on April 17, 2025, the 200th anniversary of the worst imperial shakedown in the history of the French republic.

I know . . . I know . . . I’m only a woman incapable of understanding that the Dior runway is now about balance and contradictions from the mind of a great Sun-King. It’s my fault if I can’t understand the DNA of one of the greatest brand transformations in human history.

Fashion-speak calls it the dawn of an exciting new vision for how we wear clothes. For me, it requires a rejection of many values I’ve held close for a lifetime. On AOC we want to know why this is required of me.

Reduced to a French Fan, Basquiat Kept Dior Parisians Cool

American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a creative genius of Haitian-Puerto Rican heritage, is so much more than his tie ajar — a sartorial, quirky way of dressing. The artist has received great respect from Dior’s parent LVMH. But now he’s reduced to a fan waved by young imperialists on a hot summer day in my beloved Paris.

For Anne, it was an absolute mockery of Basquiat’s life, values and actual paintings that weeks after her husband’s official apology to Haiti, France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron sat in the front row of the new Sun-King’s tribute to Haiti’s French masters.

For a politically-engaged American tormented by Trump and white nationalists, the new Dior has been a twisted experience to watch unfold. Especially with my young assistant pointing to a photograph of the general in the original of Dior’s new jacket last month. I forget the general’s name this minute, but he will appear soon.

Please note, that my assistant Zuwena is cutting me no slack on this topic. There’s way more controversy around the new Dior than you would ever know, speaking only English.

“Also, Anne, 12 artisans who are specialists in this embroidery technique worked endless hours to make the jacket, with not one word said by the Sun-King. Not even a thank you, Anne. Don’t chicken out here.”

. . . Blazy Is Chanel’s Glenda

In contrast to the Sun-King’s view of women which we will explore, Chanel’s Matthieu Blazy brings hope and beauty to the world with little focus on himself. The imperial power of Sun-Kings has little appeal to Chanel’s new man championing the excellence of gifted people worldwide.

Like Glenda the good witch, Blazy waves his own magic wand and places Bhavitha Mandava utterly radiant on the cover of British Vogue March 2026.

Are we inspired with the generosity of his own light? Anne is. And that of British Vogue’s head of editorial content Chioma Nnadi. After all the title of this fashion story is ‘The Future Is Bright’.

“She has a very natural presence to me. She’s confident, enthusiastic, and very involved,” says Chanel’s humanist in residence Matthieu Blazy about Bhavitha Mandava. He is her godfather today and hopefully for many years to come.

The rising goddess of light is styled by Julia Sarr-Jamois, who chooses Burberry, Chanel, Chloe, Dries Van Noten, Loewe, Moshino, Prada and more, with jewelry from Boucheron, Bvlgari, Cartier, Chopard, Graff, Maison Lumiere, Swarovski and Tiffany & Co and more.

Oliver Hadlee Pearch [IG] takes the photography honors for ‘The Future Is Bright’, a story that has earned pedigree and not aristocratic birthright at its center of its radiance./ Hair by Sam McKnight; makeup by Mel Arter

This story will continue.