SYDNEY — Aussiewood descended on Sydney this week to fete Chanel’s first runway presentation Down Under.
Chanel ambassadors Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie joined Baz Luhrmann, Joel Edgerton, Kylie Minogue and 1,300 others, including 800 Chanel clients, to take in a repeat of Matthieu Blazy’s first cruise collection for the brand on Thursday, a day before the collection was due to hit stores.
“I think all the Aussies just want to kind of yell and open up and say, ‘Welcome to Australia Chanel!’” Minogue told WWD after the first of two shows staged at The Cutaway venue. “I mean, I’ve seen Chanel shows in France, but to be at home in Australia, it’s a magical combination. It’s the best of these two amazing worlds together.”
“It’s a real coming-of-age thing, I think,” added Luhrmann, who took to the stage with a barefoot Kidman later in the evening at the nearby after party at Wharf 2/3 to ham it up together and introduce Minogue, who then delivered a medley of her greatest hits with backup dancers, to shrieks from the packed room.
The brightly colored, heavily embellished cruise collection, which is popped with zany accessories such as finned swim caps and the viral barefoot heel caps and supersize beach tote, was originally unveiled in Biarritz on April 28 at the Art Deco Casino Municipal, with a set inspired by Gabrielle Chanel’s first maison de couture in the French surf town. Chanel surprised some by essentially recreating the earlier show’s decor in Sydney, installing mirrored walls and ceilings, a plush beige carpet and gilded Baroque armchairs, the latter shipped in from France for the event.
A cavernous underground space, The Cutaway is a newly renovated cultural and events center located adjacent to Darling Harbour in the suburb of Barangaroo, a harborside precinct located on the opposite side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s more recognizable eastern flank that faces the Sydney Opera House. Historically a hunting and fishing ground used by the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, who are the traditional owners of Sydney, the suburb was named after Barangaroo, a powerful and influential Cammeraygal woman and Eora leader during the early days of British colonization in Sydney.
Indigenous Models
First Nations Australian women look to be front of mind for Blazy, who cast unknown Yolngu model Tarlisa Gaykamangu in Bottega Veneta’s fall 2023 show and after taking the reins at Chanel, cast two other emerging Aboriginal models, Latahlia Hickling and Tatyana Perry, in his debut spring 2026 show. Hickling has gone on to walk in other Chanel shows and featured in the spring 2026 campaign.
Of the Sydney show’s substantial local cast, which included runway veterans Julia Nobis, Gemma Ward, Catherine McNeil and Emma Balfour, there were five Indigenous Australian models — Hickling, Perry, Gaykamangu, Cindy Rostron and Charlee Fraser, who is now also a successful actor in her own right.
“What an incredible moment,” said Liandra Gaykamangu, a Yolngu fashion designer, who is Tarlisa’s aunt and also the cofounder of Lundu, a First Nations-led platform and foundation designed to connect and create real-world career opportunities for remote First Nations creatives across northern Australia. “I’m really impressed by how Chanel have shown up in Australia and the thinking and the connection that they’ve tried to have, to have representation on the runway. To be honest, it’s actually a lot more than we see from many Australian brands. It really I think sends a message not only in Australia, but globally, about First Nations talent.”
Why Australia? Why now for Chanel?
“We knew for the past two, three years that Sydney, Australia, became a priority for us,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, on the shows’ eve, from a suite at Crown Towers Sydney, with spectacular views over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “We are in a kind of new step, where now we want to offer the best of the brand to our clients; that’s the reason why we are now here.”
Chanel opened its first Australian boutique on the corner of Sydney’s King and Castlereagh Streets in 1989. Today it has eight stand-alone stores across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, with 14 stand-alone Fragrance & Beauty boutiques also in those cities. The brand’s four Sydney boutiques include the new two-story, 10,764-square-foot flagship on Market Street. There’s also a new pop-up boutique at the newly refurbished Chatswood Chase mall on Sydney’s affluent north shore, a prelude to a permanent Chanel store that is due to open in the center in 2028.
According to IMARC Group, the Australian luxury goods market reached $8.5 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to $15 billion by 2034, at a CAGR of 6.37 percent over 2026-2034.
While luxury brands dig in in Australia, their growth is at counterpoint to the angst of the local midtier retail sector, which has witnessed a series of high-profile collapses and voluntary administrations. The latest casualty: the David Jones department store chain, which entered voluntary administration on Thursday, just as Chanel’s 800 VIP clients were enjoying the cruise shows.
A Wealthy Country
According to the UBS 2026 Global Wealth Report, Australia has 1.6 million U.S. dollar millionaires and on a per-capita basis is the third-richest country by median wealth after Luxembourg and Belgium. In terms of high net worth individuals, according to the Knight Frank 2026 Global Wealth Report, Australia has cemented its position as one of the fastest-growing hubs for them globally, driven by projected surges in both its billionaire and ultra-wealthy populations.
“Australia was in the loop now for a while but we decided that with this idea of Biarritz, it was a good idea for Australia,” said Pavlovsky. “Biarritz was the very first location for Mademoiselle Chanel. It’s where she set up her first haute couture atelier and she took a lot from this style, the Biarritz lifestyle, etc., in her designs, in her collections. And we felt it was interesting to bring that to a new market, or I should say, a promising market, like Australia, because that will help us to engage.
“I think the footprint of Chanel here in Australia is becoming bigger and bigger with the right numbers, the right level of boutiques. What we have done in the past five years is to prepare everything to raise the level of the boutiques [via refurbishments]. I think the look and feel of Castlereagh Street is super nice. Market Street is big, it’s good, but it’s for more traffic. And in Melbourne, the opening of Flinders Lane next Saturday will be a big step. It’s a big refurb. We have redone everything, the facade, the building. We have also added one floor to the boutique.”
He added, “I think now it’s a real friendship, if I may say, here in Australia.”