The house continues its longstanding partnership with the Paris Opera, contributing costumes and supporting the institution’s Junior Ballet
Chanel will support the Paris Opera’s Opening Gala for the 2026–27 dance season, continuing its role as a patron of the event since 2018. The house will provide costumes for the program, which celebrates the company’s dancers, from students at the École de Danse to the Étoiles, or principal dancers, and the Junior Ballet.
This year’s program will feature Rings of Saturn, the first work created for the Paris Opera by choreographer Juliano Nunes, with costumes designed by Chanel. The evening will also introduce Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Vers un pays sage and Aszure Barton’s Busk to the Opera’s repertoire. The Junior Ballet, established in 2024 with Chanel as its founding patron, will perform for the second time at the gala, with dancers wearing tutus designed by the house.
The Junior Ballet brings together dancers aged 18 to 25, selected through auditions for two-year terms under professional training contracts. Its structure emphasizes professional development, the transmission of knowledge and broader access to the arts. Chanel’s support also extends to the Ballet’s traditional Défilé du Ballet, for which the house provides tutus and tiaras for the Étoiles.
The partnership builds on Chanel’s longstanding relationship with dance, which dates to the work of founder Gabrielle Chanel. In 1924, she designed costumes for Le Train Bleu, a ballet produced by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, followed by George Balanchine’s Apollon Musagète in 1928 and Léonide Massine’s Bacchanale in 1939. The house has continued to contribute to ballet productions, revisiting costumes for Serge Lifar’s Variations in 2019 and designing costumes for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Exposure in 2020 and Victor Gsovsky’s Grand Pas Classique in 2021.
In 2025, Chanel created 13 stage costumes for Red Carpet, choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s first work for the Paris Opera Ballet. The house has also dressed Étoiles Amandine Albisson, Valentine Colasante and Hannah O’Neill for previous Opening Galas. Its current support encompasses the dance season’s opening event, the Junior Ballet and the Paris Opera’s wider institutional activities, including its renovation, for which Chanel became an exceptional patron in 2025.
