Kristen Stewart brings rebellious Chanel prep to Biarritz festival

Kristen Stewart turned Chanel Cruise 2026/27 into a refusal statement in Biarritz, stepping out in a black knit set, red-and-white striping, chunky loafers and a wet, undone finish. She wore it on June 23, the opening day of the 4th Biarritz Film Festival - Nouvelles Vagues, where she chaired the international feature-film competition jury, one made up of eight international talents, and also showed up to present The Chronology of Water and take part in a masterclass.

That matters because Chanel has made Biarritz part of its own origin story. The house says Gabrielle Chanel opened her couture house there in 1915, and that it was on the Basque coast that her style took shape. Chanel has also backed the Biarritz Film Festival - Nouvelles Vagues as a major partner since the festival began in 2023, so Stewart was not just wearing Chanel in a pretty resort setting. She was wearing it in the brand’s personal mythology.

Matthieu Blazy’s first Cruise collection for Chanel was shown in Biarritz too, and the clothes were built around movement, freedom and wearability rather than stiff ceremony. The collection pulled from French workwear, leisurewear and swimwear, then grounded itself in raffia, washed cotton canvas and soft beaded knits. It opened with a reworked version of Chanel’s 1926 little black dress, framed as an early kind of revenge dress, which gives Stewart’s black knit look a sharper edge than a simple festival outfit ever could. Her version of prep did not read as polished country-club nostalgia. It read as old money with the restraint ripped out of it.

That is the Chanel tension that still works. The house can lean on heritage, on 1915, on the Biarritz origin myth, on the clean authority of Cruise, and still keep the look alive by letting someone like Stewart bring in a little friction. She has done this before too, heading the Berlinale jury in 2023 and serving on the Cannes jury in 2018, which only reinforces how natural she feels in rooms that are supposed to be formal and untouchable. In Biarritz, Chanel looked most convincing when Stewart made it slightly unruly.