Nicole Kidman Brings Chanel’s First Australia Runway to Sydney With Margot Robbie

By Nico Grey · Published Nov 5, 2026, 6:18 PM (BKK)

Nicole Kidman brought Chanel home on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. The French house staged its first official runway on Australian soil in 116 years at The Cutaway in Barangaroo, Sydney, a Cruise 2026/27 replica of Matthieu Blazy’s Biarritz debut, and she sat front row in a classic black suit and white top with fellow Chanel ambassador Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue, Nine.com.au and the Sydney Morning Herald report. Two shows, 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. local. The collection hits boutiques the next day.

I’m Nico Grey. I run NicoGrey.com and Scandal Planet, I’ve been behind the camera since 2001 and shot more than 2,000 scenes, and I know when a hometown night is bigger than a Paris night. Chanel didn’t fly to Sydney for a soft launch. They flew for Nicole, Margot and Kylie. And for every client who will walk into a boutique tomorrow and buy what they just felt.

Below: the look-by-look decoder for Kidman, Robbie and Minogue (including Minogue’s afterparty change), what a Chanel “replica show” actually is, why Biarritz matters in Sydney, when the clothes hit the boutiques, and how tonight follows her Vogue Australia covers.

What happened in Sydney today

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. Chanel took over The Cutaway at Barangaroo for the Cruise 2026/27 Sydney Replica show, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Two high-octane seatings, 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. local, with an international crew and three booked-out Sydney hotels behind them, per Nine.

It is the first time in Chanel’s 116-year history that the house has staged an official runway on Australian soil. The collection is Matthieu Blazy’s debut Cruise, first shown in Biarritz in April and restaged here for the clients who buy it. Australian models Julia Nobis, Josephine Akuei, Gemma Ward, Catherine McNeil and Charlee Fraser walked, joined by First Nations models Latahlia Hickling and Tatyana Perry, the SMH notes.

Front row: Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Baz Luhrmann, Kylie Minogue, Dom Dolla, Cathy Freeman, Olivia DeJonge, Joel Edgerton and Christine Centenera (Vogue Australia’s editor-in-chief), among others. The afterparty belonged to Minogue, who changed into black silk and took the stage after an introduction from Kidman and Luhrmann, Nine reports.

The posts everyone is sharing

Film Updates posted Kidman and Robbie arriving together. Film Crave posted Robbie’s look. McCraigyDimples posted Minogue. Margot Robbie Brasil posted more arrival footage. The set photos belong to the agencies, so we embed the posts instead of rehosting them:

Look by look: Kidman, Robbie, Minogue

Nicole Kidman. Classic black suit, white top. Nine calls it the house classic. She’s been tied to Chanel for more than two decades, from Baz Luhrmann’s 2004 “No. 5 the Film” to Blazy naming her ambassador in 2025. Tonight she didn’t need sequins. The black suit said the same thing her Vogue Australia covers said two weeks ago: the house fits her, and she fits the house.

Margot Robbie. Sheer white dress with a feathered flower at the bust, black heels and a handbag, per Nine. She’s the last ambassador Karl Lagerfeld personally chose before his death in 2019, and she still sits where Chanel puts its weight. Black and white next to Kidman’s black and white. Same house, two eras.

Kylie Minogue. White cardigan over a dress, black-and-gold chain belt slung low on the hips for the show. Then the change: black silk camisole and skirt for the afterparty stage, introduced by Kidman and Baz Luhrmann. That switch is the night in one move. Front-row white. Stage black. Same star.

Also in the room: Dom Dolla and Cathy Freeman (who wore a crisp white Chanel tuxedo-style shirt made with Charvet), Olivia DeJonge in a blue crocheted Chanel jacket and black trousers, Joel Edgerton with Christine Centenera, and the Very Important Clients the show was really built for, the SMH notes.

What a Chanel “replica show” actually is

It is not a different collection. Blazy’s Cruise 2026/27 debuted in Biarritz in April. Sydney restages that same show so clients in this market can sit in the room, feel the mood, then walk into a boutique and buy it. Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, told the SMH: “At Chanel, we never design something special for one city or one market. It’s the same collection, but through a new angle. This Sydney, Australian angle will probably bring something a bit different, in terms of mood, in terms of energy.”

The set underlined the point: carpet the shade of sand, mirrored walls, a labyrinth of rooms, modelled on the original atelier Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel set up in Biarritz in 1915. Pavlovsky said the Biarritz choice was not about “the beach, the sea, or the surf.” It was about the roots of Mademoiselle Chanel, where she started haute couture and where the little black dress, Blazy’s “first revenge dress,” was born.

Boutique drop: shops tomorrow

The SMH is clear on the commercial beat. The show is for the VICs, the very important clients, who Chanel hopes will feel the experience strongly enough to walk into a boutique the next day, when the collection hits the stands, and start buying. That’s Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Australia.

The week around the show already stacked the table: about 150 international guests from Monday, private Australian Ballet performances, facials, surfing lessons, per Nine. Next week Chanel reopens its refurbished Melbourne boutique on Flinders Lane. The brand’s first Australian boutique opened in Sydney in the 1980s. Tonight was the stamp that Australia is not just a handbag market.

How this follows her Vogue Australia covers

Two weeks ago, on Oct. 24, we decoded Nicole’s 12th Vogue Australia cover run: three November 2026 covers, including the red-to-gold sequin Chanel jacket left open over a Madre Natura string bralette and the cover line “I’m a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person.” The issue went on sale Nov. 2. The Chanel Sydney runway was already flagged in that story as the next development to watch.

That development is tonight. Same house. Same ambassador. Different register. The covers were intimate and undone. The runway was public and sharp. Both say the same thing about where Kidman sits in Chanel’s current chapter under Blazy.

Confirmed vs. my opinion

Confirmed: first official Chanel runway on Australian soil (Nine, SMH); Cruise 2026/27 Sydney Replica of Blazy’s Biarritz show (SMH); Kidman in black suit + white top, Robbie in sheer white dress with feathered flower, Minogue in white cardigan then black silk for the afterparty with Kidman and Luhrmann introducing (Nine); boutique drop the next day (SMH); Pavlovsky quotes on same collection / Australian angle (SMH).

My read (opinion): that this night was always going to belong to Kidman, that a replica show for VICs is how Chanel turns a feeling into a sale, and that Minogue’s white-to-black change was the sharpest fashion beat of the evening. None of the three stars has posted an official comment we are quoting here yet.

Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie in photos

These are archival shots from Wikimedia Commons with the year on each one. They are not from tonight’s show. The arrival and front-row photos belong to the photo agencies, so we link to them in the posts above instead.

What to watch next

We’ll be watching for official Chanel stills or a house statement from the Sydney seating, any on-record comment from Kidman, Robbie or Minogue, the Friday boutique sell-through, and next week’s Melbourne Flinders Lane reopening. We’ll update this page if the house or the ambassadors comment.

FAQ

Was this Chanel’s first runway in Australia?

Yes. Nine and the Sydney Morning Herald report that in Chanel’s 116-year history the house had never staged an official runway on Australian soil until the Cruise 2026/27 Sydney Replica show at The Cutaway in Barangaroo on Nov. 5, 2026.

What did Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue wear?

Per Nine: Kidman wore a classic black suit with a white top; Robbie wore a sheer white dress with a feathered flower at the bust, black heels and a handbag; Minogue wore a white cardigan over a dress with a black-and-gold chain belt, then changed into a black silk camisole and skirt to perform at the afterparty after Kidman and Baz Luhrmann introduced her.

What is a Chanel replica show?

It restages a collection already shown elsewhere for clients in a new market. Sydney restaged Matthieu Blazy’s Cruise 2026/27 debut from Biarritz (April) so Australian VICs could feel it in the room. Bruno Pavlovsky told the SMH it is the same collection through an Australian angle. The clothes hit boutiques the next day.

How does this connect to Nicole Kidman’s Vogue Australia covers?

On Oct. 24 she landed her 12th Vogue Australia cover run, including a sequin Chanel jacket over a string bralette. The Nov. 5 Sydney runway was the next Chanel beat we flagged in that story. Same ambassador, same house, public runway edition.

— Nico. She brought the house home. The scenes that made her a screen force are still on her hub.

Fact-check: Scandal Planet Desk

What do you think? Whose look won the night: Kidman’s black suit, Robbie’s feathered flower, or Minogue’s white-to-black change? Tell us on X @celeb124.

Photos: the card and share graphic use Nicole Kidman at Cannes 2025 by Martin Kraft, CC BY-SA 4.0, and Margot Robbie in 2016 by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (archival photos, not from the Sydney show). In-story photos are from Wikimedia Commons with the credit under each one; “Archival” means an earlier year. Scene stills are images already on Nicole Kidman’s Scandal Planet hub. Arrival and front-row photos from tonight are linked via the X embeds above and were not rehosted.

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