Yesterday evening (6 October 2026), Paris Fashion Week drew to a close with the latest collection from Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton. Staged amid a runway set that recalled a surreal motorway, over which hovered a traffic jam of futuristic floating cars, the collection saw Ghesquière strip things back, reimagining the classic elements of a wardrobe in ultra-lightweight fabrications. ‘It’s like a second skin,’ he said post-show, continuing a theme that has run throughout this week – collections from Hermès and Dior saw designers Nadège Vanhée and Jonathan Anderson, respectively, embracing the same pursuit of lightness.
Another through-line of the week was collections that sought to outfit the multiplicities of women’s lives. At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy’s wide-ranging collection was inspired by the changing personal style of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel across her lifetime (‘[This collection is] about the women within a woman,’ he said), while Sarah Burton at Givenchy and Michael Rider at Celine presented collections that sought to provide an expansive wardrobe attuned to the demands of modern life. ‘I wanted a sense of balance and clarity,’ said Burton. ‘A wardrobe to bring precision and simplicity to dressing as we speed through the multiple perspectives and perpetual motion of all our lives.’
Here, we pick the standout collections of Paris Fashion Week as the S/S 2027 shows draw to a close – from Drew Henry’s confident first outing at Courrèges to a gilded collection from Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, a show rumoured to be his last.
Dior
The invitation for Jonathan Anderson’s latest ready-to-wear collection for Dior was a pair of ‘wénwán’ walnuts, an ancient Chinese pursuit which involves rubbing together two walnuts in the hand until they get a glossy, ‘jade-like’ lustre (it can take over five years to achieve, hence their use for meditative purposes). They worked as a dual metaphor: one, that beauty can be derived even from nature’s simplest of bounties (‘wénwán’ walnuts in their final phase were highly coveted decorative objects), and second, that to create something precious takes time and patience. The latter feels particularly apt for Dior as a haute couture house – a couture gown can take over 100 hours of hand-stitching – but also for Anderson as he hones his vision for the Parisian house, one year after holding his first womenswear show.
Indeed, this was a collection that saw Anderson reiterate what are becoming his house codes: namely, a mood of contemporary femininity and romance conjured in intriguing fabrications (plissé jacquards, bouncing ruffles, fluttering organza petals) and whimsical accessories, from a swan-shaped metal evening bag to sandals adorned with glittering crystals and bows. His shrunken bar jacket, a signature since his debut, also featured, here with a contrasting collar evoking barn jackets, as did the metallic jeans which featured as part of his S/S 2027 menswear collection, shown in June. Like at that show, he also reimagined heavy tailoring wools in featherweight trompe l’oeil organza, nodding to a theme of lightness which ran throughout the collection. ‘Something that, as it walks, leaves a kind of residue behind,’ he said of the ethereal mood. Jack Moss
READ: Jonathan Anderson looks to the ‘preciousness’ of nature for a romantic Dior show
Maison Margiela
Despite being a Spring/Summer collection, there was something almost ‘back-to-school’ in the way the new offering from Maison Margiela was communicated. The notes, typed in Courier font, were written with an ‘in this essay I will…’ cadence, the contents part lesson in the traditional workings of an atelier, part rebellious upstart undermining, dismantling, and reframing those traditions.
The crux of the proposition was a rethinking of the interplay between hard and soft, which in a Parisian maison would be delineated according to the tailoring and flou departments, the former structuring garments according to classic menswear guidelines, the latter responsible for draping. Creative director Glenn Martens suggested an approach which blurred these lines: fortified folds so that what was hard read as soft; fabric stretched over rigid structures; a squishy briefcase.
Florals were a motif – sometimes in kitschy curtain fabric with bold outlines, elsewhere more diffused and painterly – and the show was staged amidst an abundance of flowers, a tribute, the brand said, to Raf Simons’ debut collection for Dior in 2012, but time-worn, drooping and faded. India Jarvis
Saint Laurent
Though it has not been officially announced by the Parisian house, Anthony Vaccarello’s latest collection for Saint Laurent is widely rumoured to be the Belgian creative director’s last (it was hearsay the designer indulged in at the show, handing a set of ‘house keys’ to his son Luca at the end of the show). If so, this was a fitting final act to a decade-long tenure, which saw him hone a vision of nocturnal glamour that often hinged on the power of repetition – his collections would mine a singular silhouette (usually power-shouldered and razor-sharp) ad infinitum, making for a definitive Saint Laurent ‘look’.
This season, taking place on a runway lined with enormous chandeliers under the glimmering shadow of the Eiffel Tower, silhouette gave way to colour. Here, Vaccarello – save for a few closing gowns in black – rendered the entire collection in gold, reimagining the hallmarks of Yves Saint Laurent (the trench; the safari jacket; brocade tailoring; ruffled blouses; opulent drapery and bows) in various golden-tinted hues. ‘I love gold, it’s a magical colour. When reflecting a woman, it’s the colour of the sun,’ Yves Saint Laurent was quoted as having said, on the collection notes, with Vaccarello concurring that it is perhaps fashion’s most transformative shade. ‘Gold, magical and mythical, can alchemically transform everything it touches,’ he said.
It made for a glittering finale to an equally transformative tenure. ‘A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held,’ he said, somewhat cryptically. ‘What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.’ Jack Moss
Courrèges
It’s an interesting assignment, taking on the reins of a brand so absolutely associated with 1960s Space Age optimism, when our contemporary space exploration is anything but. In August, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon, which, when André Courrèges was in the atelier pioneering his signature futuristic silhouette, was still untouched by humanity. Now, space travel is being undertaken largely in order to find an alternative habitat to replace the planet we’re destroying, and it’s difficult to have a conversation about the universe without inevitably mentioning the name of one of our more problematic billionaires. Space isn’t quite as exciting or enigmatic as it was then – things are more confusing.
Drew Henry, who previously worked within the design teams of Phoebe Philo and Burberry, has taken on this mantle as the house’s new creative director. The show space set the stage for a dialogue between the retro and the modern – through an eclectic curation of unmatching chairs, sourced from different periods – that the ready-to-wear continued.
Henry, it seems, is an optimist. The collection captured the spirit of both past and present, the latter most especially through ideas of freedom and self-expression, which for many in 2026 may feel like dwindling commodities. His colour palette was vivacious: lime, vermillion, and of course that bright, bright white. But where he borrowed from archival gestures and shapes – the go-go boot, the Mod-ish A-line, the Peter Pan-collared pea coat, the chubby piping – he tempered the collection with a lack of uniformity that felt more recognisably contemporary. There was a kind of eclecticism and occasional incongruity to the collection which have become staples of much high fashion in the 2020s, a nod, perhaps, to the pace of the world and the speed and tenor of our image consumption, which have already come to define this era. India Jarvis
Dries Van Noten
Rugby shirts, austere knitted vests, and deck shoes may not read to most as the trappings of glamour, but for S/S 2027, Julian Klausner was preoccupied with the universal symbols of elegance a person might add to garments such as these, in order to capture something of the feeling. The idea of getting dressed up for no loftier reason than to admire yourself in the mirror – the application of a red lip, the addition of a sparkling trinket, or mixing in a flash of leopard print.
The base in question, at Dries Van Noten, read like the clothing of a particularly chic interwar-era aristocrat: boyish silhouettes with the occasional cinching at the waist, loose mid-length skirts and slouchy cardigans. The vintage-inspired cuts were offset with exquisite embellishment, and graphic prints made from movie posters imagined and designed in the atelier. If the modern woman doesn’t already define pussy-bows and drooping strings of beads as the height of glamour, this beautiful collection from Dries Van Noten may convince her to reconsider. India Jarvis
Acne Studios
The 30th anniversary of Acne Studios, the brand founded in Stockholm in 1996, has clearly got creative director (and co-founder) Jonny Johansson thinking about the idea of history. In spirited style, Johansson played a game of mash-up – nods to historical costuming, from billowing satin and brocade skirts to prints evoking Renaissance portraiture, were clashed with that most Acne Studios of staples, the denim jean (the brand began with 100 pairs of denim jeans; three decades later, it is a global fashion powerhouse showing twice-yearly at Paris Fashion Week). Elsewhere, frock-coats and shirts were reimagined in contemporary style (they came cropped to bare the stomach or were nipped dramatically at the waist), while references to historic maritime apparel came in slouchy lace-up T-shirts and sou'wester-style hats. Leather, another of Acne Studios’ foundational materials, added further juxtapositions in biker pants and patinated jackets.
‘Reflecting on the journey past and what’s to come, I wanted to keep exploring the energy released by bringing together two things that don’t belong,’ explained Johansson. ‘That tension has always inspired me. Here, denim becomes a canvas that moves through time. [This collection] affirms something I believe to my core: that Acne Studios always likes to play, but we never want to pretend. For me, it has to be real.’ Jack Moss
READ: Jonny Johansson on 30 years of Acne Studios: ‘I look forward much more than I look back’
Chloé
At the Chloé show’s midway point a parade of charming raincoats came out in quick succession: one white, draped across the shoulders like a poncho, followed by blush pink overlaid with transparent vinyl, another in beige, then black, then high-gloss firetruck red and sunshine yellow. ‘May the love that poured into this collection endure forever,’ the show notes read. May the rain pour forever too. Chemena Kamali described these pieces, inspired by fishermen’s coats and capes and paired with asymmetrical sou’wester hats, as one of her ‘obsessions’ of the season, alongside lingerie and floral embroidery, leading to a collection guided as much by her own instincts and passions as by the history of the brand itself. The signature Chloe flou, interpreted in crisp white broderie anglais and flounced organza, found its contrast in sharp-shouldered tailored pieces and skin-tight body suits in block colours, but it was the outerwear, in all its iterations, which stole the show. Spring showers can’t come soon enough. India Jarvis
Balenciaga
Corals provided the starting point for Pierpaolo Piccioli’s third ready-to-wear collection for Balenciaga, in part inspired by the textile works of artist Aude Franjou (one of her pieces, Les Coraux de la Liberté, ‘Corals of Freedom’, hung in the showspace). And, although a liberated use of colour and under-the-sea-inspired embellishment nodded visually to the marine creatures – anemone-style pom poms, seashell jewellery, and sponge-like neckpieces all featured – Piccioli said he was also drawn to the coral reef for the way it is an eco-system of ‘profound symbiosis’. ‘No one shines alone,’ he wrote in a letter to guests. ‘Joy and light are never solitary achievements.’
It is something that he likened to the haute couture atelier, which requires a collective spirit to create its extraordinary creations (Piccioli showed his first couture collection for the house in summer 2026). With this ready-to-wear collection, he sought to bring some of couture’s magic into these everyday garments – from a sewing technique used to give curving ‘basque’ shapes to T-shirts and jackets, to a more generous use of volume throughout, a nod to haute couture’s synonymy with abundance. ‘Through superlative cut and construction – human intervention – we can change the language of the known,’ he said. Jack Moss
Rick Owens
Rick Owens described couture-levels of labour intensive process in the press notes which accompanied his S/S 2027 collection: ‘millefoglie’ jackets (named for the dessert dish, which translates to ‘a thousand leaves’) were constructed from individually cut circles of recycled nylon tulle and then sewn onto a tulle base followed by a poplin base, sculpted to the body and taking around 45 hours per jacket to complete. Fabric was conceived from scratch, including a heavy double-duchesse inspired by industrial cargo straps, or a satin wave consisting of 100 double-twisted silk yarns per centimetre, a time-consuming process which produced just 30m of fabric a day.
These experimentations and innovations were subsumed into looks which followed the Rick Owens house codes to the letter: rigidity counterbalanced with draping; exaggerated verticality; pointed yokes; and an out-of-this-world quality, this season emphasised through pentagram designs, perforated and printed discreetly as, described Owens, ‘my little protest against judgemental condemnation and intolerance’. ‘We can see,’ he continued, ‘that it can be human nature to superstitiously demonise otherness.’ India Jarvis
Loewe
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s latest collection took place in a Caper Mueller Kneer-conceived ‘arena’ in the grounds of Paris’ Château de Vincennes. Its in-the-round space – through which models criss-crossed – was designed to evoke a sense of immediacy, said the American designers, formerly of Proenza Schouler. They likened the set-up to the Anatomical Theatre in Padua, the Globe in London, and La Scala Opera House in Milan, though the space also evoked the bull ring – a traditional ritual of Spain, where Loewe was founded in 1846. Indeed, the pair said the collection was an ‘old-world – new-world conversation’, clashing ‘New England with Andalucia’, ‘the ease of American pragmatism, and nods to Spanish drama, ritual, history’.
Cue sporting blazers worn with flouncing mini skirts; summer dresses that twisted at the midriff to reveal the naval; or slouchy polo shirts worn with striped woven skirts (they were actually crafted from intricately woven glass beads, a collaboration with Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2025 finalist Cécile Feilchenfeldt). Elsewhere, elements of play and experimentation continued from last season: moulded resin collars were set on top of knitwear and trench coats (they each were finished with over 20 layers of varnish), while ultra-short mini dresses, cut from leather and flared towards the hem, had a paper-doll quality (these graphic silhouettes have become something of a hallmark of McCollough and Hernandez’s tenure so far).
‘What we’re putting forward here is a proposition for dressing. How does this new Loewe language become a wardrobe?’ they said. ‘We’re taking the vision, the craft, and injecting a reality and character. There’s proximity to the clothes, proximity to living, and proximity to our own sensibility.’ Jack Moss
Issey Miyake
Taking the Japanese principle of ma as its starting point, Issey Miyake’s S/S 2027 was an ode to negative space. Ma refers to the perception of emptiness, an essential counterbalance to substance, as seen across design and artistic disciplines from gardening to musical composition to cinema.
Here, Satoshi Kondo utilised a number of techniques to emphasise the notion of ma: the show was staged in an almost vacuum of blackness at Dojo de Paris, a canopy of fabric held up by a troupe of dancers, aerating and collapsing with their movement like a parachute. After a period of silence, pianist Koki Nakano began a souring, multi-instrumental piece, engaging, as the brand explained, ‘in a dialogue between music composition and clothes-making, where auditory and visual senses inspire one another to give rise to a more intimate integration of music and clothing.’
As for the clothes themselves, they oscillated between close fitting – the return of the papier mâché second skin-like breast plate – and billowing, creating different configurations of ma according to how much negative space there was between fabric and skin. Among the typically deft and complex fabrication, a scrunched silk with bulbous pockets of air in places, artful creases in others, was a standout – used across dresses, skirts, trousers and tops. India Jarvis
Lanvin
There is something completely timeless about Peter Copping’s Lanvin – he seems to be a designer utterly resistant to gimmicks or trends which might immediately place a collection in the present day, although that’s not to say his clothes come across as nostalgic, more like classic. For S/S 2027, sensual fabrics in elongated proportions called to mind the New Woman, a continuation from the previous season and an homage to what is the centenary year of menswear for the brand – Copping has been weaving this anniversary into the shapes and attitude for womenswear with aplomb. For all its fluidity there were moments of graphicness too: sharp double-breasted suit jackets with contrasting buttons, the flare of a peplum, exaggerated deep V-necklines, a vivid red shoe breaking up a monochrome look (the latter a tribute to dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, one of the influential women that were on the mood board for the season). India Jarvis
Givenchy
Sarah Burton’s collections at Givenchy thus far have been concerned with the multiplicities of women’s lives. Her latest outing, which took place amid a graphic show set by Hollywood production artist James Chinlund, continued this approach, which is defined less by strict thematics than an intuitive means of creating a contemporary woman’s wardrobe (as one of a rare number of women creative directors, it is a task she has taken on with zeal). Indeed, Burton offered little in a way of explanation for the collection: ‘I wanted a sense of balance and clarity,’ she said in a short note issued to guests. ‘A wardrobe to bring precision and simplicity to dressing as we speed through the multiple perspectives and perpetual motion of all our lives.’
There is something refreshing about this lack of soul-searching; instead, Burton delivered a direct and desirable collection, which spanned the alternating facets of a women’s life. There were well-cut denim jeans and vest tops edged with luminous piping (belt buckles which doubled as powder compacts added a sense of play); brightly coloured satin shirts and skirts, cut from leather; Burton’s signature razor-sharp tailoring, this season deconstructed or flaring into a peplum; and a vivid series of gowns, from the Grecian-style, installed with sculptural metal ‘wings‘, to a ruffled elongated dress adorned with intricate beading in Japanese-style motifs. Through it all, a clarity that she said was attuned to the overwhelm of contemporary life. ‘In a world that’s so off-kilter, how do you find balance?’ she said. ‘I wanted to take it back to this precise simplicity.’ Jack Moss
Victoria Beckham
There’s a bit of a separation of church and state, as far as Victoria Beckham is concerned; her work in the fashion world, at the helm of her eponymous label since 2008, is almost entirely detached from her past life as a pop mega-star, and for one so famous – for her personal style as much as for her musical career – she is seldom self-referential in her designs. S/S 2027, however, introduced a little nod to her own history, not through bandeau tops, or mini-dresses, or oversized sunglasses, but through illusions to dance.
In particular, Beckham was interested in the avant-garde movements of the 1920s, ‘when forward-thinking dancers rejected the restrictions of classical ballet in favour of a freer relationship with the body, developing styles that often connected movement with painting and other forms of art’. References to this period were most clearly communicated in the statuesque silhouette of some of the gowns, in a modernist bird print, and in the collection’s colour palette – taken apparently from the backdrops of contemporary portraiture.
But the dance of other eras was present too – fanning pleats brought the costume of Loie Fuller to mind, boxy tailoring, slightly oversized, might have been borrowed from Gene Kelly, and exaggerated funnel-necked blousons and balloon shorts matched the proportions of modern-day warm-up gear worn by ballerinas. India Jarvis
Junya Watanabe
For S/S 2027, Junya Watanabe continued his collaboration with movement director Pat Boguslawski, which lent a spectacular, dramatic quality to the much-lauded A/W 2026 collection, but this season in more classic fashion-show style: swaggering struts rather than the tango-inspired choreography seen in March. This matched the tone of the collection itself, which, whilst still fizzing with ideas and complex constructions, was more closely aligned to his blingified menswear outing this summer. Chaka Khan’s ‘Like Sugar’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Just Can't Stop Loving You’ provided the soundtrack to the collection, which was titled ‘Funky’, and the American R&B star Ciara – pregnant with her fifth child – walked the runway, prompting whoops from the Palais de Tokyo crowd.
In the collection itself, athletic body stockings formed the basis for many looks, overlaid with cut-away trench coats and half-finished tailored jackets with the tacking still in situ, or cropped bouclé jackets strung with pearls. Laser-cut bodices in hard plastic came with ‘don’t come near me’ razor-sharp spikes, while a glittering, tiered contraption worn over the head called to mind a chandelier. Watanabe notoriously gives little away about his starting point for any given season, preferring to refer to collaborators over concepts (here: ‘The bodysuits were produced in the factory of CW-X, the high performance sportswear brand by the Japanese underwear company Wacoal’), so his work is necessarily open to interpretation. But here there felt no need for over-intellectualisation – all he willed you to do was sit back and enjoy. India Jarvis
Celine
Michael Rider is another designer working with intuition over big ideas, but this doesn’t make his clothes less intelligent – in fact, they were among the most desirable of fashion month so far. Continuing to hone his vision for a contemporary wardrobe, where a luxurious insouciance meets elements of sportswear and prep (Rider was born in Washington DC and attended Brown University; he also worked at Polo Ralph Lauren prior to Celine), there was a more sensual undercurrent to this latest collection, from the use of satin (it came in vivid tones of pink and green, and was gently pressed and creased across its surface), to references to underwear and slip dresses (the latter was sized-up in proportion and came in vampy black). He described the collection, which spanned mens- and womenswear as one of ‘positive obsession’. ‘[It’s about] being fabulous,’ he explained. ‘And letting clothes just do their job.’ As with past collections, there were also heaps of great accessories here: from sized-up belts and accordion handbags to colourful satin totes, two-tone pumps and leather diaries, carried in the hand. ‘[It’s about the] memories, moments that made us love fashion,’ he continued. ‘Moments where you get a glimpse of possibility.’ Jack Moss
Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood
‘It was a stifling summer,’ wrote Andreas Kronthaler. ‘I lived in a nightshirt with nothing underneath.’ The experience, shared by many, of unbearable temperatures prompted the Vivienne Westwood designer to question what clothes will become as these conditions worsen. The conundrum of heatwave style is on everyone’s lips these days, but the bigger, more pressing concern of climate change – and the role fashion and clothing production plays in that – has been part of the brand’s DNA for far longer than a few hot summers. The late Vivienne Westwood, to whom Kronthaler was married from 1992 until her death, was a highly influential campaigner for many causes, the fight against climate change among them, and her legacy of activism and mission-driven creativity remains a constant of her eponymous brand (this season’s collection also included a limited-edition T-shirt in honour of the suicide prevention charity Body & Soul, of which the couple were long-term supporters).
So what is the climate change wardrobe according to Andreas Kronthaler? Fabrics were billowy and often clashing – as if they’d been salvaged from multiple sources, and, as the show notes thriftily pointed out, ‘valuable fabric [was] used only at the front’. Shirts and jackets were left open, skin on show, and swimwear, kaftans, a yellow garland lei, and sandals brought a certain beachy chill to an otherwise typically punky and chaotic offering. India Jarvis
Hermès
This season at Hermès, Nadège Vanhée stripped things back – at least in terms of the mise-en-scène, which saw the Garde Républicaine showspace transformed into a gleaming white box (previous seasons have seen it filled with mounds of moss or sandy dunes). It lent the S/S 2027 collection a feeling of crispness and clarity, particularly the more vivid expressions of colour which the French designer evoked this season – yellows, oranges and reds had an almost electric quality in the otherwise sparse space (such was the brightness of the scene, some guests donned sunglasses to watch the spectacle unfold).
In what has becoming a thematic thread of the week, Vanhée was concerned here with the pursuit of lightness: the collection notes described garments ‘floating by, like feathers in the air’, with the idea of ventilation running throughout, whether through gauzy fabrics, netted construction, or perforated leather and suede (bucket bags even came with air holes of their own). Other pieces were cut into streamers at the hemline – a technique which added a sense of movement and ease to Hermès’ signature leather – while knitted bra tops, some wrapped with a plissé version of the carré, had a streamlined feel. Vanhée said the collection was one of pragmatism: recent travels to California and Asia, as well as across her native Europe, were defined by rising heat. Fittingly, Paris was in the midst of the last blush of late-summer warmth, with the sweltering showspace making her vision of lightness one of particular appeal. Jack Moss
Comme des Garçons
Denim is not a fabric typically associated with Rei Kawakubo’s runway shows for Comme des Garçons, though for S/S 2027 the designer put the humble workwear fabric – one synonymous with both the American West and her native Japan – front and centre.
Used here to construct Kawakubo’s typically imposing forms, from enormous spherical skirts that cracked like eggs to reveal ruffles of red fabric inside, to undulating panelled jackets which flared dramatically at the waist, it was part of a collection which she described as ‘when royal life and everyday life become one’ (she typically describes her collections in such cryptic one-liners, willing guests to draw their own conclusions).
Alongside denim, striped and polka dot fabrics captured a similarly ‘everyday’ mood, transformed here by the vastness of the silhouette – models had to shimmy past each other to traverse the zigzagging runway thanks to the size of the various garments – and teetering crowns by Nobuki Hizume, which together lent this arresting collection a regal, ceremonial air. Jack Moss
Miu Miu
‘To bring elegance to sports,’ was how the sage-like Miuccia Prada succinctly described her S/S 2027 collection for Miu Miu, which was an attempt, explained the Milanese designer, to capture the ‘here and now’. Bringing elegance to the everyday – or, indeed, to that which is typically deemed ugly or unappealing – has been a modus operandi of the designer since her early days at Prada (alongside Miu Miu, she is co-creative director of the house her grandfather founded in 1913, alongside Raf Simons).
For this latest collection, the effect was achieved through unexpected combinations: a bejewelled bra top over a Miu Miu-branded rash vest, for example, or a cross-laced houndstooth skirt which revealed Lycra swimwear underneath (cross-lacing ran throughout, including on a new collation with American denim brand Wrangler). It lent the collection an intuitive, eclectic feel: in Prada parlance, an ‘intentional, nonconformist dialogue’, one which felt an apt reflection of our mixed-up times.
Also in the Miu Miu melting pot were painted leather jackets, zip-up track tops and purposely crinkled cocktail dresses, while a line-up of famous faces, including Olivia Colman, Jamie Bell and Emma Corrin, added to the collection’s freewheeling appeal. Jack Moss
READ: Miu Miu drafts an all-star cast for a collection which marries sportswear and sophistication
Akris
Akris creative director Albert Kriemler borrowed his palette and his mark-making from the Viennese artist Martha Jungwirth, whose rhythmic, at times carnal abstractions were translated in a collection that graduated through a veritable rainbow of colours, precisely picked out from Jungwirth’s oil works: scarlet through puce, into the off-white of primed paper, then velvety black, sky blue, canary yellow. Jungwirth’s brush strokes were transformed into ribbons, appliquéd as details, or appear as laser-cut fringe, turned upside down and into dresses which become bouncy and feathery. Jacquard was reversed so the loose chaos of its underside became a print of its own, and elsewhere entire looks were kept confidently, boldly monochrome: ‘Seeing Martha’s colours for the first time, I was struck by their sheer audacity,’ Kriemler wrote. ‘Her paintings never give themselves away at once. You have to keep looking. Emotion and experience, recorded in paint. Reds, pinks, violets. “Gefühlsfarben”, as Martha calls them. Felt as much as seen.’ India Jarvis
Valentino
Troye Sivan’s Party provided the booming soundtrack for Alessandro Michele’s latest Valentino show, which saw the Italian designer take over the historic Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève close to the Pantheon (the venue has never been used before as a fashion show). The setting was purposeful: this collection was titled ‘Antilibrary’, a reference to Umberto Eco’s belief that the most valuable books are not the ones which you have read, but the ones you haven’t – to him, they represent the possibility of knowledge to be learnt (he practiced what he preached, owning a private library of over 30,000 books, the majority of which he had never read).
For this latest collection – which was preceded by a call for guests to bring a book to donate to local Parisian libraries – Michele applied the idea of ‘Antilibrary’ to the fashion show, seeing garments that you have not yet worn as receptacles of possibility. Nowhere is this more true than a fashion show, where viewers – whether those in the room, or watching at home through phones and screens – can project their own fantasies onto the clothing presented on the runway (there have been numerous times when a runway show has willed guests to rethink their entire wardrobe in their 15-minute-or-so run time). It lent the collection a bold, freewheeling approach, seeing Michele’s nostalgia-tinged designs reimagined in vivid combinations of colour and texture, from fluoro-coloured satin and lace to ruffles, feathers and bows. Topping off the youthful, spirited mood were caps which read ‘Villan Teen’.
‘I want to give back to fashion what fashion has always given me,’ he said. ‘I would love to push people to inject something more, because otherwise we risk falling asleep.’ Jack Moss
Jean Paul Gaultier
A full annual circuit of collections now under his belt – including his debut haute couture collection in June – Duran Lantink’s command to his atelier as they readied for year two was thus: ‘Always look for something that excites you. Don’t be afraid,’ continuing: ‘Things don’t have to make perfect sense. That’s also quite a Jean Paul Gaultier code.’ Evidently, it landed, as the brand summarised the ensuing S/S 2027 as having a ‘folky, witchy 1980s Ibiza vibe’, a wacky Venn diagram that came together into a surprisingly wearable collection.
The show’s first half was a focused experiment, as is Lantink’s want, on how garments can distort the body – so shoulders, clavicles, and breasts were subtly augmented through exaggerated cuts, but the fabrication and palette was kept low key: white cotton and sturdy brown leather. Colour and print was introduced later – plaid, ticking stripe and red needlepoint embroidery all lent a rustic, almost domestic quality to more outré shapes. Embellishment, of which there was little, took the form of bells, and accessories included matronly, veil-like headdresses and an expanded shoe offering (footwear is a new vertical for the brand, introduced under Lantink), including an inversion of the popular tabi style. India Jarvis
Zimmermann
Nicky Zimmermann’s Spring collection looked towards the figure of the butterfly, an insect chosen by the Australian designer ‘not because of its delicacy but because of its resilience’. The revelation had come when she and her team had a private tour of the butterfly collection in the Australian Museum, including the 19th-century illustrations of Harriet and Helena Scott, which she found particularly inspiring. ‘There’s a real strength in the way [the butterfly] moves and constantly transforms, and that became an important thread throughout the collection,’ she said. Cue Zimmermann’s signature vision of ethereal femininity – billowing shirts; flouncing ruffles; skirts cut with panels of lace – interrupted with elements of toughness, from denim jeans to stand-collar jackets and face-shielding visor sunglasses. Other pieces appeared as if Zimmermann’s protagonist for the season had stepped into the butterfly house: skirts, tops and dresses were adorned with three-dimensional organza butterflies, their wings fluttering to life as models walked the Carreau du Temple runway. Jack Moss
Chanel
Acts of transformation have defined Matthieu Blazy’s tenure at Chanel so far, which now spans a year since he showed his debut collection for the Parisian house last October (in the time since, the house has undergone a transformation as a whole, with rising sales reflecting the fervent response to designs). For S/S 2027, he looked once again to the idea of metamorphosis (last season, he evoked the metaphor of a caterpillar and a butterfly to denote the way the collection moved from the pragmatic to the spectacular), inspired by the personal style transformation of house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel over her lifetime. ‘[It is] layered history of selves within a layered history of the clothing she wore,’ Blazy described of the collection, which was shown at the Grand Palais on a runway lined with a flock of giant birds in flight.
As such, the show began with Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 quilted handbag, retrieved from the house’s Patrimoine archives and carried by Dyanira Hurbuscher, the model who opened and closed the show. In between, nods to the jersey underwear which began Gabrielle Chanel’s fashion career, peeking out from the opening looks; Edwardian corsets, deconstructed and paired with blooming tutu-like skirts, referencing the constricted silhouette she once wore and later rallied against; alongside the hallmarks of her style which would become house codes, from tweed tailoring (reimagined by Blazy in a stretch fabric for ease of movement) to floral corsages and strings of pearls (here, those pearls were reimagined in fabric).
Through this ode to Gabrielle Chanel, the show also had a more universal message: that the process of constructing our identity through clothing is rarely static. ‘Throughout their lives, women become multiple selves, different faces of the same coin. It’s like a game of exquisite corpse, where one identity leads to another,’ he said. ‘[This collection is] about the women within a woman.’ Jack Moss
READ: At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy’s latest collection takes flight
Louis Vuitton
This season, Louis Vuitton regained its position as fashion week’s closing act with a typically blockbuster runway show held in the Cour Carré du Louvre (to take over such a landmark is a show of the house’s might in itself). The show set, which was built in the historic courtyard of the former royal palace, evoked a motorway (complete with tarmac roads and concrete crash barriers) over which 34 futuristic Louis Vuitton-branded ‘cars’ hovered. Creative director Nicolas Ghesquière said he wanted this surreal urban scene to provide a juxtaposition to the collection itself, which was defined by a feeling of lightness and ease (silhouettes were scarf-like and caught the air; while tailoring was reimagined in ultralight fabrications that gently clung to the models’ bodies as they moved).
Indeed, he titled the collection ‘Ergonomie’, though he was quick to assert that this was not ergonomic in the sense of being moulded to the body; instead, ‘nothing is rigid, everything is fluid, like a second skin serving to define physicality in motion’. In this pursuit of lightness, it felt like something of a departure for Ghesquière, whose 13-year tenure at Louis Vuitton has largely been defined by the structured and the sculptural. ‘I wanted to express something that [gives an] impression of minimalism. But the work behind this construction, this simplification, to make things extremely light, is really complex,’ he elaborated backstage. ‘It looks simple, but that was the goal.’ Jack Moss