During their tenure at Loewe so far, the American designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have favoured minimal, gallery-like runway sets enlivened by moments of colour and play.
Their debut, in October of last year, featured Ellsworth Kelly’s 1989 abstract masterpiece Yellow Panel with Red Curve in its entranceway (‘in [the painting] lies an optimism and spirit that we deeply identify with,’ the pair said at the time), while for their A/W 2026 show in January, a series of plushie animals sat around the yellow-floored showspace like impromptu guests. These included octopi, dogs and clams, each a work by German contemporary artist Cosima von Bonin.
This morning in Paris (2 October 2026), McCollough and Hernandez will show their latest collection within a showspace conceived by London- and Berlin-based architectural practice Casper Mueller Kneer. The runway set, which sits inside a specially constructed white box in the grounds of the medieval fortress and former royal palace Château de Vincennes, comprises a double-height circular ‘arena’ around which models will circulate and guests will sit.
The set marks the first major architectural project from the house under McCollough and Hernandez, who drafted Casper Mueller Kneer to create a ‘three-dimensional space’ somewhere between ‘an arena, a theatre and a gallery’. Entered on two levels, the minimal, all-white design features a circular outer wall, an upper gallery and a scaffold-like construction, as well as circles of cuboid seating on the central ‘stage’.
Inspirations include the Anatomical Theatre in Padua, the Globe in London, and La Scala Opera House in Milan, as well as Detroit’s gasometer. ‘It evokes spectator sports, ritual dramas, and performance, centring the unique energy of a shared, lived human experience,’ describes the house.
Central to the design was the idea of ‘intensity and proximity’, say the architects, who conceived the ‘arena’ in such a way that it could bring the most guests together in a ‘relatively contained’ space. Its design, with models circulating the arena’s two floors, also allows attendees to view McCollough and Hernandez’s collection up close.
‘We’re trying to create a space that has a definite three-dimensional quality. Both in terms of the design, but also in terms of the viewing experience,’ say the architects. ‘You’re very close to one another. You’re very close to the collection.’
‘We wanted to build a show space that explored the unique energy of a stadium, arena, or theatre,’ add McCollough and Hernandez. ‘The anticipation, the focus, the shared emotion – that electric charge in the air that everyone can feel. There’s something so real and immediate in those spaces, a sense of presence and proximity that felt very right for this collection.’
Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from Paris Fashion Week S/S 2027.