‘One of the first things I do is go to the hotel shop, and buy everything,’ says the British fashion designer Kim Jones, who – having held roles at Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Dior Men – is well-versed in the business of travel. And, indeed, in the collection of rare and obscure objects: his west London address houses first-edition books and century-spanning artworks; when we meet, in Tokyo, he has spent the day trawling the city’s second-hand shops for research garments to take back to his London studio (he has just announced the launch of an eponymous label, Kim Jones, which will begin with an A/W 2027 collection next year).

We are in the 33rd-floor lobby of Aman Tokyo, the hotel group’s vertiginous outpost in the city, which occupies the upper six floors of the Otemachi Tower in the Chiyoda business neighbourhood (the impressive view stretches across Tokyo, from the imperial gardens at the hotel’s base to the Tokyo Tower in the south, and even – on a clear day – the snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji on the horizon). Jones is what is colloquially known as an ‘Aman junkie’, the name given to those who have visited more than five of Aman’s 36 properties, though he has far overshot this milestone; by his estimate, he has visited ‘about 30’, and is in the top-two worldwide customers.

The story behind Kim Jones’ collaboration with Aman Essentials

‘Every detail is considered and already done before you get there,’ he says of Aman, which was founded by hotelier Adrian Zecha in 1988 as a riposte to the gaudy excesses of other luxury resorts of the era. In the decades since – now led by owner and CEO Vladislav Doronin – Aman, which began with the Ed Tuttle-designed Amanpuri in Phuket, Thailand, has honed a vision of serene minimalism (linear planes of limestone and marble; floor-to-ceiling glass; meditative gardens and pools) and arresting locations (several are in, or in close proximity to, Unesco heritage sites; the Tokyo outpost is a rare city-centre Aman). The name ‘Aman’ itself is derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘peace’.

‘Every Aman that I stay at, I know the people that work there – some of them for ten, 15 years,’ Jones continues. ‘So it’s just like coming home. I have the same room, I have the same set-up, and I can relax. And they are all so beautiful in different ways – here, [in Tokyo], you are looking out to concrete and glass; in Aman-i-Khás a tiger can walk past your tent.’ (The latter is located in Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, India and comprises a series of Mughal-inspired canvas tents for guests.)

So when Kristina Romanova, the CEO and creative director of Aman Essentials, the hotel’s lifestyle arm, which spans clothing, leather goods, fragrance and beauty products, approached Jones about a collaboration, it took little soul-searching. ‘We met at a masked ball in Venice, in around 2018,’ says Jones. ‘Kristina knew how much I loved the Aman, so I think she just asked me, and I said yes. It took about a year and a half to get to the point we are now.’ (The collection has now launched in selected Aman outposts and online, as well as at a handful Dover Street Market locations, including Ginza, Tokyo.)

‘It was the first collaboration of this magnitude that we had undertaken,’ adds Romanova. ‘When we started thinking about collaborating with a designer, we were just like: it’s got to be Kim.’

And, while hotel merch is certainly having a moment, Aman x Kim Jones goes far beyond the gift-shop branded caps and tote bags that have become increasingly ubiquitous among the style set. ‘There’s the whole merch aspect of Aman that people love,’ says Jones, referring to collectibles like the leather luggage tag you receive after your stay (they are unique to each property, and have become a subtle status symbol for those in the know). ‘But I was really thinking about what you wear at the Aman – you know, the things that you might have left behind when you packed in a rush, or what you might want when you’ve been at the resort for a while.

‘I always end up going to the shop and buying stuff, and then just wearing it the whole time,’ he continues. ‘So it all just felt very organic, and real.’

So what are Jones’ travel essentials? There are those items one might expect to be able to purchase at a hotel store: pyjama sets (here constructed from silk in mineral-blue stripes or a deep ‘kombu’ green), swimwear (bikinis edged in woven cord; board-style shorts; sleek swimming costumes with visible zip fastenings), and slippers (ultra-padded with a fleece interior and toggle fastenings). But there are also garments made for traversing a new destination: a series of ‘technical tailoring’ captures Jones’ knack for pragmatic luxury (think: tailored abaca city shorts; zip-up Harrington-style jackets), while activewear comprises base-layer tanks, leggings and bralettes. Completing the line-up is a draped silk dress, should one be without an outfit for an evening at the hotel bar.

‘There’s a functional utilitarianism to the clothes, but there’s also something sexy to the silk story. I was thinking about the Aman couple, and obviously we have one part of the ultimate Aman couple here,’ Jones says, gesturing to Romanova (she is the partner of owner and CEO Vladislav Doronin). ‘I was talking to Vlad, and I was talking to you, and thinking about how we could make [these pieces] become reality.’

‘It’s got to be versatile, functional, but it has to have this understated elegance, and I think that’s what Kim is very well known for,’ says Romanova. ‘He is the master of that.’

The accompanying campaign was photographed in Aman Tokyo and across the city, with the launch marked by a sprawling eight-course dinner in the hotel’s restaurant (local attendees included rapper Verbal and designer Yoon; international guests were shuttled in by Japan Airlines’ luxurious new flagship vessel, the Airbus A350-1000). ‘I’ve been staying here since before it was open, it just feels like being in the future,’ says Jones about the choice of location. ‘Then you go up to the rooms, and they are so beautiful and spacious. And the baths – [I love] getting in that bath and just staring out at all of the lights.’

‘Tokyo was our first urban destination for Aman, and it was the first place I stayed in the city,’ adds Romanova. ‘I came for the opening, and it was such a defining moment for my personal taste to experience Japan and all the attention to detail. Everything has its purpose, and I think it really defined the way that I look at things.’

Aman Essentials launched in 2022, after an initial beauty line revealed a desire among guests for items they could take home with them to remember their stay (or, indeed, for those yet to spend a night but simply wishing to indulge in the lifestyle). ‘When we were going through options for names, we were like: what do we call it? It had to capture that essence of what we represent, and it’s really the essentials on your trip, or on your holidays, and this [is the thinking] behind every product,’ says Romanova. ‘Like, what do I need during my stay? Whether it’s a piece of clothing, pyjamas, a hat, a perfume, or a face mask, we are basically building that perfect traveller’s wardrobe.’

The collection is available at selected Aman resorts, and on Aman’s website, and selected Dover Street Market locations.

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Michael Rider’s insouciant vision for Celine marries his own American roots – the designer was born in Washington D.C. and worked at Polo Ralph Lauren before his appointment – with the bourgeois-inflected codes of the Parisian house, founded by Céline Vipiana in 1945.

But Rider is also interested in the personal gestures of dressing: how the addition of a colourful silk cummerbund, or stacks of golden charms – whether hanging from a belt or wrist – can enliven a look and make it your own. ‘[It’s about] enjoying what we do in the studio, and desiring it ourselves, all of it, the clothes and the characters,’ he said earlier this year.

‘Infinite possibilities’: Celine’s silk foulards

It is why the silk scarf has become such a hallmark accessory of his tenure so far: the French foulard, after all, can be wrapped around the waist, wrist or strap of a bag, or used as an impromptu top or bandana. As Rider says, they offer ‘infinite possibilities’, with his adorned with a bold array of prints: from sketches of Parisian landmarks to hand-drawn motifs of stars and moons, or simply scattered with the Celine ‘Triomphe’ monogram, an enduring emblem of Parisian style.

‘We feel that Celine is a place to come and get dressed, for all sorts of days and nights and moments in life,’ says Rider. ‘Inviting everyone to find the best pieces and then to appropriate them into their lives, their rhythms, their style.’

A version of this article appears in the November 2026 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 8 October in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

In 1976, Polo Ralph Lauren arrived in Tokyo, Japan, its first location opening within the Seibu department store in Ikebukuro. Later that year, Ralph Lauren would host a runway show in the Tokyo Prince Hotel; so would begin a love affair between Japanese consumers and the American fashion behemoth, falling into a wider adoption of US style codes happening across the country. Deemed ‘Ametora’ – a portmanteau of American Traditionalist – denim, button-downs, Western shirts and the like proliferated in Japanese cities, oftentimes remade or perfected by local producers.

Six decades on, with over 150 Ralph Lauren store in the country – including a vast Tokyo flagship in the Omotesando neighbourhood – Ralph Lauren is marking 50 years in the country with PoloFest this weekend (23-25 October 2026), the first event of its kind. Spanning three days in Jing Harajuku events space in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, the festival will bring together ‘communities of passionate [Polo] fans from around the world’ enjoying a schedule that comprises an exhibition of archival pieces (dating back from Polo Ralph Lauren’s introduction in 1967), a vintage marketplace (featuring some of the most well-known international collectors), and a series of talks.

Ralph Lauren debuts PoloFest in Tokyo, Japan

It is an apt moment for such an event to take place: Polo Ralph Lauren is currently having something of a resurgence, part of a wider preppy revival (recent collections from the likes of Dior, Miu Miu and Celine have all mined collegiate and varsity dress codes; the last house is led by Michael Rider, who was previously creative director at Polo Ralph Lauren). Polo Ralph Lauren says the event encapsulates its founding principles: ‘Polo has [always] been about more than collections – it has created a distinctive world and a way of living. PoloFest is inspired by this unique emotional bond... through culture, community, collecting, and conversation.’

‘I have collected Ralph Lauren for most of my life and it’s the perfect opportunity to share this passion with other like-minded people,’ Albie Robert, founder of The Polo Archive – an Instagram that documents rare Polo Ralph Lauren garments and imagery – tells Wallpaper* of participating in PoloFest. ‘It is also significant to be a part of the first collectors event of its kind – something only Ralph Lauren could do.’

‘It has been amazing so far, meeting collectors and Ralph Lauren wearers from all over the world, some of whom I have spoken to over Instagram over the years,’ he continues, joining the likes of Japan’s Big Apple Store, the United States’ Millennial Decorator, Italy’s Tartan Vintage and Canada’s F as in Frank, among others, at the event. ‘It has been inspirational to see the many ways people wear and collect from all corners of the world – from the US to Japan to New Zealand. It shows the power of Ralph Lauren’s storytelling, which always allows you to be transported.’

PoloFest marks the first in a series of events that will celebrate Ralph Lauren’s 60th anniversary, taking place officially in 2027 (as for whether PoloFest will become an annual occurrence is yet to be announced). Founded in 1967 by the eponymous designer, the fashion empire began with a line of men’s neckties branded with ‘Polo’ and notable for their wider cut. ‘It was influenced by Ivy League, and then by England,’ he said of the Polo branding in a 1985 issue of New York Magazine. ‘I admired the European style, and horses and the whole atmosphere of a good life. I wasn’t merely interested in fashion. I’m not a fashion lover, but I knew what I admired.’

PoloFest takes place 23-25 October 2026, at Jing Harajuku in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Admission is complimentary, with tickets available exclusively through the Ralph Lauren LINE membership community.

For more information on PoloFest, visit the Ralph Lauren website.

The reveal of the annual Margaret Howell calendar serves not only as a reminder of the passing of another year, but an insight into the perennial British designer’s interests and inspirations; previous editions have featured archival posters from London’s Design Centre (2017), the textile works of designer Lucienne Day (2025), and the ‘British landscapes’ of photographer Edwin Smith (2015).

For 2027, the theme is altogether more personal: titled ‘Photographs by Margaret Howell’, the project will see each month feature an image taken by the designer herself on her Nikon SLR camera or smartphone, spanning various decades and capturing ‘places, objects and details’ – from beach walks in Suffolk to self-portraits in her Blackheath workroom. Without a specific theme, they instead offer a glimpse of how Howell sees the world: most notably, through moments of everyday beauty and a fixation with surface, texture and found objects.

‘It is always when you see something that’s either unusual or really beautiful,’ says Howell. ‘If you can capture that – quite often you can’t ... [If it] surprises you or excites you, you just want to take a photo.’

Coinciding with the calendar’s release, a series of images will be displayed in the designer’s Wigmore Street store in London, while a new book, titled Margaret Howell: Life and Work, offers a companion piece. Published by Japanese company Shueisha, the bilingual book explores Howell’s ‘pragmatic approach to living and designing’, featuring a series of images, including several shot by Howell herself. Her mantra, ‘good design is thoughtful and works well in everyday life’, provides the book’s common thread.

A continuation, of sorts, from Margaret Howell Houses (2006, also published by Shueisha), which has sold over 50,000 copies, the new book situates her work within her everyday life – most notably, her home in Suffolk, documenting the furnishings, objects and scenery which surround her while she designs her collections. Elsewhere, there is an exploration of the materiality which remains at the heart of her collections – including an insight into her work with British fabric producer Fox Brothers of Somerset – and her London Shirtmaking Workroom, which recently got an upgrade.

‘Photographs by Margaret Howell’ runs from 23 October – 15 November 2026 at Margaret Howell Wigmore Street, London. Margaret Howell: Life and Work and the 2027 Margaret Howell calendar are both available from 22 October 2026 at Margaret Howell Wigmore Street and from the Margaret Howell website.

Last February, Maison Margiela skipped its usual place on the Paris Fashion Week calendar for a series of events in China, including a Shanghai runway show and exhibitions across the country that explored the various ‘principles’ of the avant-garde house – from ‘anonymity’ (a nod to founder Martin Margiela’s elusive nature, marked with an exhibition of masks in Beijing) to ‘artisanal’ (a display featuring 48 pieces from the house’s Artisanal line, its equivalent to haute couture, dating from 1989 to 2025).

The project fell under ‘MaisonMargiela/folders’, which also saw the house open up its company Dropbox as an open-to-all digital archive, spanning research for upcoming projects, internal imagery and archival material dating back to the house’s founding in 1988, some of it available to view for the very first time. Creative director Glenn Martens, who earlier this year left his concurrent role at Diesel to focus on Maison Margiela full time, said that this marked ‘a fresh way to experience the work of the maison’.

The new chapter of ‘MaisonMargiela/folders’ explores Martin Margiela’s pioneering Tokyo store

Today (21 October 2026), the house has revealed the latest chapter of ‘MaisonMargiela/folders’, which is a celebration of the house’s first store concept, Maison Margiela Tokyo. Opened in 2000, 12 years after Martin Margiela launched his eponymous brand (then called Maison Martin Margiela), the choice of location was typical of the designer’s unconventional approach: one might have expected the first store to be in Paris (where it was based), or in Antwerp or Brussels, Belgium (the country where Martin Margiela hailed from), but instead he chose a former residential home in the leafy suburb of Ebisu, Tokyo.

The opening forged a link between the Parisian house and the Tokyo neighbourhood that remains today: when the original store had to be relocated, Martin Margiela chose to stay in Ebisu, taking over 2-8-13 Ebisu Minami, a former factory that produced electrical goods. Its sparse, industrial interiors – featuring a glass ceiling and glass-block wall – provided the perfect canvas for Martin Margiela’s collections, with its surfaces painted in the house’s signature white. ‘White means the strength of fragility and the fragility of the passage of time... an expression of unity, purity and honesty,’ he once said of the hue, which featured across the house’s then-HQ on Rue Saint-Maur, a former convent where the walls and furnishings were also a uniform white (staff were required to wear white lab coats, an expression of collectivism and unity).

‘This store is of huge significance to us,’ said Maison Margiela in statement today (it is a tradition that the house communicates in the collective ‘we’ over a singular named spokesperson). ‘It retains the memory of how we first appeared to the world. The location of Ebisu itself, the community surrounding the store, and unconventional but intentional decisions to repurpose existing features speak to the most formative elements of our identity.’

2-8-13, as the store is now called, was opened in 2007, with the coming year marking its 20th anniversary. The occasion will be marked not only with the new chapter of ‘MaisonMargiela/folders’ – the various new folders in the Dropbox chart the history of the address, as well as the events which have taken place within it – but a special-edition zine, launching 5 November 2026 (it will also be uploaded into the Dropbox). Distributed across Ebisu and in-store, the limited-edition publication will comprise memories from those who have worked in the store, as well as documenting collectors of the house’s ‘Tabi’ shoe – perhaps Maison Margiela’s most enduring link with Japan, inspired by the country’s traditional split-toe socks and shoes, which date back to the 15th century.

‘MaisonMargiela/folders’ can be accessed here. The zine will launch on 5 November 2026 exclusively in Ebisu and at 2-8-13, while an accompanying exhibition runs until 15 November 2026.

Of course, it’s trite to say a make-up artist treats a face like a canvas; but with Lucy Bridge, the sentiment takes on a palpable truth. Over the course of her roughly two-decade-long career, Bridge has created some of this era’s most memorable editorial and runway make-up looks with her technical ingenuity (see her velvet lips for Tom Ford), original experimentation with colour and painterly approach to its application.

For her first book, Colour Mode, Bridge applies the same outré approach she is known for as a make-up artist to the process of documenting her work. Instead of compiling a look back at her highly impressive career so far, Bridge used the opportunity to commission entirely new stories by ten leading photographers, alongside a behind-the-scenes section, which showcases her creative process and working practices.

Created in close collaboration with renowned creative director Veronica Ditting, Colour Mode takes a radical approach to the traditional beauty book, making for a collectable document that showcases the work of some of the most talented image makers practising today. Here, Bridge speaks to Wallpaper* about the process of creating the book.

Wallpaper*: Why did now feel like the right time to create a book on your work?

Lucy Bridge: Veronica [Ditting] and I worked on a runway show together and she messaged me shortly after, saying if I ever wanted to do a book, we could collaborate. As soon as she asked me, I knew this was the right time. I instantly said yes, as I am a huge fan of Veronica’s work. From the beginning, I didn’t want to create a traditional make-up book like the ones we are so used to seeing, and I thought the combination of us working together meant we could explore what a make-up book can be. Veronica kept saying how I was the voice of my generation and this really sparked the idea [for the] book.

Wallpaper*: Why did you want to commission new stories for the book, rather than create a retrospective of your work so far?

LB: I wanted a new creative challenge. With the book, there was an opportunity to create new photographic stories where we could develop the concept from start to finish. I wanted to show the world my make-up, under my rules, working with the most inspiring collaborators, who are also a group of people I call friends.

We had created the ten main photographic stories and the 'Looks in Progress' stories, showing the process behind them... it was at this stage when I showed Tim Walker and he suggested that we include an archive section to show how my work has developed over the years as a make-up artist. The archive section is a way for me to look back and also offers a glimpse into where it all started, back in 2009.

W*: How did you select the photographers you wanted to work with? And, once commissioned, what was your process of working with each one to create an individual story?

LB: First, Veronica and I established the tone of the book as being both expressive and dynamic. Then, we started to talk about our dream list of photographers, and that also made us discuss how we wanted to push the imagery to create something unique. Veronica has an amazing process, where she prints out mini images of photographers’ work, and then Sellotapes them together to create a running storyline. We placed them all together to see which photographers would complement each other within a book. We were very lucky – almost all the photographers and collaborators we wanted to work with said yes! We also had to think about the style of the photographers – so they all had a point of difference in the book, but worked well visually with each other. We thought about the contrasts, daylight versus studio photography, extreme beauty versus minimal looks. Every detail was considered. Once we had an idea, we were then focused on starting a collaboration between the team to bring the whole shoot to life.

W*: Does seeing your work collected in one place like this give you any insight into your career so far?

LB: It has made me appreciate how incredible and fulfilling my make-up career has been so far. It’s easy to forget how much you have done; looking back at the archive section, especially, was such an experience. I’m so lucky to have had the career I've had at such a young age, and looking back over my early work reminded me of growing up in the countryside in the north of England and having dreams of working as a make-up artist in fashion in a big city. I could never have expected my career to take off in the way it has.

W*: Are there any lessons from the experience that you will carry into your work moving forward?

LB: The main lesson has been to not take this job for granted. I am so lucky to wake up every day and enjoy the work I do. Yes, it can be stressful at times; there is a lot of travelling and I am often in a high-pressure environment, but at the end of the day, I love being a make-up artist and creating all these different looks and characters for a living. It’s hard not to get sucked into the theatrics of the fashion world, but personally I have found a very good balance between work and a relatively normal personal life. For me, that’s always been important, to retain some normality in life, as my job is so far from “normal”’.

W*: What made Veronica Ditting such a good match for this collaboration?

LB: For both of us, expression plays a role in our work, and we are very particular about colour and texture. If you look at our wider work, you could say that we have different aesthetics. But we share a particularly steadfast process we hold on to when it comes to image-making. While my make-up approach is very avant-garde and Veronica’s work is very chic, through our creative conversations, we found a balance and a rhythm in our work together, which comes through in the book and tells the story of my make-up so beautifully.

Ever since he created one of the world’s best-selling men’s fragrances, Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier, at the tender age of 26, Francis Kurkdjian has been reshaping modern perfumery. Whether he’s working on collaborative projects with the likes of artist Sophie Calle or the Palace of Versailles, crafting fragrances for other houses (in 2021 he was named creation director of perfume for Christian Dior) or creating under his namesake brand Maison Francis Kurkdjian (whose Baccarat Rouge 540 became one of the world’s best-selling fragrances), Kurkdjian uses his knowledge of scent history and physiological impact throughout the ages to create fragrances that speak to the zeitgeist.

Never one to do things halfheartedly, Kurkdjian is celebrating some of his best-loved creations for Maison Francis Kurkdjian and debuting new ones in a holiday campaign that pays homage to France’s ‘Grand Siècle'. Working alongside production designer Antoine Fontaine, Kurkdjian created a miniature construction of the era’s famous Théâtre de la Reine, with a trompe-l’oeil papier-mâché stage and working miniature mechanics. A trained ballet dancer before he became a perfumer, he also makes a cameo appearance as a dancer in the campaign film.

Below, Kurkdjian speaks to Wallpaper* about the extraordinary creation of a miniature 17th-century theatre, and the era’s enduring influence on his practice.

Wallpaper*: Do you remember the first time you encountered the Théâtre de la Reine? Why did it feel like an ideal setting for the Maison Francis Kurkdjian universe?

Francis Kurkdjian: I have a longstanding, strong relationship with the Château de Versailles. I’ve collaborated with them several times, up until recently with the Perfumer’s Garden, of which the maison is the patron. I attended perfumery school in Versailles (ISIPCA) while I was finishing my studies of Classical Ballet and Baroque with a company that used to perform [at the palace]. I fondly remember the shows I performed in, as well as the afternoons spent in the gardens, soaking up the history of a place that meant so much for fragrance and for developing the best know-how in French culture.

In 2006, I signed the reinterpretation of Queen Marie Antoinette’s fragrance, imagined from authentic historical documents, at the time of the opening of Marie Antoinette's estate. I spent an enormous amount of time diving into the archives to learn who the Queen was, what she liked and asking myself what perfume I would create for her if we lived at the same time. I presented and launched this perfume on the stage of the Théâtre de la Reine.

So, I’m deeply connected and attached to Versailles, its heritage, its beauty. I imagined this campaign as a tribute to that era and the Grand Siècle, its iconography and lyricism, and created a small-scale copy of it to bring it to life, working with the very best artisans and making the fragrances themselves become the star of the performance.

W*: Can you share more about the creative process behind the miniature theatre? What fascinated you most about the theatre’s original scenographic techniques?

FK: The campaign was designed to be as historically accurate as possible because the idea was to reproduce a mini opera-ballet, where the stars of the show would be fragrance itself. We did not rely on AI at all. I wanted a real set and a real stage. The miniature theatre was created with my friend, set decorator Jean-Hugues de Chatillon, who has been collaborating with me for more than two decades.

We asked painter-scenographer Antoine Fontaine to join in creating a replica of the original, as he participated in the restoration of the real theatre of Marie Antoinette. We included the trompe-l'oeil papier-mâché theatre sets, the choreography of the comedy-ballets, and, of course, the highlight of the show: the perfumer in the 17th-century court dress from the engravings of the time, the ultimate reference for me to what the craft is about. The mechanisms of the backstage of a theatre were reconstructed in their entirety and work like real ones. The theatre, with all its elements, required six months of work, about 2,000 hours. It involved 20 craftsmen for a total of about 3,000 single pieces.

W*: Because Antoine Fontaine had worked directly on the restoration of the Théâtre de la Reine, what did he bring to the project that you could not have achieved through historical research alone?

FK: Antoine has first-hand experience and knowledge of the original theatre. Working on the restoration unlocked its secrets and he brought all of that baggage into the creation of the replica. He was able to bring that vintage soul that was necessary to make this project look real and accurate.

W*: What was the biggest challenge you encountered?

FK: As I mentioned, everything is done by hand, each piece, each detail. The hidden mechanisms that move the products on stage were designed with professional puppeteers. The fabrics were embroidered and fitted for the project. There is an enormous amount of know-how that went into this project. It’s really a celebration of human craftsmanship and creativity. And of course, being on time so we could film the campaign.

W*: If you could go back to the Théâtre de la Reine in its heyday, what performance would you like to see? And, more importantly, what would you hope to smell?

FK: I would love to see one of the intimate performances that Marie-Antoinette enjoyed with her close circle – perhaps a light opera or a comédie mêlée de musique [musical comedy], where the boundary between audience and performers seemed to disappear.

What fascinates me is not only the spectacle itself, but the atmosphere: the sense of wonder created by a place designed entirely for illusion. As for the scent, I would hope to smell a blend of powdered woods from the stage sets, beeswax from the candles, fresh flowers gathered from the gardens, and the delicate perfumes worn by the guests. It would not be a single fragrance but a composition of many impressions, capturing the elegance, creativity and humanity of that extraordinary moment in time.

W*: Why does the 17th century remain an enduring source of inspiration for you?

FK: It was a fascinating period when art and artisanal crafts flourished in France, under the input of the royal court. Among them, the figure of the perfumer emerged, strictly linked to the craft of leathermaking. I often look back at a very famous engraving, very dear to me: that of the Perfumer's Habit, attributed to Gerrit Valck and printed in 1697 by Nicolas de l'Armassin. In the series of trades in Paris, the perfumer is represented with an incense burner as a hat. His test-tube apron presents all of his productions and is a visual representation of his skills: perfumed fans and gloves, soaps, scented waters, essences of all kinds… This very engraving comes to life in the movie, thanks to the help of Marie La Rocca, costume designer of the Paris Opera and the Caraco Couture Atelier. Seven craftsmen with complementary know-how worked with extreme meticulousness to reproduce it for us.

W*: Why did this feel like the right moment to put yourself in the campaign?

FK: It’s not the first time I’ve acted in our holiday campaign. I like to think that perfume can bring joy to people, especially during the holiday season. This movie is special, and I had great fun wearing the Perfumer’s Habit and learning to bow from Béatrice Martel, a dancer at the Paris Opera. Last, this campaign felt different. It tells a story that is deeply personal to me: my relationship with theatre, music, craftsmanship and the history of French perfumery.

A preview of the film can be seen here, with the full video released on Maison Francis Kurkdjian's website on 1 November 2026.

franciskurkdjian.com

Since they were first introduced in the mid-1960s, Adidas’ tracksuits have gone from a footballer’s staple to a ubiquitous symbol of youth culture, whether you count yourself a fan of hip-hop, nu-metal, grime or countless other scenes.

Adidas Originals, the lifestyle arm of the global German sportswear company, enlisted American fashion designer Willy Chavarria to help enliven those classics with the debut of adiSignature, a fresh collection of streetwear staples reimagined with contemporary silhouettes, vibrant colours and premium materials.

The first adiSignature collection drops on 23 October 2026, and marks the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with Chavarria. ‘AdiSignature is a framework that Adidas and I developed together that will evolve over years,’ the designer said in a statement. ‘It’s a new way of thinking about the brand’s timeless offering.’

This isn’t Chavarria’s first time working with Adidas Originals. Last year, after teasing a collaboration on the runway, Adidas launched its first collection with the designer, which celebrated Chavarria’s Chicano heritage alongside Adidas signatures. Subsequent drops followed.

While adiSignature isn't a straight-up collaboration with the designer's own label (Chavarria serves as its creative advisor), there are still strong hints of the designer’s sensibilities, as with reworked 1980s staples like the Firebird and SST tracksuits; relaxed tailoring meant to be piled on in layers; and eye-catching details including two-sided zippers, retro logos and heavy fleece fabrics. The garments are available in a happy array of hues, from fluorescent yellow to hunter green to true blue.

The launch is accompanied by an equally jubilant campaign shot by Brianna Capozzi and styled by Georgia Pendlebury, which features a diverse cast of models and joyful, unscripted moments. It all serves to telegraph a single message about this first AdiSignature drop: that the wearer is the finishing touch.

‘White gold' was the name given to linen from St Gallen, a Swiss city synonymous with fabric production since medieval times. Then, the monks of the local abbey had found that the region's climate provided the perfect conditions for growing flax, the plant that provides the fibres from which linen is woven; in the centuries since, embroidery became its primary trade, with tens of thousands of people employed in its production at the turn of the 19th century.

It was here that, in 1922, the 26-year-old Alice Kriemler-Schoch opened an atelier producing aprons adorned with polka dot embroidery or lace trims, but also heavier-duty styles that dressed local factory workers. In 1944, her son Max Kriemler joined the business, renaming it Akris (an acronym of sorts for his mother's name) and expanding into ready-to-wear. By the 1970s, Akris was creating clothing and fabrics for Parisian houses including Givenchy, Saint Clair and Ted Lapidus, who used Max and his wife Ute's expertise to manufacture their own burgeoning ready-to-wear collections.

Akris is now a fashion house in its own right, showing twice-yearly at Paris Fashion Week and led by Max Kriemler's son Albert, who is the creative director. Fabric remains at the heart of the Akris project; Albert Kriemler's collections, which are defined by a precise, largely minimalist aesthetic, are enlivened by moments of craft and textile manipulation. ‘A hundred years ago, my grandmother Alice set out to define a woman's presence and enhance her charisma, and that very much remains my mission today,' he said in 2022 on the occasion of Akris' 100th anniversary.

Art is another fascination of Albert Kriemler; he counts works by the likes of Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Lawrence Weiner, Paul Thek and Ian Hamilton Finlay as part of his personal collection, and has collaborated with numerous others on the runway (notably Thomas Ruff, Ugo Rondinone and Geta Brătescu). ‘Since I started working on artist-inspired collections, I always challenge myself to do exactly that,' he says. ‘Not just to depict an artist's work on fabrics, but to translate it with full respect for the artist and the woman wearing it, while bringing my own interpretations to it.’

His latest collaboration, part of an A/W26 collection shown in March in Paris, provided a fresh challenge: namely, that the artist in question, Olga de Amaral, works in textile (a first for the brand). ‘Because textile is already her medium, I was less interested in translating her work literally than in exploring her intuitive approach to materials,’ he says, noting a similarity in their method that extends beyond the medium. ‘She once said, “The mind was following, not guiding.” That felt very familiar to me. My own creative process also begins with intuition.’

De Amaral is best known for her large-scale abstract works, which see fabrics such as horsehair, wool and linen gilded with gold leaf and gesso before being manipulated into abstract forms that resemble rock faces (other works feature elements of weaving or colourful ‘streamers' of fabric). Albert Kriemler says he had ‘admired Olga's work for years', though the impetus for the collection came from viewing a retrospective of her work at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, which ran from 2024-2025. From there, he took a trip to de Amaral's studio in Bogotá, Colombia, where she lives and works.

‘What stayed with me was Olga's rootedness in Bogotá and her idea of the casa as a place apart from the usual cultural capitals,' he says. ‘That continuity carries into her studio, where she has worked with the same seven assistants for more than 30 years: “seven lives, 14 hands,” as she calls them. I know that dynamic well. Many of my tailors and pattern-makers have been with me for more than two decades. Their command of cut and experience, construction and cloth is central to my work.'

In the collection itself, Kriemler evoked works from de Amaral's Alquimia series, begun in the 1980s and recognisable for its gleaming metallic surfaces. They inspired the collection's molten gold fabrics, such as in the ‘shimmering brocade' coats. Her knotted Nudo and Lienzo series are evoked with dramatic fringing, while a gold-and-black cape coat, for which Akris developed a soft brocade, woven with textured foil tape that fractures the surface, echoes ‘Olga's approach to weaving and fibre manipulation'.

As for working with de Amaral, Kriemler praises her as ‘humble and modest, [but with] a real presence. She lets her work speak. We spent three hours together every day, talking, and she told me that threads have always been at the heart of everything she does. I was especially touched to learn that she has always made fabrics for her friends, so they could sew them into dresses and wear them.’

‘Fabric has always been my language,' he continues. ‘Every collection begins with the material in my hands. That is when the creative process starts: the fabric tells you what it wants to become. I call it the eyes in my fingers. Olga works in a similar way – threads are the foundation of her art.’

The A/W 2026 collection is available at akris.com.

A version of this article appears in the November 2026 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 8 October in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

‘In my teenage years, I enjoyed making my own clothes from paper patterns, but the one thing that was a real challenge was to make a shirt,’ the British designer Margaret Howell said in the 2021 Richardson-directed short, The Making of a Shirt. ‘A shirt has so many strong pieces. You have to halve and quarter to get it to set correctly, and then all these little details – at least two dozen pieces of pattern that go into making the shirt.’

It was in the early 1970s that Howell, then a young Fine Art graduate of Goldsmiths University, discovered, by chance, a men’s pinstripe shirt in a jumble sale; in the months that followed, she set about making her own, sourcing the perfect cotton from David & John Anderson, a traditional Scottish supplier of men’s dress shirt fabrics (materials remain central to Margaret Howell, which now spans a comprehensive men’s and women’s wardrobe). Later, in 2000, she established a workroom in Edmonton, north London, ‘Unit 7’, to create the perfect shirt – each hand-stitched by a single machinist and comprising up to 25 individual components.

Inside Margaret Howell’s new London workroom

In summer 2026, though, Howell established a new home for her superlative shirtmaking: Florentia Village in north London’s Harringay, a former textile manufacturing hub that has been recently renovated into an ‘industrial campus’ and co-working space by architecture firm Turner.Works. The new space marks what Howell calls a ‘commitment to British shirtmaking’, the spoils of which will be marked by a special swing tag and label marked ‘London Workroom’.

Embracing several light-filled rooms on the upper floor of Florentia Village, the move, says Howell, was to create a ‘more efficient, contemporary working environment’ that combines the traditional working methods established at Unit 7 (pattern pieces remain cut by hand; specialised machinists work on the components of shirts individually) with an increased capacity for production, meaning that a larger percentage of Margaret Howell’s shirts can be made in London (other shirts are made in factories in and around Florence, Italy, as well as other British factories). The 17 people currently employed at the workshop have more than 175 years’ combined experience in shirtmaking.

What is most unique about the facility, though, is the way that it sees through the entire life cycle of the shirt. All patterns are created in-house, going through rigorous prototyping across the various steps; as such, when it comes to producing the final shirts, the team is already familiar with the intricacies of the pattern. Visiting the factory gives further insight into this process, which, despite the relative simplicity of Howell’s designs – she is known for a sense of quiet restraint that means garments are rarely embellished or outwardly complicated – requires particular attention to its subtle details, like the lining up of checks and pinstripes on pockets, cuffs and collars so that they perfectly join and match (other processes include the pre-pressing of gauntlets and plackets, which allows machinists to get the shirts perfectly flat).

After the roughly 12,000 perfect stitches it takes to craft a single shirt, the pieces are completed with a final subtle flourish: a set of horn or mother-of-pearl buttons, before each shirt is pressed again and packaged for delivery.

The initial spoils of the new Florentia Village London Workroom are arriving in stores currently as part of the A/W 2026 season. This will include 12 designs in total, spanning both perennial Margaret Howell signatures – the ‘Basic’ and ‘Simple’ shirts are both currently being produced in the facility, alongside what the brand calls more ‘directional’ pieces, including the new ‘Stepped Hem’ and ‘Pin Tuck’ shirts. Rounding out the line-up will be two shirts crafted from leftover shirting cotton, ‘underpinning the brand’s continued commitment to responsible manufacturing’, says Howell.

margarethowell.co.uk

A mood of intuitive style ran through the S/S 2027 season, seeing designers embrace eclectic combinations to reflect the ‘multiple perspectives and perpetual motion of all our lives’, as British designer Sarah Burton described, referring to her latest collection for Givenchy. It’s a summary that could have been applied to numerous shows this season.

Nowhere was this more true than in accessories: across New York, London, Milan and Paris, designers used bags, shoes, hats, belts, and even boas, to express this liberated approach to dress. Here, with input from the Wallpaper* style editors, we’ve collated the season’s statement-making accessories – from Jil Sander’s inside-out handbags to rain hats at Chemena Kamali’s Chloé.

Tory Burch’s velvet boas

In a collection fully loaded with maximalist accessories (the American designer was in a ‘more is more’ mood), it was Tory Burch’s reimagined boa that stole the show. A far cry from the camp staple of synthetic feathers that shed with abandon, Tory Burch’s boas were constructed from more luxurious plumage: carefully shredded velvet that read as the petals of a flower. India Jarvis

Mulberry’s ‘axe’ bag

As new creative director Christopher Kane took a figurative axe to the Mulberry tree – making space for new growth, as opposed to chopping it down to a stump – the image of a sturdy blade became something of a motif within his debut collection for the brand. Across the ready-to-wear, boxy scalloping resembled notches cut into wood, and slender bags took on the curvature of a metallic axe bit replete with signature padlock. The metaphors write themselves. India Jarvis

McQueen’s ‘armadillo’ bag

It must have been a particularly meaningful collection for Seán McGirr this season, who brought the McQueen brand back home to London after it had spent 25 years showing in Paris. Compounding this, the creative director borrowed from one of the late Lee McQueen’s most memorable creations, the ‘Armadillo’ shoes, which were presented as part of his last fully realised collection, Plato’s Atlantis, which was shown just four months before his death in February 2010. McGirr’s treatment of the armadillo motif for S/S 2027 took the form of a diminutive bag – constructed from rigid, high-shine leather, mimicking a plated armadillo rolling itself up into a defensive ball. India Jarvis

LII’s detachable hoods

Iterations of the humble anorak are mainstay shapes in the design language of the 2026 LVMH Prize Karl Lagerfeld award winner, LII by Zane Li, who this season distilled the garment down to its most essential component: the hood. Detachable hoods in bright waterproof technical fabric were worn fastened to camisoles or dresses, or tied like kerchiefs around the neck, their ties left to hang long. India Jarvis

Celine’s sized-up belts

Just as we saw throughout this summer’s menswear shows, statement belts are making their return to fashion. At Acne Studios, buckles were patterned like antique frames, Givenchy’s were worn double wrapped, and Polo Ralph Lauren presented an eclectic range of styles that riffed on the brand’s American roots. But the biggest statement of all came from Celine – literally – where belts with thick bands had exaggerated buckles, C-curve buckles in brass, cinching and adding drama to full monochrome looks. India Jarvis

Prada’s perforated pumps

Elements of the extraordinary, smile-inducing embellishment that encrusted skirts from the 66-look Prada collection were also applied to footwear – sparkling floral-shaped details studded onto heels like jewels. Kitten heels, sling-back pumps, and stiletto courts were made from graphically perforated leather and came in black, white, or grey, with the crystals perched on the uppers.

Bottega Veneta’s leather flowers

Much like her Bottega Veneta predecessor, Matthieu Blazy, the British designer Louise Trotter is using her runway show sets to forge links with the worlds of art and design: this season, the space included a sound installation by Florian Hecker transmitted by 20 speakers prior to the show’s start (the German artist said that he wanted the aural effect to be ‘weightless and enveloping’) and crushed cardboard-box stools by Illya Goldman Gubin. On top of each stool was a leather flower handcrafted by the house’s leather artisans – a keepsake that turned into Milan Fashion Week’s most covetable accessories, with guests from Jacob Elordi to Julianne Moore grasping theirs as they exited the venue. As for whether they appear in store remains to be seen – though the knitted floral bag charms, also crafted in leather, captured a similar feeling of romance. Jack Moss

Gucci’s horsebit belt

The horsebit is one of Gucci’s perennial motifs: introduced during the early 1950s, it was cemented as a hallmark of bourgeois style with the launch of Aldo Gucci’s horsebit loafer in 1953. Part of a collection that Georgian creative director Demna described as both ‘quintessentially Gucci’ and ‘broken bourgeoisie’, the horsebit featured throughout – whether blown up as the buckle on the back of a fur coat, or shrunken onto the collar of a shirt. It also featured on these triple-layered belts: part-equestrian, part-kink, entirely Demna.

Hèrmes’ layered cuffs

Leather is the foundational material of Hermès – the house began as a harness and bridle maker in 1837 – with its superlative accessories made in workshops across France. For S/S 2027, Nadège Vanhée teamed looks with stacks of leather bracelets – minimal in detailing, the thick bands put leather’s natural finish centre stage, designed to patina and mould to the body through time. Jack Moss

Loewe’s go-faster sunglasses

Sportswear-inspired sunglasses remained ubiquitous on the S/S 2027 runways – Givenchy, Rick Owens, Balenciaga, Balmain, Courrèges and Miu Miu all featured, sporty, streamlined styles. Though it was Loewe that provided the platonic ideal of the go-faster sunglasses: crafted from thick acetate branded with the Loewe logo, they wrap around the face to recall those worn by road cyclists and rock climbers, arriving in various neon hues and completed with high-shine mirrored lenses. Jack Moss

Jil Sander’s inside-out handbags

At Bally, Simone Bellotti proved a master of the covetable accessory – his Plume loafers, a lace up-cum-moccasin, remain ubiquitous within style circles today. Now, he brings the same approach to his new role at Jil Sander, from the ‘Hood’ shoe (a minimalist riff on the Wallabee), to brightly hued hosiery and ladylike pumps. For S/S 2027, all eyes were on the bags: a top-handle tote designed to splay open to reveal a colourful contrast lining. It came as part of a collection which rallied against perfection: ‘That idea of perfection at Jil, it’s not enough today, because you can find that many other places,’ he said. ‘Minimalism has become so mainstream.’ Jack Moss

Miu Miu’s New Balance RC 150

Now entering its fifth iteration, Miu Miu’s ongoing New Balance collaboration has spawned some of the most viral sneakers of recent years – from the frayed-edge 574s of S/S 2022 (their first co-branded sneakers), to S/S 2024’s suede 530 SL with their recognisable ‘double’ laces. For S/S 2027, Miuccia Prada puts her riff on the nostalgic RC150 racing sneaker, reimagined with zig-zag embroidery and colourful laces which wrap around the toe. It came as part of a collection which mashed up sportswear with flourishes of glamour. ‘The concept of mixing elements of sports with sophistication is something that has always influenced my work,’ said Mrs Prada. ‘But I have never been so precise, or taken it so far.’ Jack Moss

Chloé’s rain hats

‘May the love that poured into this collection endure forever,’ said the German designer Chemena Kamali of her latest Chloé outing, which is widely believed to be her last (she is tipped to take over at Saint Lauren from Anthony Vaccarello, who confirmed his departure from Saint Laurent last week). Befitting the metaphor, Kamali presented looks fit for a downpour: from colourful raincoats – some overlaid with clear plastic – to dramatic rain hats, sou-wester style and falling away into a draping drape. Jack Moss

Dior’s scarf bags

The silk carré appeared in various iterations throughout the season’s collections, including at Hermès, where its classic foulard was pleated and strapped to the collection’s streamlined tops, while at Burberry, it served as the show’s invitation. At Dior, Jonathan Anderson created a netted Dior bag with two metal hooks on each side: the idea is that you can attach a Dior carré (whether with tassels, petals or whimsical prints) in an act of constant transformation – when you tire of one scarf, you can simply replace it with another for a whole new bag (watch them in action here). Jack Moss

Saint Laurent’s golden heels

Rendered in glimmering shades of gold, Anthony Vaccarello’s S/S 2027 show for Saint Laurent was a fitting swansong for the designer, who evoked the metallic hue to represent fashion’s transformative power (he would leave the house the week after presenting the runway show, marking the end of a ten-year tenure at the Parisian house). The gilded mood went all the way down to the accessories, from opulent blown-up earrings – evocative of the house’s 1980s heyday – to intricate, jewellery-like footwear which appeared hewn from gold. Jack Moss

In a time when flawless skin, plumped lips and ‘no make-up’ make-up seem like the norm, a beauty company that centres itself around the concept of celebrating imperfections feels fresh in a way few other brands do. Ommage, the new make-up brand from model and entrepreneur Lara Worthington, is just that, with lipstick designed to be blurred, a tinted cream designed not to mask the complexion, and packaging intended to look like it's been crushed.

Worthington designed the brand with Brian Roettinger, the renowned graphic designer known for creating the album art and visual identities for everyone from Jay-Z to St. Vincent, and for collaborations with brands such as Chanel and Skims. Together, the pair worked for three years to fully develop a line of products (two of which have been launched so far, along with a brush to apply the tinted cream) that took a distinctly different approach to beauty – a challenge in an industry where every week, if not every day, seems to bring the announcement of a new brand.

Colour was a key starting point for the pair, with products having their own unique packaging shade, developed over innumerable back-and-forth conversations to fine-tune the tone. The final colours, ‘a matcha with too much milk’ green for the tinted face cream (named First Base) and a rich oxblood colour for the Lip Coat, drew inspiration from Joseph Albers’ writing on colour theory, and the artists Worthington encountered in the museums and galleries of New York, where she now lives.

Of course, as a beauty brand, what really makes Ommage noteworthy is the similarly exacting approach applied to the products that lie inside the packaging.

First Base was the product where the Ommage project started for Worthington, a buildable tinted cream developed according to a translucent, three-pigment matrix for each shade category, with soft-focus fillers to diffuse light across the face and to diminish the appearance of fine lines. Mineral powders also work to reduce the appearance of dullness or redness, all resulting in an ultra-lightweight cream that makes skin looking bright and healthy while also still looking like your skin. It's the kind of product that will hide your discolouration without concealing your freckles.

First Base is meant to be applied with the brand’s Buffer Brush, a real standout in the category with densely packed, but super-soft, bristles designed to mimic the pressure of fingertips. An ergonomic handle and curved brush shape make it easy to quickly buff the cream over the face without missing or overcoating any areas of the face.

The final product of the initial launch, the Lip Coat, has the same unfussy, comfortably lightweight feeling as the foundation, but whereas First Base is designed to preserve, if slightly improve, the look of your skin, Lip Coat is intended to make an impact. ‘There’s so much about liners, TikTok videos about creating the perfect lip and things like that at the moment, but I see this brand as a choose-your-own-adventure kind of thing with its reds, browns, and purples,’ says Worthington. ‘If we were so colourful on the outside, the product couldn’t just be nudes. I feel like the imperfections on the outside and the expression of colour had to match. Both sides had to come together.’

Hence, the line of eight initial shades with a lightly satin finish that has been designed to be blurred onto lips to give a light just-kissed tint, or layered a few extra times for a high-impact burst of colour. The blurring aspect was an essential component of Worthington’s ‘beauty in imperfections’ concept of the brand, and its philosophy reflected in the packaging as well, which has been designed to look as if it’s been crunch, twisted, or pulled.

‘I found inspiration in objects that have been put under pressure over time, like dented or squashed cars,’ says Roettinger. ‘I think those things are interesting because they’re formally and aesthetically quite beautiful, but they’re unintentional. When something gets crushed, it isn’t an aesthetic choice.’ And while the approach is unconventional, it’s not, as Roettinger says, a ‘zany art-school-teacher look, it feels trustworthy, premium’.

The performance of the products meets luxury standards but its price point remains relatively accessible compared to similar brands in the category. ‘The design makes it luxury,’ says Worthington, ‘but that doesn't necessarily mean the price has to be luxury. Great design doesn't have to be expensive.’

ommage.com

The symbiosis of art and fashion is well-documented and nowhere is this more evident than at Frieze’s various international editions, whereby the arrival of the contemporary art fair also heralds a slew of activations from fashion houses and brands as they seek to capitalise on the week’s cultural capital (and, indeed, high-spending clientele – it is often said that Frieze is like fashion week with more expensive handbags).

That said, this year’s Frieze London, which arrives in the capital this week (14-18 October), is noticeably lighter on such crossovers, paving the way for more meaningful partnerships between fashion and art. Case in point: Stone Island’s sponsorship of Frieze Focus, the arm of the fair which supports young galleries and their artists, or Dunhill’s continuing Frieze Masters Talks, which have yielded some genuinely meaningful conversations on the state of art and society in recent years (Tracey Emin was 2025’s highlight; this year, Es Devlin and Grayson Perry play headliners).

Elsewhere, Jonathan Anderson – a designer who has long cultivated a strong relationship with the art world – is hosting an exhibition of British artists and craftspeople at his Pimlico store, while the Lee Alexander McQueen-founded Sarabande Foundation will host an ephemeral pop-up in Selfridges, allowing shoppers to purchase the spoils of its artists’ work (and also view the artists at work, via a series of special open workshops). Dover Street Market will also host its usual bazaar-like Frieze celebration on Thursday evening (15 October 2026), including the relaunch of Comme des Garçons’ short-lived but influential magazine, Six.

Discover Wallpaper’s picks of the best fashion moments at Frieze London 2026 below.

Stone Island supports up-and-coming galleries through Frieze Focus

Earlier this month, Stone Island opened ‘Selected Works '982–'026’ at The Corner Shop, Selfridges, an ephemeral space designed by Willo Perron which puts the brand’s collectors in the spotlight (Stone Island has achieved a near-religious following; in the store, various collectors will display their archives as well as curate more recent products). Its opening coincides with the brand’s return as the partner of Frieze Focus, the fair’s ‘platform’ for emerging artists and galleries. Marking Stone Island’s 12th partnership with Frieze London, it will support each of the participating galleries with a bursary that allows them to show at the fair. Alongside, the brand will also reveal its latest Frieze uniform T-shirt, this time featuring an artwork by Senegalese artist Arébénor Basséne, represented by the Dakar-based gallery Selebe Yoon. Not working the fair? You can buy your own at Selfridges across the week.

‘Selected Works ’982–’26 Stone Island: The Collector Series’ runs until 6 November 2026 at Selfridges Corner Shop. For a full schedule of cultural programming, visit Stone Island’s website.

Dover Street Market celebrates Frieze 2026

Each Frieze Week, the London outpost of Adrian Joffe and Rei Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market transforms into a veritable bazaar as participants from the worlds of fashion and art create a series of limited-edition offerings that go up for sale (alongside, on the evening of October 15, there will also be book signings, launches and other happenings unfolding across the Haymarket store). ‘Things to see, hear and stumble upon; with familiar faces and unexpected encounters,’ says the concept store, which will also offer refreshments from its in-store café, Rose Bakery. The event will also see the relaunch of Six by Comme des Garçons, a magazine which initially ran from 1988-1991, alongside appearances from the likes of Marc Quinn, Martine Rose, Matières Fécales, Michèle Lamy & Sissy Misfit, Ministry of Sound, Quil Lemons, Susie Cave, Tim Walker and Tremaine Emory.

Dunhill hosts its latest round of Frieze Masters talks

The Frieze Masters Talks, hosted by British heritage house Dunhill, offer respite from the frenetic main fair. In a specially curated space, the intimate conversations between a select group artists, curators and other cultural figures address a single theme – this year, ‘Breaking the Mould’. Curated for the second year running by Arturo Galansino, director general of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, participants include Wallpaper* October 2026 issue guest editor Es Devlin, Grayson Perry and Goshka Macuga, among others, discussing – across various more specific topics – how ‘historical art forms and materials can be reinterpreted for the present’.

'The title of this year's talks programme, “Breaking the Mould”, suggests not only the possibility of challenging conventions, but also the need to rethink the forms through which we construct, transmit and interpret culture,’ says Galansio. ‘This idea runs through each of the conversations, bringing together some of today’s leading artists, architects, museum directors, curators, art historians and writers. Their diverse perspectives will create a dialogue between contemporary practice and historical research, personal experience and institutional responsibility.’

For the full schedule and to book tickets, visit the Frieze website. The talks run from 14-17 October 2026.

JW Anderson curates a new exhibition in its Pimlico store

Throughout his career, Northern Irish fashion designer Jonathan Anderson has forged a close relationship with the art world – most recently, as creative director of Dior, whereby his Los Angeles Cruise show featured a collaboration with Ed Ruscha, while a Paris exhibition celebrating his haute couture debut put his designs in conversation with the ceramic works of Magdalene Odundo. To mark this year’s Frieze Week, he has curated an intimate exhibition at his eponymous label’s store in Pimlico, titled ‘A Composition’ (it is staged with American Express Platinum). The presentation, which will sit among the store’s eclectic curation of fashion and craft objects, centres around 30 glass wind chimes by Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans, developed for the show, alongside selected works from London’s White Cube Gallery, including pieces by Akiko Hirai, Mary Stephenson and Shawanda Corbett. It will be a busy week for Anderson, who will also launch a new collaboration with Australian footwear brand Ugg, accompanied by a campaign starring multi-hyphenate musician Dev Hynes.

Sarabande’s House of Bandits pops up in Selfridges

Sarabande, the charitable foundation which was founded by Lee Alexander McQueen to provide subsidised studio spaces for young creatives, has helped forge the careers of some of London’s best young designers, among them Torishéju Dumi, Paolo Carzana, Aaron Esh and Stefan Cooke, among others (Sarabande also supports those in other disciplines, including art and design). Coinciding with Frieze Week, House of Bandits, the institution’s in-house gallery – headquartered in Sarabande’s recently opened Tottenham space – is staging a two-week pop-up in Selfridges, bringing the anarchic spirit of the foundation to the London department store. Expect ‘graphic, colourful, intriguing and innovative’ works from current Sarabande artists and alumni, including Daisy Collingridge, George Wilkin, Rizza Hadid and Jack Laver, among others. Throughout the event, various artists will also be moving their studios to the new Ground Floor Art Space, allowing shoppers to see their work in progress.

Until 18 October 2026 at the Duke Street entrance, Selfridges.

‘The 90s: Fashion and Art’ continues at Tate Britain

Former Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful has turned curator for a new exhibition at Tate Britain, which traces the relationship between fashion and art during a definitive decade – the 1990s. Opening last week with a starry gala, the exhibition continues throughout Frieze Week and into the new year, attempting to capture ‘the freedom, chaos and creativity’ of the era. Cue works from the likes of Juergen Teller (who created a limited-edition Wallpaper* cover to celebrate the exhibition’s opening), Steve McQueen, Damien Hearst, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and the like, alongside fashion from Alexander McQueen (his eponymous house also features as main sponsor), Vivienne Westwood and Hussein Chalayan). ‘It's just my view of the 90s, with my friends, great artists that I was lucky enough to grow up with and be around, have a couple of drinks with,’ says Enninful in the November issue of Wallpaper*. ‘So it was really a pleasure, working with people who were so great at what they did, and redefined a whole decade.’

'The 90s: Art and Fashion’, curated by Edward Enninful, is on show until 14 February 2027 at Tate Britain, London SW1.

Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena, the designers behind raucous London-based label Chopova Lowena, have fond memories of Dr Martens footwear. ‘[We remember] wearing our Docs to play at primary school, to thrash at Warped Tour, and to run between classes at university,’ say the pair, who revealed custom pairs of the brand’s Aurix line as part of their S/S 2027 show at London Fashion Week this past September. True to style, they were adorned with buckles, topstitching, faux fur and checkered finishes, capturing what they called the ‘rebellion and joy’ central to their spirited label (they say they are perfect for ‘headbanging, stomping, and dancing’).

The collaboration (available later in autumn) was part of a wider set of partnerships from Dr Martens, whose history dates back to 1945, when Dr Klaus Maertens created an air-cushioned sole to aid his recovery from a broken foot. In the decades since – and after a collaboration with British bootmaker R Griggs Group created the signature ‘1460 Airwair’ boot that saw the brand officially launch in 1960 – Dr Martens has become synonymous with rebellion and subculture, the hardwearing style adopted by punks, mods, Britpoppers and the American grunge movement of the 1990s.

The latest collaborations, which are called ‘Statements in Craft’, and also saw Dr Martens unite with Labrum and Fashion East’s Goyagoma on the London Fashion Week runway, as well as with Sage Nation in a standalone project, are part of a wider reinvention of the footwear brand (an earlier iteration of the series came with Dr Martens’ collaboration with Margaret Howell’s MHL line). In late September, Dr Martens launched its ‘With Bouncing Soles’ platform – its name a reference to a tagline that is stitched into pairs of classic Dr Martens – seeing figures such as actress Chloë Sevigny, musician Jordan Stephens and comedian Naomi Watanabe join a wider cast of ‘community and tastemakers’.

The brand says the campaign is rooted in the ‘micro-joys’ of fandom, with the majority of the participants having worn Dr Martens throughout their lives. ‘I’ve always been drawn to pieces that become more personal the longer you live in them, and Dr Martens has always represented that for me,’ says Sevigny. Each participant was asked: ‘What makes your sole bounce?’; for Sevigny, ‘it’s staying curious – taking on new roles, finding inspiration in unexpected places, and always being open to what’s next’.

‘“With Bouncing Soles” has been stitched into some of our most iconic boots and shoes since production started in 1960. [Now] it becomes the creative thread that connects the people who have shaped Dr Martens with a new generation discovering the brand for themselves,’ says Neil Cummings, global brand creative director, who has led the campaign. Beyond the initial images, a roster of events will take place at the brand’s London Brewer Street store in the coming months, from a set-up by Camberwell’s Lala Books to poetry readings, comedy nights and writing workshops.

The ‘Statements in Craft’ series will run alongside, and is rooted in the idea of collaboration – a defining tenet of the brand. Each of the various collaborations is distinct: at Sage Nation, Sage Toda-Nation took a stripped-back approach, reimagining the cult 1461 shoe with a double-welt seam which runs along the front of the shoe in a reference to his signature welt-stitch trouser; at Labrum, Sierra Leone-born designer Foday Dumbuya adorned the ‘Desert Oasis’ suede boot with a floral motif as part of his S/S 2027 runway show.

Dr Martens has coined the term ‘alternative craft’ to describe the way the various designers have approached the collections: a reference to the way in which its traditional boots and shoes are handcrafted in its Northamptonshire factory using tanneries such as CF Stead in Leeds. ‘Dr Martens is a British icon built on making things properly, boots made to protect you on your journey. I saw a shared language there,’ says Dumbuya, who evoked the Olokun flower, associated with Olokun, a West African deity of the sea, on his design.

‘For me, alternative craft is about who gets to be called a craftsman. Where I come from, the people who carved the Nomoli, who dyed the cloth, who forged the bronze, they were masters, but history didn't always write their names down,’ he continues. ‘Alternative craft is honouring those hands and carrying that knowledge forward into spaces it was never invited into. Craft isn't only technique, it's memory.’

‘At Sage we use very little print or embellishment – the focus always comes down to construction and detail, which is why craft is so important to us,’ adds Toda-Nation. ‘[It’s] why the detailing on this shoe felt like the perfect touch. It was an accent that the Made in England factory in Northampton were excited to execute. We love working with our makers on designs that are new to them; I believe that’s how we can keep heritage craft around, by expanding its vocabulary.’

Dr Martens x Sage Nation is available now. Dr Martens x Chopova Lowena will be available this autumn; Dr Martens x Labrum will be available this winter

drmartens.com

It has been almost two years since the British designer Kim Jones stepped away from his role at Dior Men after a seven-year tenure, having exited Fendi – where he oversaw womenswear and haute couture – the October prior (he was at the Italian house for four years).

In the time since, Jones has not left fashion entirely: in October 2025, he was drafted by Chinese outerwear behemoth Bosideng to helm a new line titled ‘Areal’ which launched with a 20-piece capsule, while Switzerland-based luxury hotel brand Aman drafted the designer to create a collection of casual- and sleepwear for its Aman Essentials offshoot.

But this morning Jones announces a more definitive return to fashion with the launch of an eponymous label, Kim Jones (in some ways, it could be considered a relaunch, having held an eponymous line from 2003-2008 after graduating from the MA Fashion menswear program in 2002). It will launch for A/W 2027, placing it within a season of shows which will run from January-March (whether or not he will show at one of these fashion weeks is yet to be announced) and he will work on the line alongside his longtime design collaborator, Lucy Beeden (according to Business of Fashion, the pair will hold a majority stake alongside a ‘undisclosed investor’).

‘After many years working with incredible houses and collaborators, it feels like the right moment to do something under my own name again,’ says Jones, who was awarded an OBE in 2020 for services to the fashion and textile industry, having also served as creative director of Dunhill (2008-2010) and Louis Vuitton’s menswear line (2011-2018). ‘This brings together the things I’ve always been interested in – fashion, art and design – and gives me the space to work with people I admire and explore new ideas.’

So far, little more about the collection has been revealed by the London-born designer, save for its logo (the designer’s name in lower-case serif, presented on the diagonal), and its production, which will take place largely in Japan, having been designed in his London studio (leather goods will be crafted in Italy). Prices, meanwhile, are described as ‘considered’ and the collection will be designed ‘with versatility at its core, [offering] a broader wardrobe unrestricted by traditional categories.’ Several of the designs will draw on pieces from Jones’ archive.

The collection will launch in mid-2027 on the designer’s new website, while the first bricks-and-mortar store is slated for Hong Kong in autumn of 2027 (the 4,000 sq ft address is in new development Central Yards, which overlooks Victoria Harbour). Further stores across Asia, and international retail partners, are expected to follow. ‘I’m excited about what comes next,’ says the designer.

A certain segment of New York’s population will get in line for just about anything – pastries, soft serve, the Jimmy Choo sample sale. Late January was no exception when throngs of people queued to catch a whiff of the rare Amorphophallus gigas, more commonly known as the Corpse Flower, at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

The putrid blossom smells like carrion to attract pollinators and only blooms for a few days. But the flower, christened ‘Smelliot’ by garden staffers, made a lasting impression on US400 perfumer David Seth Moltz, the co-founder of the cult New York fragrance brand, DS & Durga.

‘I was tracking it on their socials like everyone else. I happened to time [my visit] at peak stink,’ Moltz tells Wallpaper* says of his visit to BBG. ‘The aroma was so multifaceted - layers of cheese, garbage, rotten fish, death, rubber lily.’

Such a stink would cause most to run for the hills. But for Moltz, who has synesthesia, a condition in which the act of smelling can also present visual images and colors, the scent was a revelation.

‘I stuck my nose inside and stayed there for a while,’ he says. ‘I started to think how cool it would be if the most putrid flower was reborn in gorgeous opposition – rubber lily bulb becomes Madonna lily, cheese becomes tuberose, etcetera. Synesthesia comes into the process of how I make all perfumes – like painting and shading a scent based on the colours triggered by what I sniff.’

The result is one of the most unusual, and hypnotic, perfumes to hit the market recently, Resurrected Corpse Flower. The fragrance is the diametric opposite to its odiferous inspiration. Where the corpse flower smells like rot, this aroma is fresh and primordial with notes of bog cedar, heady lily and hypnotic tuberose.

‘It’s a balance of contrasts,’ Moltz explains. ‘Most of the notes are multidimensional. It opens with green olive – which is salty, yet fresh. Grapefruit – bitter, but floral and fresh. Tuberose – floral but chalky. Green banana – tart.’ All told, it brings to mind a very sexy swamp.

Moltz hopes that the new perfume draws plant lovers and ‘anyone who is interested in flowers with a real interesting twist.’ It's a twist that's certainly well worth the whiff. But those who want the opportunity to inhale the aroma of the real McCoy will have to wait – Smelliot only blooms once every few years.

It is one year on since what was dubbed ‘fashion’s great reset’, a phenomenon which saw 15 new creative directors take their place at some of the industry’s best-known houses – among them Jonathan Anderson and Dior, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, and Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta.

And, while the majority of these names are consolidating their visions and honing house codes, fashion seems to stand on a precipice once again: next season will see a new round of debuts, including Pieter Mulier at Versace and Dario Vitale at Emporio Armani (Vitale’s own spirited debut last September at Versace saw him ousted after just one season, though his first and only collection has since gained a cult following; his successor, Mulier, comes to the house after an acclaimed stint at Alaïa). And, after news on Friday (9 October) that Anthony Vaccarello is leaving Saint Laurent after a decade, questions have arisen about what’s next for both the designer and house (Chloé’s Chemena Kamali is tipped to take over – though that will leave a role to be filled at Chloé, too).

This ever-shifting fashion landscape – one accompanied by fervent online commentary and constant speculation – seems an apt reflection of the overwhelm of contemporary life. Designers have faced this information overload by largely shifting away from the strict thematics or specific inspiration points which once defined runway collections, favouring of a more intuitive approach to dressing (itself a reflection of the way people are putting together an outfit on the street). This was a clear through-line of the S/S 2027 collections – which concluded with Paris Fashion Week earlier this week after shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris – whereby designers like Sarah Burton at Givenchy, Miuccia Prada at Miu Miu, Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten and Michael Rider at Celine all proposed a way of dressing that mixed up eclectic elements for a resolutely individual of style.

That said, as ever, more definitive trends emerged throughout the month of shows – from the renaissance of the skirt (Prada showed one with every single look) to a pursuit of lightness that defined ethereal collections from Louis Vuitton, Hemès and Dior. Here, according to Wallpaper* editors, these are the five trends which defined the S/S 2027 season.

Skirt redux

Every look of Prada’s S/S 2027 runway show featured a skirt, a purposeful conceit from co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, who used the garment this season as a ‘canvas for ideas’ (the skirt has long been a part of the Prada ouevre; ‘a skirt is like a T-shirt,’ Mrs Prada said on the the Charlie Rose show in 2006). Here, they came in a multitude of iterations, from those which fastened with thick strips of coloured Velcro to colourful pleated nylon and latex, jewellery-like webs of flowers, or those wrapped in layers of tulle (feminine bows peaked out from beneath, as if preserved in a museum archive). In a preview, Mrs Prada called the skirt the ‘most flexible’ garment (she rarely wears anything else), with Simons adding that it can traverse different moods. ‘You want to be sexy, you want to be luxurious, you want to go to work, you want to be at ease with your kids,’ he said. ‘There are all kinds of skirts [for that].’

Editors seemed in little need of persuasion: such is Prada’s influence, the garment had a notable renaissance among the street-style set this season (the most popular? Dario Vitale’s colourful face-print skirt, created during his brief tenure at Versace). On the runway, there were multiple versions of the perennial womenswear style – proof of duo’s maxim that there is a skirt for everyone. At Prada’s sister brand, Miu Miu, they came in houndstooth with cross-lace fastening (left purposely undone, they revealed colourful swimwear beneath); at Loewe, skirts were dramatically draped to evoke traditional Andalusian dress; while at Dior, they came in delicate layers of organza – part of designer Jonathan Anderson’s ongoing pursuit of lightness. Meanwhile at Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, a multitude of skirts reflected his own ambition to cater to the multiplicities of women’s lives – largely narrow and knee-length they came in smocked tweed, sheer panels of organza, or were edged with the house’s superlative embroidery and beading.

A pursuit of lightness

The soaring temperatures across Europe this summer, which tipped over 40 degrees – including during the menswear and haute couture weeks in Florence, Milan and Paris in June – cemented the inevitable truth that over the coming decades, summers will only get hotter. Designers responded this season with collections which were defined by a pursuit of lightness; this was particularly true in Paris, whereby designers including Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton, Nadège Vanhée at Hermès and Jonathan Anderson at Dior all reimagined wardrobe archetypes in ultra-lightweight fabrications. At the latter, Anderson created featherweight organza tailoring printed to appear like classic tailoring wools, while ethereal plissé fabrics and delicate petal adornment were designed to reflected the misted show set. ‘Something that, as it walks, leaves a kind of residue behind,’ he said, noting that such was the lightness of the looks, many could fit inside a shoebox.

Vanhée and Ghesquière, meanwhile, both said that their own breathable collections – the former featuring perforated suede for air flow; the latter diaphanous tailoring constructed from the lightest of knits – were a response to the rising heat (Vanhée had found it unavoidable during trips across Europe and America earlier this year). ‘[The warm summer] definitely was an influence,’ said Ghesquière. ‘We needed to think differently. You want one layer. It’s almost like a skin in these clothes – there’s a suit, but it’s a jersey with no lining, an extremely fluid.’

New florals

‘Florals for spring? Groundbreaking.’ So goes the withering refrain from Runway editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly in the first Devil Wears Prada movie. And, while the fictional editrix might be somewhat correct about the cliché in the Spring/Summer collections, this season saw designers embrace the floral motif in energetic and intriguing ways. At Prada, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons used floral motifs throughout the collection: from those embroidered onto the collection’s Velcro fastenings to chintzy prints evoking 1960s home furnishings (crystal flowers also appeared across the skirts which evoked jewellery, as well as embellishment on perforated shoes).

A similar mood was captured at Burberry, whereby bold floral embroidery and prints had been designed by Celia Birtwell, a textile designer who is synonymous with the Swinging Sixties (she would dress several of its protagonists, and serve as a muse to friend David Hockney). Creative director Daniel Lee said he was inspired by her ‘her energy, and her zest for life’, and her designs for Burberry, which also featured playful smiley faces and a loosened-up version of the house’s check, encapsulated this approach. Flowers also appeared at MSGM (electric bright and adorning matching shirts and ties), Maison Margiela (clashing nostalgic floral prints recalling wallpaper or bed linen), Dries Van Noten (sequinned flowers peeking out from beneath the hem of a skirt), Dior (dresses adorned in organza petals), and Chanel (corsages evoking those favoured by Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel).

Meanwhile at Bottega Veneta, flowers might not have appeared on the runway but they did on guests’ seats: on each of the crushed cardboard stools, created by artist Illya Goldman Gubin, was a single flower, crafted from leather by the house’s atelier.

Inside out

Competing with the skirt for garment of the season was the bra top, which appeared in endless iterations throughout fashion month – including at Prada, where the collection’s skirts were largely worn with bralettes, from classic satin recalling vintage underwear to barely-there strips of fabric which had a futuristic bent. The designers called these looks ‘illogical combinations’, and indeed across the season the bra appeared in unexpected ways: at Miu Miu, bejewelled and worn over sporty rash vests; at Fendi, lace-trimmed and accessorised with a fur stole; while at Dior, a simple black bra top peeked out from beneath an otherwise delicate skirt suit crafted from trailing pale grey strands of organza. Bandeaus were also ubiquitous, from the playful (a knitted blue bandeau top came adorned with cartoonish poppies at Drew Henry’s Courrèges debut), to the streamlined, like those which appeared as part of Nadège Vanhée’s latest Hermès collection.

They were part of a wider boudoir mood also ran through the season, not least through the ubiquity of satin, which featured heavily in Michael Rider’s latest collection for Celine, treated to appear gently pressed and creased (the effect was like waking up having worn silk or satin pyjamas). Other dresses in the collection recalled nighties or negligees in their construction, albeit sized up and reimagined in heavier fabrications, or unbuttoned at the shoulder as if in a process of removal. Meanwhile at LVMH Prize Winner 2026 Julie Kegels’ latest show, sliced-up deconstructed bras sat atop T-shirts, and at Ester Manas – in the brand’s return to the runway after two years – a collaboration with 161-year-old Belgian lingerie brand Primadonna saw its one-size-fits-all approach applied to lacy, sheer negligees, slips and leggings (beating out the trend, the co-collection is available now).

Intuitive style

Some of the best collections this season were those where the designer embraced an intuitive approach to dressing – among them Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and Michael Rider at Celine. ‘I wanted a sense of balance and clarity,’ said the former 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.’ As such, the British designer’s latest collection spanned the pragmatic (well-cut jeans; roomy poplin shirts; riffs on the trench coat; woolen overcoats) and more bold expressions of feminine style, from cinched-waist peplum tailoring and pom-pom-adorned pumps, to red-carpet-ready Grecian gowns with in-built metal ‘wings’ or those adorned with Japanese motifs in swathes of bugle beads. There were even belt buckles which doubled as powder compacts. ‘[I want to] make sure that she has the wardrobe, that she feels that she could use,’ Burton said.

This idea of designing for a woman on the move, and creating a wardrobe which transforms through the day, ran throughout the S/S 2027 collections (it continues from A/W 2026, where collections at Prada and Chanel literally depicted the metamorphosis of a wardrobe through a given day). Cue a more liberated approach to dressing: garments were often mixed up in clashing combinations – at Acne Studios, taffeta and brocade skirts and dresses were worn with leather trousers; at Miu Miu, bejewelled cocktail dresses with swimwear; or at Proenza Schouler, a simple ribbed vest and jeans worn with a ballooning sheer floral jacket on top ‘I think that there’s a lot of liberty in how women dress here,’ said Proenza designer Rachel Scott, referring to New York, where the brand is based. ‘We’re not following rules, like: eveningwear must be worn with this kind of shoe, or bag. You see people in New York in the middle of the day with a gown on, and it’s totally normal and invisible, and I find that really inspiring.’

Sometimes, it was just about adding small flourishes of glamour to everyday attire: such was the modus operandi of at Dries Van Noten, who said there was joy to be had when affixing a brooch to a simple rugby shirt, or slipping a bejewelled dress over the T-shirt you might have worn in bed. ‘Dressing up for yourself, playing in front of the mirror, trying things on, getting into a role,’ he described. ‘Discovering a different facet. A red lip, a dazzling brooch, a cinched belt – so little is needed to spark that feeling.’

‘I have to say, I used to think people who are crazy about natural perfume are the kind of people who rubbed rocks on themselves or something,’ says Amy Smilovic, creative director of the New York-based clothing brand Tibi.

‘Rock deodorant,’ Frances Shoemack, founder of Abel, clarifies, as we sit in the Paris showroom that will soon host the launch party for the duo’s new fragrance.

‘But once I started wearing Abel, I realised that natural fragrances could be something completely different,’ says Tibi.

Abel has indeed made itself something of a revolutionary in the world of fragrance by using 100 per cent natural ingredients to create perfumes that are as complex, long-lasting and appealing as their synthetic counterparts (ie, most fragrances on the market today). Through a specialised fermentation process, the brand transforms plant sugars into scent molecules, which are then constructed into niche perfumes by master perfumer Isaac Sinclair. Rock deodorants, these are not.

Shoemack and Sinclair teamed up to create a scent for Tibi that reflected the brand’s philosophy of ‘creative pragmatism’, or clothes that combine everyday utility with a unique, creative sensibility. It’s that contrast – between ease and inventiveness, minimalism and a slight edge – that the pair sought to recreate in fragrance form.

To do that, Sinclair started with a heart of paper and vetiver. ‘The paper gives it a freshness and the vetiver a woodiness,’ he says. ‘So we were lucky to [hit on] that combination right from the beginning because it created the contrast we were looking for. Then it was just a question of kind of filling it out.’

The ingredients filling it out include yerba mate from South America for a soft, herbaceous quality; timut pepper from Nepal for a sharp, almost spicy quality; and grapefruit for additional freshness. The final result is bright and clean, like skin fresh out of the shower, but with the added complexity of the woody vetiver.

For Shoemack and Smilovic, the process of conceptualising the fragrance was an effortless one. To start, Smilovic brought Shoemack a selection of perfumes she had worn herself over the years to give Shoemack a sense of taste and preferences. From there, the Abel team spent two years working on the formulation without the pressure of a tight deadline, perfecting it until they hit on a scent that felt modern and easy to wear, in the same vein as the clothes Smilovic designs. The final result is a fresh fragrance with a unique woody undertone that challenges the expectations of what a natural fragrance can be.

At the end of Anthony Vaccarello’s latest runway show for Saint Laurent, held as part of Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, the Belgian designer handed a set of keys to his son Luca after his finale bow. The gesture all but confirmed the rumours that had been swirling for some time among fashion insiders, that Vaccarello was leaving the Parisian house after a transformative ten-year tenure.

This morning, after previously having denied the rumour, Saint Laurent has confirmed that Vaccarello has stepped down from his position as creative director of the house’s mens- and womenswear lines. His final collection, presented under three enormous chandeliers in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, would prove a fitting swansong: the show reimagined Yves Saint Laurent’s hallmarks – among them the trench, the safari jacket, brocade tailoring and ruffled blouses – in gleaming shades of gold.

Anthony Vaccarello is leaving Saint Laurent

A statement from the house said that Vaccarello ‘played a key role in Saint Laurent’s development, helping to strengthen its identity and influence across the worlds of fashion and culture’.

Indeed, over the past decade Vaccarello – who came to the house having run his own eponymous label, and also created collections for Versus Versace, the Italian house’s diffusion line – has honed a precise vision for Saint Laurent, one rooted in a mood of nocturnal glamour and powerful femininity synonymous with house founder Yves Saint Laurent. He has often done so through repetition: his collections for both the house’s mens- and womenswear lines saw him repeat a silhouette – often power-shouldered and cut with absolute precision – until it became a definitive Saint Laurent look.

But Vaccarello also transformed the house into a cultural behemoth. His runway shows were cinematic in scope, from those which ended each season with the Eiffel Tower’s glittering light show (his womenswear collections largely took place in the open air at Paris’ Place du Trocadéro) to menswear collections shown around the world, from a Malibu beach to the Moroccan desert, the latter backdropped by a futuristic glowing ring by Wallpaper* October 2026 guest editor Es Devlin.

He would also establish Saint Laurent Productions, marking the first time a fashion house had served as a film production agency. Films produced and financed by Saint Laurent Productions included the Oscar-winning Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother and David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds.

His time at the house has also been defined by critical and commercial success: he won the 2026 International Designer of the Year at the CFDA Awards, and tripled the house’s revenues to over €3 billion. Recent years have been more difficult at the house – part of a wider luxury slowdown – with revenues falling in 2025 by six per cent.

‘I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Anthony for his contribution to Saint Laurent over the past ten years,’ says Luca de Meo, CEO of Kering, the luxury goods conglomerate that owns the house. ‘Through his creative vision and exacting standards, he has contributed to strengthening the enduring influence of one of France’s greatest couture houses, as we embark on a new chapter in its history.’

Vaccarello himself is yet to issue a personal statement, though he has previously called Saint Laurent ‘the holy grail of fashion houses’. There have been no indications of his next move.

Meanwhile, at Saint Laurent, it has been speculated that Chemena Kamali, creative director of Chloé, will succeed Vaccarello. If so, it will be something of a homecoming: the German fashion designer previously worked as ready-to-wear design director at the house from 2016 to 2023.

One of Lyn Harris’s most distinctive qualities as a perfumer is her ability to transform some of the most mundane aspects of everyday life – salt, ink, steam – into convention-defining scents that express her unique sensibility as a nose.

Her new fragrance, Clay, sees Harris draw inspiration from the most fundamental aspect of everyday life, yet to create what she calls her 'translation of the earth.' At its heart is a baked clay accord she developed as the olfactory embodiment of the material’s transformation from malleable substance to a permanent work of art--notes of sandalwood evoke the creaminess of soft clay, while ambroxan provides a touch of minerality; maltol adds a toasted quality that amplifies the impression of clay being fired, while orange flower threads throughout to create a subtle brightness.

To complement the launch, Harris collaborated with Aaron Angell, founder of the London ceramics studio Troy Town, to create ceramic versions of Perfumer H’s signature bottles, which will be displayed in Perfumer H stores alongside a select number of other ceramic pieces from Angell’s studio.

Working with Angell felt like a natural choice for Harris, who has long used Perfumer H as a platform to celebrate the work of other artists. ‘Troy Town and Aaron are completely unique and born out of Aaron’s love of old whimsical Victorian ceramics fused with his love of traditional Japanese Oribe ceramics and how he adapts this methodology to his work,’ says Harris. ‘ I just fell in love with this unconventional way of thinking and totally love his ideas behind each piece.’

Harris’s collaboration follows similar partnerships she’s done with Studio Nicholson (creating the Soap fragrance alongside a small apparel capsule by Nicholson), Will Calver (who created paintings inspired by Harris’s Rose with Insect perfume), and Michael Ruh (who hand-blows glass vessels for some of the brand’s fragrances), among many others.

Harris's collaborative process with each artist is different. 'I work to the temperament and rhythm of each artist,’ she says. ‘With Aaron, I gave him the bottle and a sample of the fragrance and gave him free rein to translate as he saw fit.'

'Then 3 months later I got these incredible pieces that just blew me away. He told me the clay he used was created with feldspar to give it texture, and then he dipped the glaze with pine needle ash before firing to, as Aaron says, create colours with this peacock effect, creating something which is unique to Troy Town.'

It’s hard to identify a unifying theme across the architecture of S/S 2027, which oscillated between minimalist, gallery-style white cubes, artificial gardens, and high octane glamour. For some, art was the order of the day – like for Louise Trotter, who commissioned three separate artists to participate in the build of Bottega Veneta’s space, or at Calvin Klein, where curated pieces from the artist Walter De Maria were spread across multiple rooms.

Demna returned with another uncanny facsimile for Gucci, this time a boutique under construction, and in New York and Paris, Tory Burch and Jonathan Anderson respectively let ornamental gardens form the backdrop of their ready-to-wear offerings.

With global fashion month now at an end, discover some of the season-defining sets, as chosen by Wallpaper*.

The best runway sets of S/S 2027

Tory Burch

Rocks play an important role in a Japanese garden, their symbolism varied according to quantity (two, three, five, or seven), as well as shape, size, and facade. At the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, artist Isamu Noguchi had seven stones brought from the Uji River in Japan as the centrepiece for his sunken garden, built between 1961–64. Designed to counterbalance a neighbouring skyscraper, the harmonious composition of the rocks evoke a meditative, tranquil quality which contrasts the commerce and chaos represented by the surrounding Wall Street. For S/S 2027 Tory Burch played on this philosophy of balance, staging a show of riotous colour and a ‘more is more’ attitude, with the garden at the centre of a rotunda-runway which she had lined with a rich burnt orange carpet, its fountains visible through panels of red and turquoise, and the buzz of Wall Street overhead. India Jarvis

Calvin Klein

Multi-hyphenate Antwaun Sargent curated an installation of sculptural works by the Minimalist artist Walter De Maria in Chelsea’s Terminal Warehouse, to serve as backdrop for Calvin Klein’s own take on minimalism this season. ‘[They all] speak to De Maria’s fascination with geometry, repetition, and mathematical order, while their polished steel surfaces interact with the architecture, light, and movement of the fashion show,’ Sargent told Wallpaper*. ‘There is a natural connection between the principles of American Minimalism and the design language of Calvin Klein, particularly in their emphasis on clarity, restraint, and essential form.’ ‘American Minimalism was a discipline of removal: take away everything that does not carry the work, until only what is necessary remains,’ added creative director Veronica Leoni, who applied the same principles to her stripped-back S/S 2027 collection. India Jarvis

Read Wallpaper’s conversation with Sargent here.

Burberry

Where the backdrop for Daniel Lee’s A/W 2026 outing for Burberry was a drizzle London at night – trompe l'oeil puddles on tarmac and darkly-lit scaffolding – this season was a brighter and more optimistic mise-en-scène. Staged at Chelsea College of Art, the space for London Fashion Week’s closing show was sparsely dressed with pale-wooden seating and doors, shot through with criss-crossing black lines in a subtle ode to the classic Burberry check. Otherwise the room was an uplifting white, a blank canvas for a collection which featured colourful prints and embroidery created in collaboration with legendary British textile designer Celia Birtwell. India Jarvis

Prada

This season’s Prada show space mirrored the staging of Prada’s S/S 2027 menswear outing in June. The transparent Perspex runway was lit from beneath with strip-lighting – reinforcing the maxim of precision which has been at the core of the brand’s recent collections – after all, a lightbox is an essential instrument for meticulous accuracy in many fields. Wallpaper’s fashion and beauty features director Jack Moss described it as a bit like ‘being in an enormous photocopier.’ India Jarvis

Gucci

In anticipation of Demna’s newly conceived store concept for Gucci, opening in Paris this October, the Georgian designer transformed the space at Allianz Mi-Co into a store-in-progress to stage his sophomore ready-to-wear collection for the brand. Replete with stone friezes, plush, dove-grey carpet and velvet accents, and planes of solid marble, the set was a preview of what a Gucci store under Demna could include – yet for all the elegant trappings the artifice of the production was also a part of the storytelling (Demna would never go in for straightforward elegance, naturally). With rigging still visible overhead and faux street-views through ersatz windows, the set design became an uncanny simulacrum, a fitting backdrop for Demna’s ongoing musings on the fantasy of desire. India Jarvis

Saint Laurent

Four chandeliers formed the striking backdrop for Saint Laurent’s spectacular S/S 2027 show – the show many are speculating could be Anthony Vaccarello’s swansong (what a way to go, if so). Three of these were actual chandeliers, albeit blown up to epic proportions, candle-like torches emitting a dazzling gold glow, supported by ornate, three-tiered fixtures which echoed the curved ironwork of the Eiffel Tower – the fourth chandelier, itself illuminated in gold and assuming its position as magnificent Saint Laurent mascot. India Jarvis

Dior

Dedicated to the memory of Mathilde Favier, the long-term public relations director for the house of Dior who died in an accident this August, Jonathan Anderson pledged to replant the trees installed for his S/S 2027 show, in the Jardin de Tuileries, so that they will ‘continue to flourish in the years to come,’ a touching tribute to a much-loved figure.

The trees in question were camphors, arranged in clusters either side of the runway which bisected Le Bassin Octogonal – the second time the brand has centred its show around this feature of the Jardin de Tuileries during Anderson’s tenure. Dry ice hung low across the pond, like the fog of a forest at sunrise, before its burnt off by the morning sun. The show also saw the return of a pagoda-like structure around the perimeter of the basin – an enormous construction that days after the show was still in the process of being disassembled. India Jarvis

Maison Margiela

It’s a touching thing, to see designers in the top jobs supporting each other’s work, friendships and respect that transcend company delineations. Donatella Versace and Pierpaolo Piccioli were amongst those in attendance at the Saint Laurent show, while Haider Ackermann attended Nicolas Ghesquière’s Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur award ceremony (the designers are at Tom Ford and Louis Vuitton, respectively). Maison Margiela took this a step further for S/S 2027, staging the collection in a set designed in homage to fellow Belgian designer Raf Simons’ debut collection at Dior back in 2012, immortalised in the 2014 documentary Dior and I. Simons’ celebrated scenography saw floor-to-ceiling flowers in full blossom, each room a dazzling cornucopia of colour. For Margiela, floral designer Mark Colle imagined how this bouquet might have appeared once, as the saying goes, the bloom is off the rose – the vibrancy beginning to fade, the stems beginning to sag, the petals beginning to drop. Timeworn, no longer in its prime, but still beautiful in its own distinct way. India Jarvis

Givenchy

A specially constructed box in the grounds of Paris’s Hôtel National Des Invalides was transformed into a labyrinth of flattened shapes for Sarah Burton’s latest Givenchy show, hung from the ceiling rafters and emerging from the floor, the latter with graphic cutaways through which the runway snaked. The wooden shapes and stools were designed by James Chinlund, whose production design work in Hollywood includes sets for The Batman (2022), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and Autofocus (2002), and who previously worked with Givenchy’s Sarah Burton on the mirror and spotlight filled cubist space for A/W 2026, back in March of this year. Continuing in this vein, this season’s space could have been a tribute to Peggy Guggenheim’s pioneering The Art of This Century gallery, which opened in Manhattan in 1942 and, within the innovative modular layout by Frederick Kiesler, featured biomorphic shapes and works suspended at unconventional heights. Or, indeed, the graphic constellations of an Alexander Calder mobile. India Jarvis

Bottega Veneta

The audience seating at Bottega Veneta, cardboard boxed reinforced with resin, were bespoke for each guest, their shape formed by embraces by artist Illya Goldman Gubin. Atop each seat was a single flower, made from leather, handmade in the house’s atelier (some guests speculated that these were intended to be thrown like confetti during the finale, but of course most people took theirs home, and who can blame them). Elsewhere, creative director Louise Trotter commissioned Mark Leckey to curate the soundtrack, while German visual and sound artist Florian Hecker created a site-specific pre-show installation titled Scintillations 20 (2026) which unfolded prior to the show. India Jarvis

Read Wallpaper’s exclusive interview with Florian Hecker here.

Loewe

A ‘three-dimensional space’ somewhere between ‘an arena, a theatre and a gallery,’ was the brief for Casper Mueller Kneer, who constructed the Loewe S/S 2027 show space within a specially constructed white box in the grounds of former royal palace Château de Vincennes. ‘We wanted to build a show space that explored the unique energy of a stadium, arena, or theatre,’ said Loewe creative directors. Jack McCollough and Lazaro 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.’ India Jarvis

Read more about the project here.

Acne Studios

Allusions toward the opulence of antiquity were seen across the details of the second womenswear outing from Acne Studios during its 30th anniversary year: belt and bag buckles which playfully mimicked gilded frames; timeworn brocades; Louis XIV shoes; portrait miniatures on broaches; and renaissance florals fragmented across denim.

Jonny Johansson reinforced this symbolism with a set hung with works by Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed, whose carpet pieces belong to a canon of traditional weaving techniques across Central Asia. The textiles Ahmed creates examine some of the tensions between memory and transformation – in the Acne Studios space they almost appeared to unravel; classic patterns melting into pools of pure colour, contrasting with the beige drapes which hung throughout the gothic nave of ​​the Collège des Bernardins. India Jarvis

Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada seemed to be in a sporting mood this season – alongside a Miu Miu collection that included rash vests, sports bras, and New Balance collaboration sneakers, the show itself unfolded across a runway viewed from bleachers and painted like a sportsfield, but with a twist. It was purple, Mrs Prada’s current favourite colour, as she recounted backstage (she also wore purple jewelled earrings for her bow). There are not many athletic venues with purple pitches or courts – I’ve checked. Apparently American college football team the Curry Colonels have one in their hometown of Milton, Massachusetts; and the David Lloyd chain of clubs uses purple for their acrylic tennis courts. Miu Miu is in rarefied company. India Jarvis

Chanel

The monumental central nave of Paris’ Grand Palais – which features the largest glass-and-iron roof in Europe – has long provided a dramatic setting for Chanel’s runway shows, which have seen it take the form of a gleaming supermarket, an airport terminal, and even a launch pad for a Chanel-branded rocket (these show sets were defining facets of Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure). Matthieu Blazy, who presented his first collection for the house a year ago last September, has taken to the task of reimagining the space with aplomb: his own show sets have featured colourful blooming mushrooms, a glowing solar system, and enormous creeping vines – a reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. This season, he filled the space with a glowing flock of 95 birds in flight, suspended over a vast poured-resin runway. It was a metaphor, he said, for the transformation of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel over her lifetime. ‘This is not a historical collection; it’s a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, Chanel took off, and each step she took led to her being free, like a bird.’ Jack Moss

Louis Vuitton

‘What’s going to be the traffic in the cities of the future?’ asked Louis Vuitton’s womenswear artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière with his latest runway set, created in collaboration with production designer James Chinlund (it was his second set of the season after Givenchy earlier in the week). His answer was traffic jam of 34 floating ‘cars’ which hovered over a runway evocative of a motorway erected in the historic Cour Carrée du Louvre (such juxtapositions of past and future are also hallmarks of the designer’s runway collections). Backdropping a collection which saw garments instilled with new lightness for the world’s changing climate, Ghesquière said the runway set – which featured the house’s signature damier check branding – was a ‘symbolic way of saying how everyone is trying to make the best way possible in this moment’. Jack Moss

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

Matthieu Blazy’s vision for Chanel has concerned acts of transformation – and not simply of the house itself, which is currently undergoing a renaissance, one year into his tenure (according to Bloomberg, there has been a 16 per cent rise in sales in the first half of 2026, down to the fervid response to Blazy’s collections). This much was evident stepping into the Grand Palais showspace yesterday evening, where the Belgian designer’s previous creations for Chanel were ubiquitous among guests, not least the red, white and blue tweed jacket which featured as part of his New York Métiers d’art 2026 show, perhaps the most-worn garment of the evening.

But Blazy is also concerned with the transformative power of clothing; how a woman might dress for the ‘multiple selves’ she might inhabit over a given day, or lifetime. Last season, he evoked the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly to describe a collection which was designed capture the innate contradictions of the house. ‘Chanel is function, Chanel is fiction. Chanel is sensible, Chanel is seductive. Chanel is day, Chanel is night,’ said Blazy at the time, ending the show with a rainbow-like parade of models emerging from the figurative chrysalis in glimmering tweed and chainmail tailoring, their hair pastel-coloured or coated with a metallic sheen.

‘It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ he said at the time. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’

This season, under an enormous flock of glowing birds which had been erected over the Grand Palais runway, Blazy looked towards the personal style transformation of house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel over her lifetime – from her beginnings in pioneering jersey to create her liberated, un-corseted line to the richer expressions of glamour which would define her later life. ‘[A] layered history of selves within a layered history of the clothing she wore,’ described Blazy, who chose to begin and end the show with Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 quilted handbag, retrieved from the house’s Patrimoine archives and carried by model Dyanira Hurbuscher, who opened and closed the show.

As such, the collection drew on facets of Gabrielle Chanel’s own life and style: ‘in the collection, the young Gabrielle becomes the various Chanel women she will be,’ read the collection notes. So there were nods to the jersey underwear which would begin her fashion journey, peeking out from the opening looks; deconstructed Edwardian corsets, referencing those which she once wore and abandoned; and the tweed tailoring for which she would become best-known. Through it all, a feeling of a life in construction: jackets appeared stripped of their outer layer to reveal ‘boning’ beneath, or were left raw along their edges. Blazy called them ‘the ghostly remnants of fashion lives past’.

But through evoking Gabrielle Chanel’s story, Blazy was seeking to capture more universal experience: that of constructing an identity through the clothes we wear, one which changes as we move through our lives, but often bears traces of our past selves. ‘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.’

Of this collection of metaphors – continuing into the show’s soundtrack, which saw Nicole Kidman read passages from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a tale of personal metamorphosis across time and place – the one which Blazy settled on was the bird taking flight. ‘This is not a historical collection; it’s a collection about Gabrielle Chanel’s layered stories,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, Chanel took off, and each step she took led to her being free, like a bird.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from Paris Fashion Week S/S 2027.

For over 12 years, legendary make-up artist Peter Philips has overseen every aspect of beauty at Dior, from the design of its bestselling beauty products to the creative direction of its campaigns and, six times a year, the make-up for its runway shows. The brand’s latest collection, its S/S 2027 show, was a study in lightness, with Dior creative director Jonathan Anderson using delicate, dynamic fabrics and silhouettes to explore how garments transform when they interact with air.

To create a complementary make-up look for these designs, Philips started, as always, by having a conversation with Anderson. ‘It is a kind of open [conversation],’ he says. ‘And then I work with the hairdresser, manicurist and me to propose some looks, show it on models and then decide.’

For this collection, ‘Jonathan wanted a natural look with a surprise element, something subtle,’ explains Philips. So, we went for two variations of eyeliner in silver. One look was a skinny silver metallic eyeliner and the other was a chunky silver glitter eyeliner wing.’

To create the look, Philips placed a premium on creating healthy-looking skin on each of the models, prepping them with the Dior Capture skincare routine and adding Dior Forever Skin Veil primer. For face, Philips used the Dior Forever Skin Glow Foundation, in which he blended a hint of blush using the Dior Backstage Rosy Glow stick in Rosewood, Toffee or Berry, depending on the skin tone.

He then gently powdered the T-zone with the new Dior Forever On Set Powder, and added a bit of Dior Backstage Glassy Glow Stick in Glossy Jelly on the high points of the face. Finally, eyebrows were naturally groomed and lips given a hydrated plumpness with the Dior Addict Lip Maximiser in 001 Pink. On top of this clean, healthy look, Philips added one of the two silver eye makeup styles.

As always with a runway show, the biggest challenge is time. ‘We have to come up with a look literally just before the actual show, so that’s always exciting. On the day of the show, the look is briefed to my team, so they can execute the look or looks and customise it according to the model’s face shape and skin tone,’ Philips says. ‘Making sure that the designer is happy is the goal, and when that’s the case, that’s where I get the most enjoyment from.’

For Philips, the runway is also a time for him to think differently than he does the rest of the year. ‘When we create a look for the show, it is to complete or complement the vision of the designer. In my role as creative and image director for Dior Makeup, I have to consider a broader approach too,’ he says.

‘I create products not only for women who are passionate about fashion. Not every woman wants to be in the latest fashion, but every woman wants to be beautiful. So, from that perspective I can say that the Dior woman is a multi-faceted one, she’s confident and knows that she’s worthy of the best. She can go for a simple, natural look or for a full game, she owns her beauty.’

Victoria Beckham’s beauty signatures are instantly recognisable: slicked-back hair and, above all, that smoky eye. But after decades in the public eye, it isn’t always the look she feels most comfortable in.

‘A smoky eye is my comfort zone,’ she says. ‘But there are moments that call for lipstick instead. A dinner party, an evening out, any moment where I want to feel pulled together without doing very much at all. The lipstick does that work for me.’

A lipstick that does the work of making you feel confident without much effort was the guiding principle behind Victoria Beckham Beauty’s latest beauty launch, the Rouge Victoria lipstick.

Closely developed, like all VB Beauty products, by Beckham herself, Rouge Victoria is a range of six highly-pigmented reds with a demi-matte finish designed to last over an entire night. Although only six shades, the collection is designed to with an option that suits various skin tones and aesthetic styles from Coquelicot, a warm poppy shade, to House Red, a classic neutral pure red; Héritage, warm brick red tone; Velours, an earthy mahogany; Pinot, a classic crimson; Minuit, a deep wine.

Beckham, whose work in beauty has always been inspired by fine art (including her recent collaboration with Phoebe Collings-James), says, ‘The discipline of the artistic practice, the precision of artists, carried into how I chose these colours. Every one of the six reds exists for a reason. That’s the perfect edit to me, not six reds, the six reds.’

Beckham, whose work in beauty has always been inspired by fine art (including her recent collaboration with Phoebe Collings-James) ‘the discipline of it, the precision’ of artists ‘carried into how I chose these colours. Every one of the six reds exists for a reason.'

When asked which shade is her own, Beckham says House Red is her go-to and the most personal shade in the collection. ’It reminds me of a glass of Burgundy,’ she says exuberantly. ‘I keep the rest of my makeup very clean and simple so the lipstick does the talking, and I pair it with my Lip Definer. It lasts me all day or night.’

Beyond its colours, the lipsticks are formulated with a plant-derived biodegradable gel, that acts a microplastic-free alternative to ingredients that traditionally give lipsticks an easy glide and long-lasting stay on the lips. They also contain pomegranate extract to soften the lips and help prevent premature ageing.

For Beckham, who is known for never releasing a product until she deems it perfect, the lipstick earned its place in the VB Beauty family because it ‘gives bold colour without sacrificing comfort, and that balance took time.’

Shop the collection at victoriabeckhambeauty.com

Miu Miu might have shifted its show forward by two days – the Italian house usually presents on the final Tuesday of Paris Fashion Week – but its S/S 2027 show this afternoon (4 October 2026) continued a longstanding tradition of drafting famous faces to walk the Palais d’Iéna runway, following previous cameos from the likes of Gillian Anderson, Troye Sivan and Willem Dafoe.

For S/S 2027, the show featured well-known faces with connections to the world of dance, starting with Jamie Bell, whose break-out role in Billy Elliot (2000), saw him play an aspiring dancer growing up in County Durham amidst the hardships of the miner’s strikes of the 1980s. Hortense de Gromard, actress and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris-trained ballerina appeared, as did Ella Bleu Travolta, daughter of Saturday Night Fever (1977) star and triple-threat John Travolta.

The pour le sport mood was emphasised by the runway itself – a purple floor painted with thick white lines in the style of a sports-court, with bleacher seating – and by the collection, which included garments such as rash vests, details like shoe-lacing used as fastenings, as well as the fifth edition of Miu Miu’s collaboration with New Balance, this time in the form of a reconstruction of the RC150 racing sneaker.

‘The concept of mixing elements of sports with sophistication is something that has always influenced my work,’ said Miuccia Prada. ‘But I have never been so precise, or taken it so far.’

Styled in unexpected combinations alongside embellished bras, silk bow tops, cocktail dresses, denim and unfussy leather, Mrs Prada was considering pieces ‘that comprise normal everyday dress today … laid alongside one another in intentional and nonconformist dialogues, exploring a form of friction and tension.’ There was also a collaboration with Wrangler, which saw cross-lacing details appear on American denim brand’s signature slim-legged ‘cowboy-cut’ jeans.

Other cast members included British actors Noah Jupe and Olivia Colman, models Gigi Hadid and Liu Wen, American multimedia artist Bunny Rogers, actress and singer Chandler Kinney, and Miu Miu fragrance ambassador Emma Corrin, who previously closed the brand’s A/W 2023 show.

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.

This evening (30 September), as Paris Fashion Week continues in the city where the British designer made his name – first with his eponymous label, then as creative director of Givenchy, Dior and Maison Margiela – John Galliano has revealed his much-anticipated collaboration with Spanish fashion behemoth Zara, Re{form}.

Arriving in stores 1 October – the date on which the collection was expected to be revealed – the surprise announcement marks Galliano’s return to fashion after leaving Maison Margiela in December 2024 following a ten-year tenure. It also comes in the wake of the cancellation of a retrospective of his work, ‘John Galliano: Horizons’, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its opening would have coincided with the annual Met Gala, the biggest night of the fashion calendar, which takes place each year on the first Monday of May.

Re{form} Zara by John Galliano: Vol. 1 

Galliano withdrew from the exhibition after controversy surrounding his past anti-semitic remarks in 2011, for which he was charged with a hate crime in France, and lost his job as creative director of Dior. After entering rehab, he apologised to Jewish leaders and returned to fashion with his role at Maison Margiela in 2014. ‘I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,’ he said in a statement. ‘I also recognise and respect that an exhibition honouring my work would be painful for some.’

The collection, captured in a Steven Meisel-shot campaign, sees Galliano return to the theatrical signatures that made him one of the most celebrated designers of recent times. His shows for Dior in particular, which unfolded amid dramatic show sets and mined history for inspiration, are embedded in fashion lore, while his closing Artisanal show for Maison Margiela, held under the full moon, saw him conjure a troupe of doll-like figures on the misted banks of the River Seine (at the time, we said they recalled ‘at once Fragonard’s shepherdesses and the seedy nighttime denizens of Brassaï’s Paris en Nuit’, their faces rendered like gleaming porcelain by make-up artist Pat McGrath).

With this first collection – part of an ongoing two-year partnership with the brand – Galliano says he is drawing on ‘memories of Zara’, reworking past pieces through acts of ‘cutting, dismantling and reassembling’ (as such, it recalls his work at Maison Margiela, where he was inspired by house founder Martin Margiela’s deconstructionist principles). ‘Re{form} is an act of revolution, reconstruction and renewal... the couturier’s exchange with the archives of the fashion purveyor,’ say the collection notes.

Several of Galliano’s hallmarks feature: among them dresses cut on the bias (the pattern-cutting technique that remains most associated with the designer, particularly during his time at Dior); trompe l’oeil layering with garments deconstructed to reveal linings or underwear beneath; a rich array of fabrics (‘chiffon voilant, georgette, point d’esprit, charmeuse, tulle and net’); and references to historical costume, from Napoleonic naval coats and opera gloves to ceremonial millinery created alongside Stephen Jones, a longtime collaborator.

Indeed, influences for the collection include Les Incroyables and Les Merveilleuses, ‘the defiant dandies and divas of post-Revolutionary France’. The former was the title of his 1984 Central Saint Martins graduate show, which would propel him to overnight fame; the latter a perennial reference throughout his career, inspiring collections at his eponymous label, Givenchy and Maison Margiela.

Elsewhere, he has divided the collection into various ‘techniques’: Re{form}ing (the idea that every garment references the Zara archive), The Flix (a sheer coat that can be layered over other coats in the collection), The Shi/ft (a means of transforming one garment into another) and Deep Pockets (the use of expansive pockets designed to shape the way the wearer inhabits a garment), among others.

The collection will be on view as an installation in a hôtel particulier in the Marais during Paris Fashion Week, which is accessible by appointment via zara.com. Meanwhile, the collection itself will be available to shop globally from 1 October at zara.com and stores worldwide.

Acne Studios started with just 100 pairs of blue jeans, cut from raw selvedge denim and recognisable for their red top-stitching, rather than the typical yellow. Then called simply Acne – an acronym for Ambition to Create Novel Expressions – they were distributed by co-founder Jonny Johansson and his collaborators to their creative community across Stockholm, from artists to skaters (the Swedish capital remains the brand’s home city, with its head office occupying the former Czech embassy, a Brutalist building designed by the architect Jan Bočan).

Conceived as a calling card of sorts for what was then a burgeoning creative agency, the jeans’ cult success saw Johansson pivot to fashion (in 2006, Acne became Acne Studios, while ACNE, Ambition to Create Novel Expressions, continues as a separate entity under Deloitte Digital). Thirty years on, Acne Studios is now a global fashion brand that shows twice a year as part of Paris Fashion Week and has over 70 stores worldwide (recent additions include Gansevoort Street in New York, which opened in September 2026 as part of the city’s fashion week). It is projected to exceed $500 million in sales next year.

Jonny Johansson on 30 years of Acne Studios:

‘Honestly, I thought it went very fast,’ says Johansson, who now also serves as the brand’s creative director. ‘Thirty years – it’s a lot on paper, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.’

Wallpaper* – which itself is marking its 30th anniversary this year – was the first publication to feature Acne Studios, one of the milestones that Johansson cites as formative to the label. ‘Our very first piece of coverage was in Wallpaper*,’ he remembers. ‘Tyler [Brûlé, Wallpaper* founder] had been walking the streets of Sweden, saw our offices, and got intrigued. Back then our rule was “everything has to be made by us”. So the office looked different, I guess?’ Other milestones include a collaboration with the late Alber Elbaz, then at Lanvin (‘It was like being touched by God back then’); the brand's first store outside of Stockholm, in Paris’ Palais Royal; and showing at Paris Fashion Week for the first time in 2013, as well as working with the likes of Björk and Tricky.

The 30th anniversary has been marked by a special edition of Acne Paper – a yearly magazine of which Acne Studios serves as publisher – titled ‘Autoportrait’ and released this past June, as well as a denim campaign by Nan Goldin. Though the landmark has proved something of a challenge for Johansson, who says, ‘I look forward much more than I look back.’

It is why, rather than revelling in nostalgia, with Goldin’s campaign he decided to take it back to denim – the brand’s foundational material and still a definitive part of its oeuvre today. ‘Denim is the perfect canvas. It’s rooted in today, but it also ages; it becomes something else through its story,’ he says. ‘I’m very emotionally attached to it; I always have been. What's interesting about denim is that it personalises itself through wearing it – it becomes yours. You don’t really throw jeans away.

‘I also like the juxtaposition of something couture, something very fashion, next to a plain pair of jeans – it makes sense to me, that tension,’ he continues. For him, a good pair of jeans is ‘about a specific feeling and colour’; his own preference is a blue with ‘some red in it; that deep, rich indigo’. Shape-wise? The ‘1996’, a straight-leg silhouette that evokes the original 100 pairs of jeans. ‘It’s iconic, very basic, a classic.’ (The style is part of a 30th-anniversary capsule alongside the ‘2009’ bootcut style; each pair comes in two washes: a raw selvedge and one which appears well-loved and worn, as if before and after).

Working with Goldin, an artist and activist known for her photography of sub- and counterculture, felt like an apt fit for the milestone campaign (Acne Studios describes its design vocabulary as ‘Scandinavian sensibility [meeting] a countercultural impulse’). ‘Nan’s work has been an inspiration so many times over the years,’ says Johansson. ‘So when we realised we had 30 years to celebrate, it felt like the right moment to finally ask her. I wanted an icon, but I also wanted something intimate, something personal – denim is close to you, it’s gritty, it's real, and I wanted the imagery to feel the same way.’

The campaign comprises a series of portraits of ten of Acne Studios’ friends and collaborators (multidisciplinary in approach, the brand has united with numerous artists, musicians, writers and photographers across various collections during its lifespan). These include model and photographer Guinevere Van Seenus, artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase, actor and musician Juliette Lewis, and artist Sandra Poulson, among others.

‘They're people from our universe – people we've collaborated with, spoken to, had some kind of exchange with over the years,’ says Johansson. ‘In total we chose ten. It could have been 200, easily, because there are so many people who mean something to the brand. But ten felt right. I wanted to shoot friends rather than just models – for this, it felt more interesting to show the creative output of these people and their relationship to our world, rather than just the clothing.’

Later this evening, at Paris’ Collège des Bernardins, Johansson will show his latest womenswear collection for the brand as part of the city’s fashion week. And, though there will be a 30th-anniversary dinner and party after the show to mark the occasion, don’t expect the collection itself to look towards the past. ‘I don't try to foresee the future exactly, but I'm always striving toward it rather than sitting with what's already happened,’ he says. ’I’m not interested in nostalgia for its own sake. I’d rather take something familiar and keep pushing it somewhere new.’

‘Fashion, for me, is a moving, emotional species – never still, never fully calculated,’ he continues. ‘Trying to stay “now”, trying to put some aesthetic on the moment you're in – that's the whole secret.’

acnestudios.com

The invitation for Jonathan Anderson’s latest Dior show was a pair of ‘wenwan’ walnuts, encased in a grey box and embedded in velvet. The act of ‘wénwán’ – dating back to ancient China’s Han dynasty – is to rub the two walnuts together in circles in your hands for meditation or distraction, like worry stones or prayer beads. Do it for long enough, and they become smooth and polished, turning a deep plum red and ‘jade-like’ in texture (the process can take up to 50 years, which made the patinated wénwán walnuts highly covetable).

There is a clear metaphorical weight to Anderson’s choice of invitation – the idea that creating something beautiful takes time and patience. This not only applies to Dior as a house – after all, haute couture requires the ultimate acts of endurance, with gowns taking up to 100 hours to hand-stitch – but also perhaps to Anderson’s position as creative director. As tenures become increasingly short (look to Dario Vitale, who only lasted a single season at Versace, despite a critically lauded debut) and social media’s firestorm of opinion, that ‘some things take time’ felt like a necessary statement. ‘Coming across wénwán walnuts reminded me how we can find knowledge and preciousness in nature,’ he said.

Like last season, the show was staged in Paris’ historic Tuileries Gardens in a contemporary pagoda surrounding Le Bassin Octogonal, one of the park’s octagonal fountains. Last season, it was dotted with lily pads; this season, a more wistful mood was conjured with a cluster of camphor trees and dry ice, which gave the effect of fog hovering over a lake at dawn (the trees will be replanted in the gardens after the show). ‘Long before a tree spreads its branches to the sky, the nut holds the knowledge of its form,’ read the collection notes, a calligram of a walnut shell.

Indeed, this was a collection which saw Anderson finding the form of his Dior woman – a clear evolution of last season’s romantic silhouette (the millefeuilles of frills and ruffles returned here), and a counterpart to the Dior man he showed in June of this year (their shared wardrobe includes a metallic silver jean). Signatures are beginning to be forged, like his shrunken bar jacket (this time, it recalled a barn jacket with its contrasting collar); a use of plissé jacquard to create a more fluid tailoring line (plissé was used in his S/S 2026 couture collection, shown in June); alongside references to nature, whether in elongated petal-like earrings or painterly floral prints (nature was a perennial influence on house founder Christian Dior, who often returned to the flower in his collections).

Through it all, an eclectic, whimsical air that feels particularly Andersonian: a woven organza suit was left open to reveal a bra top beneath, and worn with asymmetric earrings and a silver handbag slung over the shoulder, while another look combined a pyjama shirt and delicate layered skirt, worn with Dior-chain branded heels – as if his protagonist for the season had dressed in haste. Elsewhere, there were floating organza bows; bouclé tweed left unfurling at its edges; metal evening bags shaped like swans; and shrunken cardigans in pastel-coloured cable knits, adorned with crystals.

Indeed, Anderson said that he wanted the collection to be one of ‘soft focus’, an apparition emerging from the fog. Part of this was down to the lightness of the garments: ‘What is tailoring is imagined as flou?’ was one question he asked himself, reimagining pinstripe and Prince of Wales check blazers in an organza-like fabric designed to appear as tailoring wool (flou is the term in haute couture to describe dresses made from fluid, lightweight fabrics, in opposition to the rigour and structure of tailoring). ‘Something that, as it walks, leaves a kind of residue behind,’ he described of the ethereal looks.

It is a vision of romantic femininity that is paying off for Anderson: the Christian Dior Group recorded revenue of €38.6 billion in the first half of 2026, with a growth of 3 per cent in the second quarter and the fashion and leather goods arm returning to revenue growth after a previous decline. On top of that, a starry collaboration with A24, launched during New York Fashion Week, is a reminder of Anderson’s unique knack for mining the cultural zeitgeist (he did so adeptly at Loewe, and looks to continue doing so at Dior).

But Anderson is not done experimenting yet: as he hones his vision for Dior, don’t expect him to settle into a groove (like the wénwán walnut, he is envisioning his transformation of the house in decades, not months). As he said after his first couture show in January, the role of a designer at a major house is to challenge expectation. ‘I think the idea of designing things is to make people want something they didn’t want. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt at Dior, it’s just about putting ideas out [there].’ Today, he reiterated this: ‘If you’ve already arrived, there’s nowhere to go.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from Paris Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Paris Fashion Week marks the culmination of a month-long season of shows, with previous stops in New York, London and Milan. Though it is by far the most substantial – and arguably, most significant – of fashion month so far, comprising a sprawling nine-day-long schedule and a line-up which includes fashion’s household names, among them Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent (there are plenty more besides).

And, while this season’s edition might lack the surge of newness which has defined recent seasons – one year ago, there were eight major creative debuts during the week, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel and Jonathan Anderson at Dior – the week will, as ever, define the S/S 2027 season across its currently 68 shows and 33 presentations. That said, there will still be a handful of debuts, including former Burberry designer Drew Henry at Courrèges and Kai Nesselrath at Carven, who previously headed up womenswear at Saint Laurent.

Elsewhere, expect the reveal of John Galliano’s collaboration with Zara, the return of Maison Margiela and a celebration of 30 years of Acne Studios, alongside shows from emerging and established designers alike. All will make way for a no-doubt glittering finale from Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton, who will provide this season’s final act on Tuesday evening.

Read below for all of Wallpaper’s moments to look out for at Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Maison Margiela is back

Last season, Maison Margiela sat Paris Fashion Week out, choosing to show in Shanghai as part of a series of events which took place across China (these included exhibitions and immersive installations). For S/S 2027, it is back on the Paris schedule with a show late afternoon on Tuesday 9 September. It will also mark the first show from creative director Glenn Martens after the news that his S/S 2027 show for Diesel – held in Milan last week – will be his last as creative director (since his appointment at Maison Margiela, he has led both brands). This decision, he said, was to put his focus on Maison Margiela, which, alongside ready-to-wear, hosts annual ‘Artisanal’ shows – the house’s equivalent to haute couture.

Torishéju Dumi is our name to watch

Torishéju Dumi, who won the 2025 Savoir-Faire Award at the LVMH Prize, has been one of Wallpaper’s ones to watch for some time. Her expressive collections under her eponymous label Torishéju rework the contours of historical dress, influenced by her Brazilian-Nigerian upbringing and childhood spent within the Catholic church (she also draws parallels with the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Hussein Chalayan and Rei Kawakubo in her intriguing approach to pattern cutting and form). ‘I have always been fascinated with the otherworldly. I’m always thinking: what else is out there?’ she told Wallpaper* when we profiled the London-based designer for our September Issue. This season, she will show off-schedule on Tuesday afternoon (29 September 2026) at Salle Wagram in Paris’ 17th arrondissement.

Paris’ landmark houses will all show on-schedule

No other city can rival the historic line-up of houses that populate the Paris Fashion Week schedule. This season is no exception, with Paris’ vaunted names – many of which are traditional haute couture houses – showing across the week. These include Chanel and Dior, arguably the city’s best-known houses, and both under relatively recent creative directors (both Matthieu Blazy and Jonathan Anderson, respectively, held their debut shows last September). As they enter their third ready-to-wear seasons, the focus will be on honing their vision for these two Parisian powerhouses (Dior will show 29 September; Chanel 5 October). The same applies to Givenchy and Celine (showing 3 October and 4 October), who are also under recently appointed creative directors Sarah Burton and Michael Rider. Elsewhere, expect shows from Louis Vuitton (6 October), Hermès (3 October) and Lanvin (2 October).

Zara will reveal its ‘creative partnership’ with John Galliano

Though his upcoming retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute may be cancelled, John Galliano will have his moment at Paris Fashion Week with the reveal of his collaboration with Zara on October 1 (the exact timing, 10am CET). Though there has been no word as yet whether there will be an official event – whether a show or party – it will mark the first in what is expected to be an ongoing collaboration between Zara and the designer, who was formerly at Maison Margiela. In fact, details remain largely under wraps across the board; when the partnership was announced this past March, all Zara confirmed was that this was a ‘creative collaboration’ which will see him rework the Zara’s archives, ‘deconstructing and reconfiguring them into new seasonal expressions and creations’. Watch this space.

Drew Henry will debut at Courrèges

Courrèges will mark its latest chapter on Wednesday morning (30 September) as new creative director Drew Henry begins his tenure at the house (he succeeds Nicolas Di Felice). His first creative director role, Henry comes to Courrèges from Burberry as senior design director under Daniel Lee, having begun his career at Phoebe Philo’s Celine (he later joined her at her eponymous label, and also worked as design director for ready-to-wear under Jonathan Anderson at JW Anderson). ‘André Courrèges believed in clothes that make sense for how people live. That matters to me. I have always been drawn to work that feels modern, useful and direct,’ he said in a statement when he was appointed earlier this year. ‘I am excited to shape a vision for the House that is optimistic, clear and grounded.’

Acne Studios will celebrate 30 years

In 1996, Acne Studios began with 100 pairs of jeans, recognisable for their red stitching, that creative director Jonny Johansson and his then-collaborators distributed to their friends and creative community in Stockholm, Sweden, where the brand continues to be based. Three decades on, Acne Studios – an evolution of its original name, Acne, which stood for Ambition to Create Novel Expressions – is now one of contemporary fashion’s best-known names, showing twice-yearly as part of Paris Fashion Week. And, while 30th celebrations have spanned the whole of 2026 – including a campaign celebrating its foundational denim collection, shot by Nan Goldin (above) – the brand’s S/S 2027 show will be followed by a dinner and afterparty marking the landmark year.

Louis Vuitton will provide the week’s finale

There are a few scheduling shifts this season, including Miu Miu moving from the final day of fashion week to Sunday afternoon (4 October). More notably, though, is Louis Vuitton’s return to being the final runway show of the season, with Nicolas Ghesquière presenting his latest womenswear collection for the house at 6.30pm on Tuesday 6 October. As yet, the show’s location is yet to be revealed, though with Tuesday lacking in other major-name brands (it will be joined on the schedule by the likes of Christopher Esber, Situationist and Litkovska), Louis Vuitton will no doubt command all of the day’s column inches.

In a shift in scheduling, this season’s Milan Fashion Week began with Prada’s latest womenswear collection – a fitting position for co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ status as fashion soothsayers (all too often they set the agenda for the entire season with their collections, which are designed with an intellectual rigour). For S/S 2027, they honed in on the skirt, with all 63 looks featuring an iteration of the garment which has long been part of the Prada lexicon. Though we didn’t undertake official field research, it felt like in the coming days the skirt was ubiquitous amongst editors and fashion-show guests – a testament to Prada’s enduring influence on style.

Elsewhere, over what felt like an extended schedule (occasionally, it felt as if the season’s shows could have been compressed into a shorter number of days), there were several intriguing collections, including Demna’s latest outing for Gucci, staged in a meticulously constructed simulacrum of a Gucci store (in the collection, bourgeois polish met a pulsating sensuality), and Louise Trotter’s third outing at Bottega Veneta, which looked to the moment that spring turns to summer for a collection of newfound lightness and ease (though with all the gestures of handcraft synonymous with the Italian house).

Off the runway were the openings of The Situation, designer and editor Ed Buchanan’s new NoLo community space, which will support a new generation of Black creatives through residencies and events, and the opening of former Marni designer Francesco Rizzo’s Bureau of Imagination, an ideas factory which will host residencies of its own, alongside creating clothing, ceramics and silverware collections. With their openings – and the debuts of Dario Vitale at Emporio Armani and Pieter Mulier at Versace next season lingering on the horizon – it feels as if Milan is getting a new injection of creative energy.

Explore our pick of the best shows of Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027 below.

Prada

Prada’s latest show was all about the skirt – on the runway there were 63 in total, one for every look. It is a garment which has long been a part of the Prada lexicon: in 2006, Miuccia Prada said on Charlie Rose that ‘a skirt is like a T-shirt’, and versions have appeared on the runway throughout her career (indeed, in the newly opened retrospective ‘Pradasphere’ in Milan’s Prada Galleria, a whole room is devoted to the skirt in its various iterations). ‘We used the skirt as a framework,’ said Mrs Prada of working with co-creative director Raf Simons on this collection. ‘Like a raw material to express concepts.’

It followed a similar rationale to the pair’s S/S 2027 menswear collection, shown earlier this summer, which used the jean as its foundation. The idea, then, said Simons, was for ‘everything to [be] simple, but it is not,’ likening the process to creating a ‘pasta al pomodoro’ (a dish which uses just a few ingredients to create something extraordinary). ‘There was something compelling about reiteration, about this focus,’ the designers said at the time. ‘It is about being extremely decisive and precise.’

Here, the skirt was reimagined in a multitude of styles: some fastened with embellished Velcro, allowing them to be adjusted to the body (the designers said they liked the contrast of the industrial nature of Velcro with something more decorative), others came in jewellery-like webs of crystal flowers, cotton treated to look like leather, or in pleated latex and nylon in Prada-esque pastel hues. On the top half, a series of what Simons called ‘illogical’ combinations: satin bra tops, corporate shirts, nylon raincoats. ‘You want to be sexy, you want to be luxurious, you want to go to work, you want to be at ease with your kids. There are all kinds of skirts [for that],’ said Simons, with Mrs Prada concurring that for her it is the most ‘flexible’ garment. ‘It’s theoretical, it's conceptual, it's a frame. It’s a contradiction.’ Jack Moss

READ: At Milan Fashion Week, Prada hones in on the skirt

Jil Sander

When Simone Bellotti spoke to Wallpaper* earlier this year as part of our September Style Issue, he said that after an initial collection which sought to capture the feeling of rigour and precision synonymous with the modernist house and its eponymous designer, as he embarked on his sophomore collection – and beyond – he wanted to push Jil Sander into new territory. ‘What can I add to this brand? How far can I go, and what is the moment to stop?’ he said. ‘It takes a lot of experimentation and time. It’s psychological.’

His third collection, shown once again in the brand’s Milanese headquarters, saw him at his most experimental yet. ‘That idea of perfection at Jil, it’s not enough today, because you can find that many other places. Minimalism has become so mainstream,’ he said backstage. This idea of imperfection ran throughout: suit jackets were tailored to purposely splay open, collars were skewed, and fabrics came wrinkled and creased. Other pieces were warped in proportion, like the ultra-narrow, shortened lapels on a single-breasted blazer, while caped and balloning dresses sought what Bellotti called a ‘monumental airiness’.

The idea, he said, was to inject Jil Sander’s sometimes-severe facade with new ‘vulnerability’. ‘Creating a collection is like going to therapy,’ he said. ‘You take things apart to understand what you want to keep. Then you put them back together.’ Jack Moss

Fendi

Maria Grazia Chiuri presented a strikingly of-the-moment collection for Fendi’s S/S 2027 outing: lace-trimmed slip skirts and slinky, negligee-esque dresses which elevated the vintage-inspired trend that has dominated 2026 dressing. Staged within a house of mirrors, the allusions to the body were clear – underwear as outerwear with abundant flashes of skin, reflected and multiplied, forcing, as the show notes summarised, ‘spectators into confrontation, into the discovery of others in the reflected image’.

Sheer hosiery and peep-toe shoes were countered by heavier, textured pieces, such as a fur-trimmed jacket that could have doubled as an abbreviated dressing gown, or a folksy, embroidered gilet cut to knee length. A highly wearable collection, but with more overt sex-appeal than A/W 2026’s pragmatic offering, Chiuri’s first for the house. As ever, the creative director specified an influential feminist figure intrinsic to her design process for the season, but where previous muses have come from the worlds of literature or fine art, S/S 2027’s was more unexpected. The Italian pop culture phenomenon Raffaella Carrà, akin to Cher in her status as a gay icon and penchant for skimpy, spangled – and thoroughly transgressive – looks, was selected by Chiuri for her subversion and embodiment of the collection’s guiding principle: ‘surrender to [a] sense of emotional freedom.’ India Jarvis

MM6 Maison Margiela

There is no manual for what a garment needs to feature in order to fulfil the requirements suggested by its name. A T-shirt is not like champagne, which is only champagne if it’s made in Champagne. And yet there are implicit, tacit rules that inform our understanding and language around clothing – received knowledge that dictates the way a garment should look, or how it should be worn, or what name we assign it. As MM6 Maison Margiela described: ‘A shirt goes on the torso. A skirt starts at the waist. The neckline circles the neck; the shoulder line sits on the shoulders.’ But what if it doesn’t?

Dismantling these unspoken instructions and attempting to undermine, or redefine, a rigid paradigm was the throughline of MM6’s S/S 2027 collection – a respectful nod to Martin Margiela himself. The design collective had doll’s clothes in mind this season, but not the kind of doll you buy ready-made and ready dressed. More like a doll’s outfit a kid might crudely stitch or Pritt Stick together out of pure, unfiltered creativity, and because the supplies are to hand. Belted skirts were worn shimmied up around the chest, and elsewhere a ‘skirt’ was actually a sweater – hips shoved through the V-neck and empty sleeves swinging. A typical blue poplin work shirt was reconstructed into a dress (with doll-like proportions), collar and placket intact but serving no function other than decorative, or, in the menswear, simply moved away from the centre and towards the side of the body.

This season also introduced MM6’s collaboration with Havaianas. Playing on the number six, the footwear included a bare-foot-shaped silhouette with an extra toe, and a shoe made by ‘stacking six differently shaped Havaianas soles into an intentionally irregular platform’. India Jarvis

Max Mara

Through its 75-year history Max Mara has always positioned itself as the working woman’s brand – but mostly the woman in question is an urban dweller, wearing her teddy coat through the city streets, dressed in full camel for her office commute. This week, Ian Griffiths’s seasonal muses were working women, sure, but of a more buccaneering persuasion. The early-20th century explorer Freya Stark, wildlife photographer Osa Johnson, cross-continental driver Eva Dickson, and aviators Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham, whose work took them across treacherous terrains and undiscovered skies, informed Griffith’s exploration of chic utilitarianism.

Standout looks featured pieces reminiscent of Kristen Scott-Thomas’s The English Patient wardrobe: a riff on a safari jacket belted at the waist, airy shirting with popped-collars, and deftly draped full-length dresses that clung closely to the body. The classic trench coat was reimagined in sheer organza, and a luxurious knit playsuit was carried forward from last season, shrunk down to summery proportions. India Jarvis

Marni

Meryll Rogge continues to prove what an astute hire she was for Marni, with her sophomore runway show for the brand following a critically lauded debut (the truncated menswear offering was shown in a static presentation during the summer). Her eye for colour is perfectly suited to the house’s 32-year heritage, and yet she is also highly attuned to the realities of how people – young, quirky people at least – dress today. Less narrative-driven and more variations on a theme, this season’s show included playful takes on the concept of conceal and reveal, as seen via cut-outs, backless pieces and skin-revealing footwear.

The collection also revealed Rogge’s take on the very contentious capri pants trend (her version featuring bold vertical stripes and definitely not to be worn by the faint-of-heart), and the glorious return of A/W 2026 jumbo sequins, plus a continuation of the playful styling collaboration with Tamara Rothstein, yet another inspired pairing. India Jarvis

Tod’s

‘Tod’s Artisanal Intelligence,’ they call it, cute wordplay belying what is in actuality a very serious, very vital operation – the preservation of extraordinary human craftsmanship and creative heritage. To wit, Tod’s made a point of emphasising the labour of love that the Made in Italy label signifies, by, as in previous seasons, installing artisans on the premises of the show, constructing T Signature bags and Gommino loafers, piece by supple leather piece.

These aforementioned accessories, signatures of the house, were updated for the new season: the bag reinterpreted in a new hobo shape, and iterations of the Gommino featuring metallic detailing, and a perforated motif which was extended into the ready-to-wear. Lightweight knits and stout leather pieces were geometrically punctured, softened by ballooning pants and panelled handkerchief dresses. India Jarvis

Sportmax

The Max Mara subsidiary addressed a pressing concern for the sartorially minded modern woman: what to wear when the temperature soars, as it is wont to do these days. ‘Like glass-blowers in the furnace,’ the press notes stated, ‘Sportmax harnessed heat to shape impossible lightness and nuanced transparencies.’ What resulted was a collection showcasing billowing silhouettes paired with robust hardware – afterall, for hot weather dressing accessories are of paramount importance. Sheer organza became a throughline from the mainline Max Mara collection, interpreted here into blazers, trenches and pants, while heavier nappa leather pieces provide an extra layer for cooler nights and ultra air-conditioned offices. India Jarvis

Gucci

One for runway spectacle, this season Demna constructed a sprawling Gucci ‘store’ in Milan’s vast Allianz Mi-Co events space, one complete with lush pile carpet, a monolithic spiral staircase, velvet banquettes and nods to the classical antiquity which featured as part of last season’s Uffizi Museum-inspired showspace (planes of marble; antique urns; stone frescoes; recreations of Roman statuary). Though this wasn’t pure fantasy, the elaborate set was also a teaser of the Georgian designer’s new store concept for the house, which will be rolled out internationally in the coming months, starting with Paris’ Avenue Montaigne on October 30, 2026.

The choice reflected Demna’s new confidence in the role, one year on since his appointment. ‘My first year at Gucci was dedicated to understanding and formulating what Gucci stands for,’ Demna wrote in a letter to guests, distributed before the show. ‘The conclusion of my research is that Gucci stands for being rooted in the desire to belong to a more glamorous world, and in the audacity to remake that world in your own image.’ With this first major architectural project for the house, it felt clear that he is making roots.

This focus made for his strongest collection at the house yet, thrillingly modelled by his cast of ‘shoppers’ who haughtily perused the store’s rails and cabinets as they traversed the space’s four rooms. The collection itself, said Demna, was about injecting Gucci’s ‘polished bourgeois respectability’ with ‘eccentricity, danger [and] sex appeal’. Cue amped-up fur coats, tailoring which jumped between the louche and the severe, and body-contouring riffs on equestrian attire, alongside elements of prep (polo shirts and tucked-in ties) and a closing series of sinuous gittering gowns, modelled by the likes of Alex Consani and Anok Yai.

Through it all, the Gucci Horsebit emerged as the defining motif – whether sized up and slung around the waist, as a buckle on the back of a jacket, or miniature on a shirt collar – making for what will surely be this season’s definitive status symbol. Jack Moss

READ: Demna opens up shop for his ‘quintessentially Gucci’ sophomore show

Ferragamo

1940s, but make it sexy. A hard task, to borrow from the proliferation of uniforms and austerity that defined wartime dressing and inject it with a distinctly contemporary swag, but that’s just what Maximilian Davis succeeded in doing with this season’s Ferragamo outing, possibly his best so far.

It was through fabrication that this vision was most acutely communicated: translucent rubber that sweated and steamed on contact with the skin beneath; glossy python details, with all the slippery, sensual connotations that come with snakeskin; and sheer silks were luxurious, gathered and draped – what Davis calls his ‘scarf dressing’. The silhouettes and construction offered hints of the 1940s influence, through military details, like pockets which appeared unexpectedly on pencil skirts, and leather utility vests peaking out from underneath tailoring.

Davis also resurrected a Ferragamo original from the era: the F wedge, first introduced by the brand’s eponymous founder in 1947. Elements of the original design inspired curved-heel stilettos, and elsewhere satin mules were bejewelled in Art Deco style. Fetishistic, surreal in places, extremely chic in others. India Jarvis

Dolce & Gabbana

The island of Sicily has long proved fertile ground for Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana (it is also home for the former, who grew up in Polizzi Generosa, close to Palermo). This season, in something of a greatest hits, the pair looked once again to the Italian island, imagining the inhabitants of its grand palazzi wearing a mix-up of clothing that has been passed through generations of women. ‘A grandmother’s jacket, an aunt’s jewel, an old trousseau, embroidered linen, lace and upholstery all bear the traces of lives already lived,’ explained a short film which ran before the models hit the runway.

It made for a collection of eclectic combinations that were nonetheless rooted in Dolce & Gabbana hallmarks: there were broderie anglaise skirts and prints recalling traditional Sicilian table linens; gobstopper crystal embellishment across tattered denim jeans; as well as more body-contouring gowns – some in signature leopard prints – and nods to lingerie and undergarments. This season, though, a more aristocratic edge was lent by tweed twin-sets and extravagant beaded jackets – some of which nipped the waist, Bar Jacket-style – though worn as if their young protagonist for the season was raiding the family wardrobe. ‘Every handed-down reference is brought into the present with joyful abandon,’ concluded the pair. Jack Moss

MSGM

‘The same spirit,’ Massimo Giorgetti mused, ‘under a new sky.’ MGSN wiped its Instagram clean and debuted a new logo in the days preceding Saturday’s S/S 2027. It was a reset of sorts, amidst a collection which was a reinforcement of the brand's established codes and personality – acid brights paired with beige, confetti prints (and confetti finale), restrained tie-dye, and contrasting cuffs and collars, all featured. There was an assuredness and sense of levity running through the 36 looks, which also featured an homage to the late postmodern artist Mario Schifano, whose 1983 quote ‘I’m starting over with myself’ was something like an affirmation for the season. India Jarvis

Bottega Veneta

Set amid a bright-white showspace featuring a sound installation by Florian Hecker (transmitted by a series of 20 speakers which hung from the ceiling) and white, resin-coated cardboard stools by artist Illya Goldman Gubin (on each lay a leather flower by the house’s artisans), Louise Trotter said that this season she was seeking a feeling of refresh. Namely, the moment when spring turned to summer, and you begin shedding layers and embracing lightness. She called it ‘a physical and mental de-robing’, leading to an optimistic offering which shrugged off suggestions that Bottega Veneta – known for its superlative leather work – is more of an Autumn/Winter label. Lightweight silks slipped away from the body; webbed and crocheted fabrics had all the ease of a holiday find; while dresses were cut to drape on the body as if intuitively wrapping oneself in fabric. Accessories, meanwhile, had a craftier air, with Trotter using leather as one might raffia. ‘Summer as a proposition: to wear less, but feel more,’ she concluded. ‘To leave something open for the air to carry.’ Jack Moss]

READ: Bottega Veneta taps sound artist Florian Hecker for its S/S 2027 showspace

Giorgio Armani

The Armani Group stands on the precipice of a new era: from next season, Emporio Armani will be under the helm of new creative director Dario Vitale, the former Versace designer who will also oversee Giorgio Armani accessories (as such, there was no Emporio show this season, with the house instead holding a static presentation at Armani/Teatro). Whether or not this influenced Silvana Armani’s latest collection for Giorgio Armani – the designer is Giorgio Armani’s niece and creative director of women’s collections – there was certainly a celebratory air to proceedings, with the show ending on a glitterball finale to the sounds of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. (Vitale, whose short but influential tenure at Versace has spawned some of the past year’s viral clothing hits, is something of a home run for the Armani Group – he was no doubt sought by many luxury conglomerates looking to crown a new star designer.)

For Silvana Armani, who will remain at the helm of Giorgio Armani, this collection continued her astute vision for the house’s banner line, which balances hallmarks of the late Mr Armani – louche tailoring; an eastern influence; impressive surface embellishment – with a more easy, feminine line, which Silvana Armani has said is influenced by her status as a rare woman designer in Milan. It made for a breadth of options for the Giorgio Armani woman, from day – easy tailored jackets were paired with neat tailored city shorts; a parka-style pullover and jogging pants were reimagined in silk; the blouson was reimagined in various iterations, including emblazoned with Mr Armani’s face – to evening. For the latter, red-carpet options were in abundance: a slinky black column gown came with butterfly appliqué, while a chainmail sheath dress descended into glimmering crystal tassels. Expect them to become ubiquitous when awards season rolls around again this November. Jack Moss

Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella lays claim to something no other brand can: as the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in the world, it has been pioneering innovations in health and beauty for over 800 years. Now, the historic Italian brand is innovating yet again by enlisting two of the most celebrated names in contemporary design – Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma – to become its new creative directors.

‘The choice of Formafantasma rests on their multidisciplinary approach, which moves between product, space, research and exhibition with the same rigour, and on an attention to materials and sustainability that reflects values the Officina recognises as its own,’ the brand says in a statement about the new appointment. ‘

Founded as a convent apothecary by Dominican friars in 1221, Santa Maria Novella gained notoriety throughout Europe, first, for its rose water disinfectant used to prevent the spread of plague and then for its creation of the perfumed Acqua della Regina (Queen's Water) for Catherine de' Medici before she left Italy to become Queen of France (perhaps the first instance in history of someone having a ‘signature scent’ as we think of it today). Throughout the centuries, the brand’s product offering has expanded considerably, but it has maintained a reverence for its beginnings with products grounded in traditional methods, packaging that retains an old-world, apothecary charm, and stores decorated in a Neo-Gothic style.

For Formafantasma, known for their distinctly contemporary aesthetic and former Wallpaper* designers of the year, modernising Santa Maria Novella is not about disavowing this history, but recontextualising it within the present. ‘Our intention is not to redefine Santa Maria Novella through a new image, but to build from what already exists, understanding what has allowed it to remain relevant since 1221 and how this can inform its present and future,’ says the pair. ‘This means examining how its history is communicated, how new products are developed, and how the different expressions of the company can form a coherent whole.’

As creative directors, Farresin and Trimarchi will work across products, packaging, communication, retail spaces and events – in every instance using the product as the primary point of departure. For the duo, this new undertaking not only marks an expansion of Formafantasma’s global footprint, but encourages them to think about their own legacy moving forward.

‘The Officina is not simply defined by its longevity, but by the accumulation and transmission of knowledge across generations,’ says the pair. ‘Working with such an accumulation raises questions close to our own practice, particularly how it is preserved and transformed, how materials carry their own histories, and how an institution can advance without treating its past as static.’

Louise Trotter has made a habit of infusing her tenure at Bottega Veneta with art since her debut show for the house last year. Then, it was a showspace bedecked with jewel-toned Murano glass stools, hand-blown by Milan-based studio 6:AM – audience seating which looked more like ethereal sculptures. In April, she launched an ongoing series titled ‘Bottega Veneta for the Arts,’ in which the brand collaborates with contemporary artists and artisans, beginning with photographer Peter Fraser.

For S/S 2027, Trotter’s third ready-to-wear outing for the Italian house, she commissioned German visual and sound artist Florian Hecker to create a site-specific pre-show installation titled Scintillations 20 (2026). Taking place last night (26 September 2026) at Milan Fashion Week, the work comprises 20 loudspeakers, playing a distinct atmospheric, textural sound generated by Hecker, coming together to form a unique soundscape that permeated through the space.

Florian Hecker on his site-specific installation for Bottega Veneta S/S 2027

‘I enjoy working with spaces which have not been conceived for sound in the first place and also when sound is in dialogue with something outside itself,’ Hecker told Wallpaper* in an exclusive interview. ‘With the sonic, there are more spaces than just the built or architectural; there’s the acoustic space the piece inhabits, and also the mental space of how one is processing the sounds. This ambiguity is central to the piece; each loudspeaker is coupled with a stainless steel reflector that multiplies the notion of a visually seen sound source and of a perceived location of a sound in space that might not correspond.’

Hecker describes the soundscape as being ‘a bit like a cloud-like structure present in the room, weightless and enveloping, something closer to light diffusing through air than to music in the conventional sense.’ The audio was computer-generated, with processes taken from varying synthesis techniques across the decades. ‘Many of the sounds sit on the very edge between something that might be familiar and at once not, working with resynthesis methods that all come with their own characteristics and also instabilities,’ he said. ‘I was looking for something with a lightweight quality, of surface and grain and with a continuous dynamic.’

With the soundtrack of the runway show provided by British artist Mark Leckey, the work holds a particular significance for Hecker: ‘We had a joint 12-inch release a few years ago, and now this project together – which also meant working with ideas that were about mood and reference points, decades, maybe a certain nostalgia, into something built from synthesis, so no samples, no literal references, this was at the core of the collaboration.’ Of working alongside Trotter, Hecker remarked, ‘there was great trust from the beginning, which helps enormously when the sounds themselves often resist linguistic description.’

The work set the scene for a collection by Trotter inspired by the moment that spring turns into summer, whereby layers are shed, and you look for lightness in clothing. ‘A physical and mental de-robing,’ she described. ‘Summer as a proposition: to wear less, but feel more.’ To further capture this mood, a leather flower – handmade by the house’s leather atelier – had been laid on each seat, a series of resin-coated cardboard boxes by artist Illya Goldman Gubin. ‘The space evokes the bright airiness of summer and, with it, a renewed sense of possibility,’ says Trotter.

Stay tuned for more from Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Demna’s debut runway show for Gucci, held in February, took place amid a monolithic, marble-clad ‘museum’ inspired by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and constructed from scratch in Milan’s Palazzo delle Scintille. Lined with recreations of Roman and Hellenistic statuary, Demna said he wanted to reassert the place that Gucci holds within Italian culture – as much a part of the country’s character as the masterworks inside the Uffizi (the gallery occupies the same piazza as Palazzo Gucci, the spiritual home of the brand, which was founded in the Tuscan city in 1921).

The realisation had come while viewing Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus – a work that Demna had encountered endlessly (it is one of the most replicated pieces of art in history), yet never viewed in real life. ‘Standing in front of it, I felt overwhelmed,’ he wrote. ‘The beauty in it was unconditional; it was absolute. When I left the museum and stepped into Piazza della Signoria, the first thing I saw was Palazzo Gucci. In that moment, I understood the place Gucci holds within Italian culture.’

This afternoon in Milan (25 September 2026), Demna held his second runway show for Gucci, staged in a simulacrum of a Gucci store meticulously constructed within the Allianz Mi-Co events space. It was designed to resemble Demna’s new ‘store concept’ for the house, which will begin with a renovated Paris store that opens in late October on Avenue Montaigne (further stores around the world will follow).

Within it, nods to ancient antiquity – stone frescoes, recreations of classical statues, sets of urns – recalled his debut’s showspace; elsewhere, planes of marble, velvet banquettes and high-pile carpets signalled Gucci’s association with luxury. The designer said he wanted it to have ‘monumental’ quality – a return to the days when the Gucci store was a true temple of desire (in the late 1970s, high-spending consumers at New York and Los Angeles stores were given a golden key to access the exclusive Gucci Galleria).

‘My first year at Gucci was dedicated to understanding and formulating what Gucci stands for,’ Demna wrote in a letter to guests. ‘The conclusion of my research is that Gucci stands for being rooted in the desire to belong to a more glamorous world, and in the audacity to remake that world in your own image.’

The show that followed saw models traverse the show space as if haughtily shopping for handbags or shoes (indeed, real product from recent collections hung around the ‘store’). ‘Gucci is about luxury that wants to be seen – it is about the tension between propriety and sensuality,’ he said. ‘The house begins with polished bourgeois respectability, but its most memorable periods introduce eccentricity, danger or sex appeal into that respectable world.’

As has become his signature – at both Gucci and Balenciaga, where he was creative director previously – the collection began with archetypes, among them ‘The Rebellious Aristocrat’, ‘The Snob’ and ‘The Eccentric’, which were here conjured by a cast which included Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Poppy Delevingne and Alex Consani. Bourgeois ‘fur’ coats and sinuous sparkling gowns met body-contouring riffs on equestrian attire, louche double-breasted tailoring and overcoats, as well as elements of prep: layered polos, tucked-in ties and sweaters worn over the shoulder all featured. Elsewhere, the horse bit became a recurring motif, whether miniature on the collar of a shirt or the pocket of a leather jacket, or supersized as a fastening on the back of a jacket or slung around the waist.

‘It kind of feels like it’s my first show for Gucci,’ he said backstage after the show, which he described as ‘broken bourgeoisie’ – a departure, he said, from his ‘comfort zone’. ‘I cannot base my whole vision on the 1990s – [on] snobby fashion glamour,’ he continued. ‘But you think about Gucci before fashion, before Tom [Ford], this is how it was, it was all about this claimed bourgeoisie. It’s quintessentially Gucci.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Prada has expanded its presence within the brand’s historical home: Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, on the site of the original Fratelli Prada boutique that opened over a century ago.

The new Prada Galleria concept sees an expanded women’s store with categories including luggage, beauty and home, alongside a wider bags, accessories and ready-to-wear offering; private-client spaces including a salon and apartment; Fondazione Prada’s Osservatorio, dedicated to visual experimentation and research; and Pradasphere, the first permanent exhibition space dedicated to Prada’s heritage, craftsmanship and evolution.

The four-storey, glass-vaulted arcade of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is one of the Italian city’s most iconic landmarks, and now two opposing sides of its central piazza are occupied by Prada – the men’s and women’s stores facing each other and connected for the first time by a subterranean ‘Passaggio Segreto’. The luxury shopping centre, which opened in 1877, was this week the location for Vogue World’s fifth edition, with Prada’s co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons sitting front row alongside other luminaries of Italian fashion.

Prada Galleria’s interior design riffs on different elements of the brand’s distinct visual language while remaining sympathetic to the arcade’s original architecture. Pistachio green walls – the signature colour of Marchesi 1824, the Prada-owned pasticceria that sits in the mezzanine of the new space – contrast with black-and-white marble tile floors, and elsewhere rich wood panelling is echoed across vitrines and display cabinetry.

On the level above Marchesi 1824, the Pradasphere displays garments and artefacts from the company's 114-year history, where visitors can discover more about Prada's heritage, evolution, and craftsmanship from within its spiritual home. ‘For Prada,’ a press statement reads, ‘the past is never past but an accumulation of ideas bound by intuition, collaboration, and intellectual exchange.’

‘Prada Galleria’ shares its name with the brand’s signature top-handle bag, first launched in 2007 and named for the first Prada store, opened in 1913. Prada also opened the S/S 2027 season of Milan Fashion Week on Tuesday, with a collection featuring a total of 63 skirts, shown in the Fondazione space on the southern edge of Milan.

Prada Milano Galleria, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, 63-65, 20121 Milan, prada.com

‘Our archive is fundamental to the brand, but we do not see it as something static or nostalgic,’ says Robert Triefus, Stone Island’s CEO, as the cult technical-wear brand unveils its first formal collaboration with the independent collectors ‘who have helped preserve, interpret and shape the brand over [the past] four decades’.

Titled ‘Selected Works ’982–’026 Stone Island: The Collector Series’, the project will unfold at Selfridges Corner Shop, the London department store’s ephemeral ground-floor space that has previously featured pop-ups from the likes of Celine, Loewe and Prada, among others. Open for six weeks, the space will feature pieces from Stone Island’s ‘living archive’, but also host some of its most dedicated collectors: among them Maher, Better Gift Shop, ’bout, 194 Local, Louis Holsgrove, Metallic Curtain, Pezze and SimJae, who will curate their own selections as well as participate in events across the month.

‘The project is an evolution of Selected Works, through which we have previously explored the Stone Island archive in different cities and cultural contexts,’ says Triefus. ‘For Selfridges, we wanted to develop that idea further by bringing our own archive into dialogue with the independent collectors who have preserved, studied and interpreted Stone Island over many years.

‘For the first time, selected pieces from collectors’ personal archives will be available to purchase,’ he continues. ‘Their provenance and individual histories are an important part of their value. The result is not simply a retrospective or a pop-up store, but a meeting point between archive, current product, commerce and culture [as well as] between Stone Island and the community that has grown around it.’

To conceive the space, Stone Island drafted Willo Perron, Wallpaper’s Designer of the Year at the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026. The Montreal-born designer said he wanted the Corner Shop space to feel ‘intentionally temporary, modular and adaptable’ – a reflection of the idea of a ‘living archive’. Inspiration came from military and base camps that can be ‘rapidly deployed, using structures and systems that can be assembled, moved and reconfigured as needed’, as Perron explains. ‘That logic felt very connected to Stone Island, where function, utility and material experimentation have always been so present.’

He also describes the space as an ‘active build’, reflecting the changing programme of collectors who will inhabit the space. ‘The “active build” is really about allowing the environment to evolve over the course of the installation,’ he says. ‘Fixtures can move, and displays can be reconfigured as the collectors and pieces change. The temporary and modular nature of the space allows it to continually shift throughout the six weeks.’

In the Corner Shop space, which can be viewed from Oxford Street through hazy, translucent windows, moments of industrial design – like a series of metal display stands on castor wheels and modular shelving units – meet tent-like structures and digital display screens. ‘Materiality and hardware are central to the design,’ says Perron. ‘Stone Island has always been defined by its experimentation with materials, finishes and processes, so we wanted that language to carry through into the space. The way the materials, hardware and fixtures come together is really what defines the space.’

‘Willo has a very particular ability to create environments that are conceptually precise but still feel immediate and experiential,’ adds Triefus. ‘What interested us was his understanding that this should not feel like a conventional installation or retail space. [Instead it’s] a flexible system of soft structures, modular components, metal fixtures and digital elements that can be reconfigured as the collectors and garments change.’

For his part, Perron says he understands the appeal of being a Stone Island collector: growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he remembers being ‘obsessed’ with images of British raves, where Stone Island was the unofficial uniform. ‘I was always drawn to it visually, but equally to how important it was culturally. That’s really what translates into the space: recognising the people and culture around the brand, and putting that history alongside what Stone Island is doing today.’

‘Stone Island has always been shaped not only by the garments we create, but by the people who find meaning in them,’ adds Triefus. ‘Different communities have adopted the brand in different places and in very different ways, often independently of anything we could have orchestrated ourselves.

‘Their knowledge complements our formal archive and sometimes allows us to look at our own history through a different lens,’ he continues. ‘It is important that the relationship remains reciprocal and that we do not just absorb collector culture into the brand. This project gives collectors genuine authorship and a platform to present their own perspectives – fot me, that is entirely consistent with our belief in community as a form of research.’

‘Selected Works ’982–’26 Stone Island: The Collector Series’ runs until 6 November 2026 at Selfridges Corner Shop. For a full schedule of cultural programming, visit Stone Island’s website.

‘A skirt is like a T-shirt,’ Miuccia Prada told Ingrid Sischy on the Charlie Rose show in 2006. The interview coincided with ‘Waist Down – Skirts by Miuccia Prada’ exhibition, which was running at the New York Prada Epicenter store at the time, a display of the designer’s skirts from 1988 to the present – from those adorned with red lips or swathes of crystals and beads, to versions in chiffon, leather and mohair.

Which is to say that the skirt has always been something of a canvas for Mrs Prada, who largely wears the garment herself and has continued to experiment with the style in her recent collections (now, she does so alongside Raf Simons, her co-creative director since 2020). She will occasionally wear trousers, but never jeans – she admitted after her S/S 2027 menswear show that she had never worn a pair in her life, even as a teenager.

She mentioned this because jeans were the starting point of that menswear collection, which the designers described as ‘an exercise in clarity’ (Mrs Prada has often said that a collection will begin with something she ‘hates’). Versions came in brightly-hued leather, tailoring wool or a sheer fabric which revealed the jean’s workings beneath; other ‘ingredients’ of the collection were ‘the denim jacket, the blazer, the leather blouson and the T-shirt.’

Simons said that the idea for that collection was for ‘everything to [be] simple, but it is not,’ likening the process to creating a ‘pasta al pomodoro’ – a staple of Italian cuisine made from just the simplest of ingredients. ‘There was something compelling about reiteration, about this focus,’ the designers said at the time. ‘It is about being extremely decisive and precise.’

This afternoon’s womenswear show, held amid the same OMA-designed showset at Fondazione Prada as the men’s show (the perspex floor and strip lighting give the effect of standing on a lightbox, or photocopier), hinged on a similar conceit. This time, it was the skirt that was under scrutiny: ‘we used the skirt as a framework,’ said Mrs Prada. ‘Like a raw material to express concepts.’

And there were a multitude of ideas here. Skirts came in jewellery-like webs of crystal, evoking lace. Others fastened with embellished Velcro, meaning they could be worn in different ways. They came in cotton, with the illusion of leather, or were wrapped in a layer of tulle, as if their bows and pleats were being preserved in a museum. Others still split down their seams to reveal layers of polka dots or flowers beneath, or were constructed from strange, translucent nylon in various Prada-esque hues.

Mrs Prada called it the ‘most flexible’ garment, to her representing a feeling of sartorial freedom (‘people can wear it however they want’), while Simons said that the skirt appeals to different types of women, and their different moods. ‘You want to be sexy, you want to be luxurious, you want to go to work, you want to be at ease with your kids,’ he said. ‘There are all kinds of skirts [for that].’

The skirt also allowed for what Simons called the collection’s ‘illogical’ combinations – a corporate shirt worn with an expansive pleated skirt (some had to be held in the hands, as one might navigate a ballgown); satin bra tops with a clean-lined Velcro skirt; or a vivid floral skirt, slit to the hip, with a nylon raincoat. ‘[Skirts] are full of contrasting contradictions in their ideas,’ he continued. ‘[This collection] is a process of questioning, reconsidering, rethinking.’

Asked why the skirt had stuck with Mrs Prada so long, she answered, ‘It's theoretical, it's conceptual, it's a frame.’ ‘It’s a contradiction,’ she concluded – that most Prada of concepts.

This afternoon (22 September 2026), Prada will open the latest edition of Milan Fashion Week as the fashion world decamps to the Italian fashion capital from London, after Burberry provided its final act yesterday evening (you can read our picks of the best shows of London Fashion Week here). It will mark the first time that Prada is showing on day one – as to whether this will affect what Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons show on the runway, or indeed the OMA-designed show set, remains to be seen (an otherwise sparse first day leaves the evening open for the latest edition of Vogue World, which will unfold at the historic shopping arcade Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II).

Elsewhere, it is a season of consolidation as relatively new creative directors hold their sophomore runway shows at some of Italian fashion’s major houses: among them Demna at Gucci, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Fendi, and Meryll Rogge at Marni. And, while we await the first collection from Dario Vitale at Emporio Armani – the former Versace designer was named creative director last week – the brand will host a presentation in lieu of a show, with the collection designed by Silvana Armani and Leo Dell’Orco, head of womenswear and menswear, respectively, at the Armani Group. Outside of fashion – though no doubt attracting a stylish crowd – Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi will launch their collection for Zara Home.

Read below for all of Wallpaper’s moments to look out for at Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Prada is now the week’s opening act – and is opening Prada Galleria

Prada, which typically shows on the Thursday afternoon of Milan Fashion Week, will be this season’s opening act at 2pm on Tuesday. There is little word as to why the house has chosen to make the move, though it allies with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ knack for setting the fashion agenda. The week will also see the opening of Prada Galleria, an ambitious extension of its presence in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where Mario Prada and his brother Martino Prada (Miuccia Prada’s grandfather and great-uncle) opened their first store in 1913. The ‘multi-floor immersion’, as Prada describes, will feature eight floors of retail, hospitality and cultural displays, stretching across the two sides of the 19th-century shopping arcade through a subterranean passage. Joining the Prada Donna and Uomo boutiques, Marchesi 1824, and the Osservatorio Fondazione Prada through new private and invitation-only floors, the Galleria will also feature a permanent exhibition, Pradasphere, on its piano nobile, which traces the house’s history from 1913 to the present day.

Emporio Armani will show via presentation as it awaits new creative director Dario Vitale

Last week, the Armani Group announced the appointment of Dario Vitale – best known for a short but impactful stint at Versace, having spent much of his career behind-the-scenes at Miu Miu – as the Emporio Armani creative director; he will also head up Giorgio Armani accessories. Silvana Armani, Mr Armani’s niece and head of womenswear design, and Leo Dell’Orco, head of menswear design of the Armani Group, said that they chose him as they felt he could interpret Emporio Armani’s spirit of ‘freedom, experimentation and energy’ with ‘respect and authority’. This season, though, Silvana Armani and Dell’Orco will remain at the helm, showing a men’s and women’s Emporio Armani collection via presentation on the evening of 24 September 2026.

It is the season of the sophomore runway show

If last season in Milan saw debuts from Meryll Rogge at Marni, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Fendi and Demna at Gucci (the last had shown via short film the season prior, but A/W 2026 marked his first runway outing), this September will be the season of the sophomore act – a somewhat trickier proposition as designers seek to hone their vision and build on their opening collection’s hype. Expect a no-doubt blockbuster outing from Demna at Gucci (last season, he constructed a monolithic marble ‘museum’, evocative of the Uffizi Gallery), while Rogge and Chiuri both held more understated opening acts: the former created a series of ‘dioramas of everyday life’ alongside Formafantasma for her first show, while Chiuri stripped back the vast exhibition space in Fendi’s Milan HQ for a show of pragmatic glamour, which ran with the tagline ‘less I, more us’ (it was also printed across the floor).

Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi will launch their collection for Zara Home

Earlier this month, lauded director Luca Guadagnino and longtime production designer and architect Stefano Baisi revealed a blockbuster 200-piece collection for Zara Home. Referred to by the brand as an ‘atlas of design’, it brings the pair’s distinctive vision – Guadagnino’s eye for desirable interiors has been a hallmark of his career – to furniture, scents, lighting and furniture, as well as a handful of garments. Guadagnino’s close links with the fashion world (Dior designer Jonathan Anderson has collaborated with him numerous times on the costumes for his films) make Fashion Week in Milan – a city he is also synonymous with – the perfect occasion to launch the collection with a no-doubt star-studded party. 'I think we really wanted to do something that we felt could speak the language we wanted to speak, which was a language of form and colour,’ says Guadagnino of the collection, which becomes available on 26 September 2026.

READ: Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi unveil a blockbuster lifestyle collection for Zara Home

Italian biggest names are back

Rounding out the schedule is the usual line-up of names that have long defined Italian style, among them Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Tod’s, Max Mara, Bottega Veneta, Jil Sander and Ferragamo, as well as presentations from the likes of Brunello Cucinelli, Brioni, Herno and Valextra. This season, according to Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana – the week’s organising body – there will be 54 physical shows and 88 presentations in total, spread across the schedule.

London Fashion Week concluded yesterday evening with Daniel Lee’s latest show for Burberry: a collection of ‘lived-in imperfection’ that featured a collaboration with 85-year-old textile designer Celia Birtwell, whose prints defined the 1960s and 1970s. ‘Nothing is overly pressed or pristine,’ Lee said. ‘There’s an intentional imperfection: the idea of owning a piece, living in it.’

Elsewhere, the consensus was that this week’s edition has been a success: prior to its start, British Fashion Council CEO Laura Weir, who is now in her third season, promised to bring back London’s reputation as a hub of creativity. ‘The schedule reflects the confidence and momentum of British fashion today, bringing together established houses, emerging designers and industry partners on a platform that continues to shape global fashion,’ she said. ‘Together, they reaffirm London’s position as the global home of creativity and a catalyst for innovation, opportunity and growth.’

This included the return of McQueen and Mulberry, the latter under new creative director Christopher Kane, who is himself showing for the first time since the shuttering of his eponymous label in 2023. His ‘modern, streamlined’ vision for the British heritage house was one of the highlights of the week. ‘For me, heritage is a foundation, not a limitation,’ he said. ‘I want to write my own codes.’

Explore our pick of the best shows of London Fashion Week S/S 2027 below.

Oscar Ouyang

Central Saint Martins graduate Oscar Ouyang chose the sunlit upper floor of Rochelle, a former school in London’s Shoreditch, to show a collection which he described as one of ‘youthful romanticism’. The designer, who was born in Beijing and now lives and works in London, said he was thinking about the way that we ‘assemble’ identity on the journey from youth to adulthood. As such, the collection had a feeling of dress up, combining ‘curiosities’ (pine cone-shaped jewellery, curtain-like tassels, satin hair bands, intarsia swans) with garments which looked as if borrowed or deconstructed (a dinner jacket with its arms cut away and its lining on show, waistcoats which flapped open at the front), or worn in playful combinations, like slouchy sweaters with embellished silk shorts, or ruffled shirts and evening jackets with insignia track pants (he described it in the collection notes as ‘the uncertain interval between adolescence and adulthood, when familiar objects, clothes, and gestures suddenly acquire new meanings’). Knitwear, as ever, remained central – Ouyang began his career working primarily in the medium – but there was plenty more on show here. A series of safari-style jackets, cut in satin and nipped at the waist with a tassel fastening, or the white blouse and waistcoat which cleverly twisted across one shoulder, felt like the promising young designer was breaking new ground.

A Letter

There was a graphic simplicity to A Letter’s debut runway show which made it one of London Fashion Week’s best shows (other designers should note that choosing a location with natural light and bright white walls, as the Rose Easton Gallery has, can sharpen the audience’s view of a garment – and make for much better pictures). The designers Matt Empringham and Freddy Coomes are alumni of JW Anderson and Loewe respectively, and there are certainly traces of their mentor Jonathan Anderson’s work here in the way he oftentimes repeats a look or idea in a collection, and revels in the strange and offbeat. For their part, Empringham and Coomes described the collection as ‘exciting clothes with a hint of something slightly off,’ via the Dal Chodha-written press release.

The starting point for this S/S 2027 outing was ‘a pile of British clothes’ – among them ‘a Ben Sherman gingham shirt, a St Michael’s underwear and day dress, a nightie, a sweater, a mod shift’ – which in their hands felt radically simplified, and often hung away from the body, giving them a paper doll-like quality (indeed, last season, their entire collection was made from paper). Versions of the day dress or pinafore, with single flap pockets and a homespun feel, were reiterated throughout, while other garments were cleverly constructed to reflect the folds that remain when you remove clothing from its packaging. Most intriguing, though, were a series of PVC dresses with a degradé effect which made them appear like fabric on their front and sheer along the back, revealing underwear beneath. ‘A naivety – an unsureness – is the thing,’ read Chodha’s notes. ‘A new kind of eccentricity lurks in plainness.’

Fashion East

Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East took place once again this season in Manor Place, a community space created in collaboration between skatewear brand (and guest editors of Wallpaper’s October 2026 issue) Palace and sportswear behemoth Nike. It is fitting, and not just because of the longstanding support Nike has given Fashion East, but the way that – over 20 years since its founding – Kennedy continues to foster a thriving community that makes her shows feel like a back-to-school moment (they typically happen on the first full day of London Fashion Week). This season, there were two returning designers, Jacek Gleba and Goyagoma by Traiceline Pratt – participants in Fashion East tend to show for three seasons before transitioning to Newgen or other support programs – as well as new arrival Mé Mé, a label helmed by Central Saint Martins MA Graduate Mie Mie, who has previously worked at Alexander McQueen and Maison Margiela.

As ever, the three designers were singular in their approach. Gleba continued to reference the sinuous line of dancewear through asymmetrical folds of jersey and leotard-style dresses which fell away into looping handkerchief drapes (shoes were also a tottering heeled take on the dance slipper). This season, he took his waifish protagonist on holiday, leading to more romantic flourishes: romper shorts and criss-crossing vests were edged with lace, which Gleba said were inspired by the ‘beach pyjamas’ of the 1920s and 1930s. Through it all, a focus on the human form: ‘the clothes fall down and around the body,’ read the collection notes, capturing the feeling of motion that the Polish-Spanish designer puts at the centre of his work – a reflection of his own adolescence as a dancer, and continuing fascination with figures like Pina Bausch and Vaslav Nijinsky.

Goyagama, meanwhile, was more rooted in the quotidian wardrobe – polo shirts, utility jackets, roomy leather trousers and the like – albeit interspersed with a series of ceremonial column dresses adorned with ropes of beads and shells, which Pratt described as ‘exaltations of summer elegance’. The various looks drew inspiration from the figures he encountered in the Bahamas, where he grew up; through them, he hopes to ‘assert a new language of luxury’. Mé Mé, also looked towards ideas of luxury: designer Mie Mie grew up in Hong Kong and said that she was thinking about the ‘1980s glamour’ of the city, albeit reimagined as a series of purposely frenetic, deconstructed looks. Playful elements sat throughout: tiny flies appeared to have ‘landed’ on models’ faces, while headpieces reimagined the smoke from a cigarette in folds of tulle.

Aaron Esh

The London-born designer Aaron Esh began his tenure as creative director of British high street brand All Saints earlier this month, revealing a collection for men and women which reflected the insouciant, morning-after-the-night-before dress codes of his eponymous label (he has shown on the London Fashion Week Schedule since 2023). With All Saints now the outlet for his more quotidian designs – riffs on the leather biker jacket, checkered shirts, torn jeans and the like – it felt like there was new freedom to his latest Aaron Esh collection, shown on Friday evening at the Electric Ballroom in Camden (Esh channels a hedonistic, rock and roll attitude in his clothing; the venue has long hosted such live performances).

Much of this freedom was found through colour: vivid pinks, oranges and reds all featured, oftentimes clashing, providing a counterpoint to the monochrome black which has become Esh’s signature (which did continue to feature alongside, like the body-contouring black leather jacket and pants worn by model muse Kiki Wilhelms to close the show). ‘[This collection] feels electric,’ he said. ‘The colours are bright, almost aggressively so. They collide rather than coordinate: unexpected shades sitting beside one another, things that shouldn't belong together somehow making perfect sense. There is a feeling of excess without being excessive.’ It was also nice to see the return of the more experimental silhouettes which defined his early collections, like a leather jacket which fell away into a narrowed, waterfall hemline and came with a sized-up fireman’s-style hood, or his play on the safari jacket which was narrowed in proportion and entirely covered in pockets. Because, with his collections at All Saints covering his customers’ wardrobe foundations, Esh fans will now look to his own label for something a little more special.

Talia Byre

The big news from Talia Byre was that its designer, Talia Lipkin-Connor, will be working with British high street label Topshop in the coming months. It comes as such high street brands are currently in the midst of a revival: M&S held a runway show as part of the fashion week schedule this season, while All Saints recently appointed buzzy London designer Aaron Esh to breathe new life into the label (see above). Topshop – which once ruled the high street – will be hoping that Lipkin-Connor can bring similar energy. And, though there was only footwear from the collaboration on show for now (apparel will follow later in the year), the news nonetheless set the stage for what Lipkin-Connor hinted was a shift in direction for the label, which until now has revelled in its nicheness (its previous shows have been held in bookshops and tiny galleries, with room for just a handful of people watching on).

Held at Marylebone’s Hellenic Hall, it felt like her most typical runway show yet, the bright white space adorned with an artwork by Dillwyn Smith. His practice – which is defined by translucent fabric stretched across frames – also inspired the collection, which this season had a lighter, more romantic bent (Lipkin-Connor said a use of whites and creams came from the success of her recent bridalwear launch). Largely eschewing the bold, graphic stripes that were her signature, this season she opted for softer moiré, sheer jersey and lightweight cable knits, though the garments still had the easy glamour which has won Lipkin-Connor a dedicated legion of fans.

KNWLS

Staged in the circular assembly hall of The Ark, a school in South London’s Elephant and Castle, KNWLS’ S/S 2027 show signalled a shift in direction: though Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault’s woman certainly still had plenty of attitude, the garments themselves moved away from the corseted jackets and body stockings that had become their signature. Lingerie was still an inspiration, though in a more languid manner: one reference was Chambre Close, a book by photographer Bettina Rheims which captures women in states of undress. As such, garments often looked to be in a state of removal – straps slipped off shoulders; vests were turned upside down – while new baggy denim jeans were turned back to front. The designers said it was the KNWLS heroine ‘coming undone’, though that didn’t mean she was out of control. ‘[It’s about] remoulding [feminine] conventions on one’s own terms,’ they said. ‘Rather than a mark of dishevelment or decline, it’s a reflection of an exacting self-possession and control.’

Chopova Lowena

The designers Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena are known for their riotous runway shows, which often feature playful runway sets (last September, guests sat on a menagerie of different chairs, from giant shells to toad stools) and a cast that reflects their own eclectic community (an editor or two have also taken their turns on the Chopova Lowena runway). This season, it was to the Bloomsbury Bowling Alley for a show which used its lanes as the runway, though the designers were thinking less about ball games than something altogether more mystical. ‘There was a time when the worst thing a woman could be was a witch,’ said the pair, who have often drawn of folkloric elements – particularly from Chopova’s native Bulgaria – in their collections. ‘Maybe that is true still. But harnessing your magic is what makes you a special and beloved CL girl.’ Cue a darker twist on Chopova Lowena’s stacked-up, more-is-more look: from their signature carabiner kilt reworked into an inky blue cape, to a witchy black tulle shirt and skirt adorned with torn-edge flowers and a requisite black-stained lip. Elsewhere, there were still plenty of moments of levity and play: a duo of dogs took to the runway (one needed treats to encourage it to make its full runway walk), while T-shirts were printed with pigeons, horses and slogans like ‘Help Me Chop Ova Lowena’, complete with three knife-wielding schoolgirls.

Simone Rocha

In 1990, Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’ was discovered in the dining room of a Jesuit house in Dublin. This idea of finding beauty in unexpected places inspired Simone Rocha’s latest collection, which was presented at London’s historic criminal court, The Old Bailey, on Sunday morning. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary is familiar ground for Rocha, who has drawn on christening dresses and bomber jackets, military attire and religious vestments across her career, reimagining them in her distinctive style, which often sees them adorned with layers of embellishment and reworked into blooming new forms. But the influence of Caravaggio added new richness to her work: ‘Old Master blue’ ran throughout, forming into twisted roses – another recurring motif of the collection – while shroud-like tops, which cocooned models’ heads, added a Renaissance flair. Other familiar garments, particularly those particular to Rocha’s world, like the baby-doll dress or slip, had been ‘tucked and touched and pushed’: a lace-edge camisole appeared pulled off the shoulder and hung skewiff on the body, while gowns were ruched into jaunting ruffles – a reflection of the way Caravaggio was so adept at capturing fabric in motion. The occasion marked her first womenswear-only show in some time: earlier this summer, Rocha presented her first men’s standalone show at Pitti Uomo, which would usually be shown as part of the collection in London. Rocha said the shift allowed her new focus: ‘I wanted everything to feel a bit more personal,’ she said.

Erdem

Erdem has long been fascinated by historical figures who defied the gender norms of their era, leading to collections which cleverly meld masculine and feminine tropes, as well as an influence of historical dress. This season, it was Vander Clyde Broadway, who performed the high-wire trapeze as Barbette, his female alter-ego, in the 1920s and 1930s (only when he had performed the high-wire act did he remove his wig and reveal his gender; later, he became a muse to Jean Cocteau, who described him living between genders in the ‘supernatural sex of beauty’). It made for one of Erdem’s most liberated collections yet, swaying between masculine tailoring, nipped circus body suits, and showgirl feathers, before mixing up these elements into single looks: a mannish dinner jacket erupted into a lace and tulle bustle; military parkas sat over sweaters and embellished underwear; while other tuxedo jackets were underlaid with twists of satin and enormous feathers. What was most impressive, though, was the extent of craft that goes into each look: it is little wonder he is doing great business with bespoke creations – these pieces are a British alternative to haute couture.

Mulberry

Mulberry’s S/S 2027 marked a new chapter for Scottish designer Christopher Kane, who is the British heritage brand’s new creative director (he shuttered his own eponymous London label in 2023, much to the disappointment of his many fashion-world devotees). Speaking to Wallpaper*, he said this opening gambit was about creating a ‘streamlined, modern, and stripped-back’ vision of Mulberry, rooted in its codes of leather craft but not restrained by them. Two motifs came to the fore: one was the axe, which inspired the shape of narrow, blade-like handbags and the collection’s razor-sharp, unadorned line (he said he was thinking about the idea of a tree surgeon cutting away the extraneous to encourage growth; fittingly, the Mulberry symbol is also the Mulberry tree). Another was the construction of the flap of the Bayswater handbag – Mulberry’s most enduring and bestselling bag – which inspired the notched detailing on jackets, shirts and sweaters. Elsewhere, a supersized version of the Piccadilly bag looked particularly appealing, while footwear was adorned with Mulberry’s signature Postman’s Lock. ‘For me, heritage is a foundation, not a limitation,’ he said. ‘I want to write my own codes.’

READ: Christopher Kane debuts his ‘modern, streamlined’ vision for Mulberry

Roksanda

This season, Roksanda Ilinčić chose the rooftop of London’s National Theatre, a serene garden that caught the late-afternoon sun, to stage her latest runway show. The designer once again looked to a woman artist as a starting point: this season, Switzerland-born, New York-based textile artist Françoise Grossen, who is known for her twisting, braid-like sculptures. It set Ilinčić thinking about the idea of intimacy: ‘[her] rope is twisted, knotted, braided and transformed into sculptural forms, becoming a language for the collection: soft yet powerful, intimate yet monumental,’ she said. As such, these ideas became motifs in the collection: bags and shoes were adorned with raffia-like streamers, while tailoring was given shape with knotted detailing across its back (another fabric used throughout the collection appeared frayed and undone). Despite its more dramatic silhouettes – like a series of dresses which jutted out from the front of the waistline like a turned-around bustle – this collection also saw the introduction of a dedicated daywear line, including blousons, safari jackets, silk blouses and satin trousers, a clever counterpoint to her more outré designs.

Lovebirds

Last season, Indian label Raw Mango made its debut at London Fashion Week at Victoria’s Horticultural Hall; this season, it was the turn of wife-and-husband duo Gursi Singh and Amrita Khanna’s New Delhi-based label Lovebirds, who also chose the venue for their own London debut. And, while both labels are distinct in their design language, they share a desire to expand the preconceptions of what Indian fashion is: ‘It is not the India we are introducing to the world; it’s the India we already know. We are just looking at it through the contemporary fashion lens,’ says Khanna, who established the brand with Singh in 2014. One inspiration was the classic Indian chintz fabric, which was here ‘disrupted and re-layered’ and used – alongside handwoven silks, tussar, dupion and brocade – to make free-flowing shirts and breezy, oversized tailoring. These sat alongside clean-lined 1990s-style skirts, embroidered denim, blousons and vest tops, which encapsulated Lovebirds’ brand of ‘minimalism, precision and restraint.’

Burberry

‘Lived-in imperfection’ is how Daniel Lee described his latest collection for Burberry, which was shown in a purpose-built space at Chelsea College of Art and marked the final act of London Fashion Week (and by far the most star-studded of the week, with Skepta, Gemma Chan, Lila Moss, Fiona Shaw and Romeo Beckham all front row, while Central Cee walked the runway). Washed silk and cotton iterations of the signature trench coat were designed to feel ‘worn-in and loved’, as Lee described, while trompe l’oeil details evoked utility and military attire (a new exhibition at the V&A charts the history of the trench, which began as part of the uniform for the British Army). ‘This is classic Burberry utility made easy,’ he said.

The collection also featured a collaboration with textile designer Celia Birtwell, who sat front row. Known for her vivid prints which defined the 1960s and 1970s – as well as being a friend, muse and subject of David Hockney – she created a gingham version of the house’s signature check, as well as playful faces and florals designed to ‘bring joy’. It made for an uplifting collection from the British heritage house, which was enlivened with embellishment, like a series of coats adorned with colourful beaded and studded flowers. ‘Nothing is overly pressed or pristine,’ Lee said. ‘There’s an intentional imperfection: the idea of owning a piece, living in it.’

‘For me, heritage is a foundation, not a limitation,’ said the Scottish designer Christopher Kane as he embarked on his latest chapter today: creative director of British leather goods brand Mulberry, which was established in 1971 by Roger Saul.

Taking place at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster this afternoon as part of London Fashion Week, Kane – who shuttered his eponymous label in 2023 – said that he was imagining the act of a tree surgeon chopping away branches to encourage new growth (the symbol of Mulberry, after all, is the Mulberry tree; a series of Instagram teasers before the show saw a figure hacking away at the trunk of a tree).

Christopher Kane debuts at Mulberry

So there were narrow bags shaped like the blade of an axe, slung over the shoulder and completed with Mulberry’s signature Postman’s Lock fastening. Though the idea of sharpening, of slicing away the extraneous, also inspired the collection’s garments, which were largely stripped of adornment. ‘A very streamlined, modern, stripped-back look,’ is how Kane described it after the show.

Leather, Mulberry’s signature material, was the collection’s primary material, crafted into a series of boxy silhouettes with ‘notched’ edges, recalling the construction of the flap on the brand’s Bayswater handbag (the It bag, introduced in 2003 by Nicolas Knightly, remains the brand’s bestselling handbag). These notches transformed into scale-like layers of an iridescent, organza-like fabric on a series of mini dresses, or became a split hem detail on wool sweaters.

Elsewhere, there was the element of fetish which defined some of Kane’s most memorable collections (for A/W 2019, T-shirts were adorned with ‘Rubberist’ and ‘Looner’, while the use of latex, vinyl and clear plastic – the hallmark fabrics of fetish wear – has run throughout his career). One backpack, fastened across the chest with a Postman’s Lock clasp, recalled a leather harness, while a checkered overcoat was crafted from wipe-clean vinyl and printed with trompe l’oeil tartan. Even the palette of corporate grey, beige and white had an almost banal perversity.

Kane’s early memories of Mulberry came from the ‘football casuals’ he grew up around near Glasgow, Scotland. This inspired a series of oversized polo shirts adorned with vintage Mulberry branding, while outerwear recalled 1990s parkas, albeit with the hoods extended into elongated funnel-like forms (one orange parka drew a resemblance to South Park’s Kenny). ‘It’s really about town, city, country,’ he said, imagining his protagonist for the season traversing these various worlds. Other references included school uniforms, rugby kits and British tailoring.

Alongside the axe-shaped handbags, another style saw the archival Piccadilly bag blown up in size and in new mock croc iterations. Shoes, meanwhile, featured the signature Postman’s Lock as their clasp. ‘There’s a lot of Mulberry heritage here, but it’s also very Christopher Kane,’ he said.

Kane, who continues at Mulberry to work alongside his sister and creative partner Tammy Kane, is one of the British fashion industry’s most beloved designers (evidence of this was the roaring ovation at the end of the show). His eponymous label, which at one point was part of the Kering luxury conglomerate, was founded in 2006 following his graduation from the Central Saint Martins MA and found critical acclaim, with Kane winning four Fashion Awards across his career.

The closure of the label in 2023, indicative of the wider challenges of being an independent designer in London, was met with an outpouring of disappointment from the fashion community. ‘Since he closed his business in 2023, the absence of Kane had felt like almost criminal oversight of a major talent of his generation,’ wrote Vogue’s fashion critic Sarah Mower, a longtime supporter, earlier this year.

Now, though, Kane has a second chance – and a first as creative director of a major fashion house. It is one he is clearly approaching with confidence. ‘I want to write my own codes,’ he said.

Henri Matisse made The Snail in Nice in 1953, the year before he died, from his bed. Unable by then to stand at a canvas, he had assistants paint sheets of paper in gouache, cut or tore shapes from them himself, and directed where each piece should be pinned to the wall, repositioning them until he was satisfied and only then having them pasted down. The finished work is close to three metres square, its shapes arranged in a loose spiral that evokes the ‘unrolling’ he had noticed while drawing a snail.

When the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake design team stood in front of it at Tate Modern last year, its size surprised them. ‘There is a vibrancy to it, as if all the pieces are still moving,’ they tell Wallpaper* now (the brand runs without a formal head designer). ’They are so dynamic, so light, as if they are ready to break out from the frame.’ The idea for the second edition of Open Studio emerged: at this scale, why not turn each cut-out into a garment?

Open Studio began in 2025, when Homme Plissé stepped off the Paris show calendar to present in places the brand had never been, opening its way of working to view as an artist opens a studio. The first edition, at Villa Medicea della Petraia during Pitti Uomo, paired a show with an exhibition of the pleating tests and colour studies behind it. Around the time the design team were considering where Open Studio should go next, Tate got in touch. The museum has a history of working with designers on collections drawn from works it holds, and an edition built around a single artwork, which the brand had never attempted, suited a format concerned with opening up a way of making; from the permanent collection they chose The Snail.

When asked what values of founder Issey Miyake they brought into the project, the design team spoke of creative freedom: ‘He always told us to trust and follow our own curiosity,’ they say. Matisse described the cut-outs as drawing straight into the colour. ‘If you're an artist, you can cut whatever you want, in whatever way you want,’ they point out. To meet the challenge of representing a flat painting with garments, they began by tracing The Snail; they had never worked with a painting this way, and had fun doing so, finding it most rewarding how literally each cut-out came to life on a body: ‘We're not just talking the talk, the painting is literally moving. We’re really animating the painting itself.’

That fluidity extended to Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck, with whom the design team shared their research process (including the documents Tate had supplied on Matisse’s final years) so that the set and clothing formed in lockstep, symbiotically, each informing the other as it developed. ‘Set design is never an afterthought,’ they maintain. Vanderbroeck, whose background is in theatre, built the tank in layers – both literal and philosophical – understanding that the room would be a different one by the end of the evening. ‘It cannot exist without the dancers and the dancers cannot exist without the set.’

The floor of the south tank was covered in white felt, cut into flat shapes and laid flush, with the garments beneath it. Dancers from Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company lifted the shapes away one at a time between sessions of One One One, Ioannis Mandafounis's improvised form in which a dancer continues for as long as a single spectator maintains eye contact; by the end they had uncovered the whole of The Snail at the centre of the room, every one of Matisse's shapes made up of a pleated garment laid flat, before changing into the capsule to finish.

In Matisse’s studio, the shapes had been pinned where he pointed, and moved when he changed his mind; the finished work keeps something of that provisional state in its torn edges and overlapping corners, the movement an echo of pieces that once moved. Circulating again as garments, on bodies, across a floor, the cut-outs had for one evening a freedom they lost when they were pasted down, ‘It’s starting flat, it’s being worn, and then it’s being left behind,’ Vanderbroeck says.

Homme Plissé has worked with an artist’s hand before Open Studio existed: its A/W 2024 collection, shown on the Paris runway, was made with Ronan Bouroullec, whose felt-tip drawings were printed across the clothes, with printed garments hung along the walls of Palais de Tokyo as the backdrop. The house called it a creative session. Where Bouroullec’s drawings were applied to the garments, the garments at Tate Modern were themselves assembled into the artwork, so that laid flat on the floor of the tank they were the collage, and worn they were the collage in motion.

The capsule, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake for Tate, runs to a printed cardigan, tunic and T-shirt seeing the composition’s blocks of orange, lilac, cobalt and green on white pleated jersey; a long-sleeved top in the collage’s palette; a crossbody bag; and a diamond-shaped scarf. Between the first visit and the floor of the tank, the idea itself barely changed, and that, more than anything made along the way, is what the design team find innovative. ‘That pure idea was carried from the drawing board to the final realisation,’ they say. ‘To us, that is something new.’

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake for Tate is available from 17 September 2026 at Tate Shops and shop.tate.org.uk for a limited time, then from January 2027 at Issey Miyake stores in Tokyo, Osaka and London.

British Fashion Council CEO Laura Weir has promised a renaissance of London Fashion Week under her leadership, wanting the city to become ‘the world’s laboratory for innovation and creative exchange’, as she told WWD earlier this year when outlining her vision for the institution. ‘If Paris is luxury and Milan is heritage, then London is creativity and innovation. It always has been. But it’s about telling that story in a more exciting way,’ she said.

Now overseeing her third edition of London Fashion Week, which begins today (17 September 2026), Weir has secured two major coups: the return of McQueen, which will show its latest collection under creative director Seán McGirr on Sunday 20 September (previously the brand has shown in Paris), and Mulberry’s first runway show since 2017, which will also mark the debut of lauded (and much beloved) Scottish designer Christopher Kane as creative director of the British heritage brand.

Though the rest of the S/S 2027 schedule feels equally upbeat: few designers have fallen away this season, while elsewhere a balance has been struck between the established (Burberry, Simone Rocha, Roksanda, Erdem and the like) and the emerging (Aaron Esh, Talia Byre, A Letter and Chopova Lowena will all show across the five-day schedule). In total, there will be 47 catwalk shows and 23 presentations, run under the banner of ‘a celebration of London fashion’.

‘This season marks an exciting moment for London Fashion Week, with the return of leading British brands alongside an exceptional new generation of creative talent,’ says Weir. ‘The schedule reflects the confidence and momentum of British fashion today, bringing together established houses, emerging designers and industry partners on a platform that continues to shape global fashion. Together, they reaffirm London's position as the global home of creativity and a catalyst for innovation, opportunity and growth.’

Read on for Wallpaper’s moments to look out for at London Fashion Week S/S 2027 (17–21 September 2026).

McQueen is back

Lee Alexander McQueen held some of his most memorable shows in London – ‘Highland Rape’ (A/W 1995) took place at the Natural History Museum, ‘Dante’ at Christ Church in Spitalfields (A/W 1996), and ‘Untitled/Golden Shower’ at a former bus depot close to Victoria station – though it would be Paris where the designer would end up presenting the majority of his collections. It has been a coup, then, for British Fashion Council CEO Laura Weir to lure the British label, which is currently led by Irish creative director Seán McGirr, back to London Fashion Week (whether this is a permanent move remains to be seen). McGirr will show his S/S 2027 collection on Sunday evening (20 September 2026) at the historic Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four barristers’ Inns in central London.

Christopher Kane will debut at Mulberry

There was a collective outpouring of disappointment from the British fashion industry when Scottish designer Christopher Kane announced the closure of his eponymous London-based label in June 2023 – his runway shows, which ran as part of the city’s fashion week schedule since it was launched in 2006 with his sister Tammy, were both critically lauded and beloved among fashion insiders. This season, though, Kane will make his much-anticipated fashion return at the helm of British heritage brand Mulberry, which itself hasn’t held a physical runway show since 2017. So far, there is little hint of what to expect from the show: an intriguing Instagram teaser sees a mulberry squashed on a wooden plank. It will take place on Sunday 20 September at 3pm.

Fashion East has a new line-up

Lulu Kennedy’s Truman Brewery-based talent incubator, Fashion East, has helped launch the careers of some of the industry’s biggest names: among them Jonathan Anderson, Kim Jones, Grace Wales Bonner, Martine Rose and Craig Green. Each season, Kennedy chooses three designers to show on the runway, with each typically presenting with Fashion East for three seasons. For S/S 2027 – which will take place once again at Manor Place, a space created in collaboration between Palace (Wallpaper* October issue guest editors) and Nike – the line-up includes Jacek Gleba, who is now in his third season, Traiceline Pratt’s Goyagoma, which debuted last season, and new arrival Mé Mé by designer Mé Mé Yin, a graduate of Central Saint Martins with experience at Alexander McQueen and Maison Margiela. As ever, expect bold and singular collections from the trio of designers, who will take to the runway on Friday 18 September.

Indian label Lovebirds will make its debut

This past March, Wallpaper’s Dal Chodha travelled to Geoffrey Bawa’s home in Sri Lanka to see the latest resort collection from Indian label Lovebirds, which is helmed by Amrita Khanna and Gursi Singh (based in New Delhi, it has five stores across the country). ‘The collection – full of geometric patterns, dresses with rippled folds, shoulders cut away, floral patchwork and batik prints – had all the aesthetic attitude for which the brand is loved,’ said Chodha at the time. For S/S 2027, the brand is making its London debut, showing on the morning of Monday 21 September 2026 – the same slot that fellow Indian label Raw Mango showed last season, in their own debut at London Fashion Week. ‘People have opened up to see what’s coming from South Asia and there are more voices internationally too,’ says Singh.

Watch out for A Letter

Showing on the afternoon of 18 September at the Rose Easton Gallery, A Letter is one of the more intriguing young designers on the fashion week schedule this season. Previously known as Aletta, its designers Matt Empringham and Freddy Coomes bring plenty of pedigree: Empringham worked at Loewe under Jonathan Anderson, while Coomes also worked under Anderson, though at the Irish designer’s eponymous label, JW Anderson. Their work so far has mined a similar embrace of the surreal to that of their mentor: last season, at London’s White Cube Gallery, they presented a series of looks constructed from the paper used to make faux flowers. This season marks their first official runway show.

Burberry will celebrate the trench at the V&A

As well as showing Daniel Lee’s latest collection on Monday 21 September at an as-yet-undisclosed location, Burberry is also using fashion week to open its new exhibition at London’s V&A Museum. Titled ‘The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon’ (opening 21 September; free to the public), the concise exhibition offers a history of the British heritage brand’s most enduring export – from its roots on the battlefield to iterations under the house’s various creative directors, including Christopher Bailey, Riccardo Tisci and Daniel Lee. ‘The Burberry trench is a global design icon rooted in British craftsmanship and a symbol of innovation, creativity and timeless style,’ says Carly Eck, brand curator, Burberry. ‘In this special display, a myriad of objects from the brand’s archive will be publicly exhibited for the first time – from early 20th-century catalogues to a Burberry trench coat worn by fashion designer Hardy Amies. We are thrilled to partner with the V&A as a highlight of our global celebrations marking 170 years of the house.’

How do you create a fragrance brand that genuinely disrupts the beauty industry? It wasn’t even a question on Charlie Vickery’s mind when he started creating 12_things, but it's one he’s answered.

Following his role as managing director of the brand formerly known as Haeckels (now Dulcie), Vickery wasn’t looking to start his own brand. Yet, years spent reconfiguring the industry from the inside had primed him to question the status quo), and clearly, the status quo. So, when he started being served perfume brands on Instagram that each looked exactly the same, each pushing the same ingredients and generating generic, AI-sloppy content, he started to think: ‘Is there a way in which you can create a world unto itself that is two fingers up to the perfume industry?'

For Vickery, who lives in London, the answer was to create a fragrance that drew ingredients and inspiration not from gardens and beautiful lands, but instead, from the often unpleasant realities of everyday life, especially everyday life in a modern city with its industry, decay, and even, the ultimate taboo word in brand marketing, death. A way of, in his words, ‘creating beauty in the ugliness around you by looking at the materials that we typically ignore’.

12_things debuts that concept with its first launch, Inkskin, a fragrance inspired by the act of rewriting your story after a difficult ending, a kind of rebirth after a figurative death. It opens notes of metal (inspired by the smell of a morgue), before developing into paper accords (the idea of ‘writing yourself into existence again’) and rounding out with the smell of sweaty skin. Together, they create an olfactory narrative of coming back to yourself after an experience that seemed like it would un-do you.

While the storytelling aspect of the scent is interesting, what makes it most compelling is that, against all reason, it actually smells good, really good. The same is true for the other scents that will soon be added to the collection, including White Dust, a scent inspired by the remnants of a house after you move out, with notes of plastic, vapour and dust; and Infrastructure, an ode to the destruction of a city, with notes of concrete, rain-on-asphalt accord, charred cashmere, musk, and iris fraction. It even holds for Cold Storage, the most aggressive scent in the collection, which is inspired by the smell of preserving a dead body, with notes of cold metal, plastic, and ambergris, iodine, a salty skin accord – in Vickery’s words, ‘sounds minging, is beautiful’.

Beautiful, yes, and also, despite its sometimes macabre subject matter, ultimately hopeful in its message. ‘In the brand world, you're just expected to churn things out again and again,’ says Vickery. ‘So I was drawn to the idea that you could turn the ending into a celebration, turn destruction into beauty.’

That notion of turning destruction into beauty is not only present in the fragrances themselves, but the entire brand identity. 12 Things is not only an experiment in how to disrupt the fragrance industry, but how to disrupt the playbook for building any kind of brand in the Instagram-era.

Products come packed in deliberately photo-unfriendly grey, foam boxes or, for smaller sizes, plastic bags with printer paper that lists out the fragrance’s notes and makes it look more like a medical sample than a luxury perfume. To buy it, customers go to a website that looks like an early Y2K coding exercise gone awry, where they will find no products to purchase. Instead, they’ll find a phone number that they have to text in order to purchase – a way of combating the thoughtless click-to-instantly-own impulse that has become a feature of modern life. When the 12 Things physical retail space does come to London in October 2026, it will be ‘a store that destroys itself’, the details of which Vickery plans to unveil closer to the opening.

Altogether, it's an approach that doesn’t make things effortless for the customer, but then, that’s the point. ‘I think we've lost the world of retail to this sort of grey colourways and beautiful materials, but we're not really inviting the customer in,’ Vickery says. ‘I love this idea of discovery because not all things should be spoon-fed to your audience. You should breadcrumb it, and you should make them want more.

‘That will isolate 95 per cent of the population who just want stuff served to them on an ad, but that really small percentage who are interested in lore and world-building and stories and narratives need to be rewarded.’

12-things.com

New York Fashion Week this season had a largely buoyant mood, one which reflects the renaissance of the city that seemed to unfold this summer (call it the Mamdani-Knicks effect). Established labels like Calvin Klein, Tory Burch and Khaite showed some of their strongest outings in some time, while a slew of younger labels – which now arguably dominate the schedule, having been absent for some time – showed up and delivered. These included LII, the label helmed by Zane Li that won the LVMH Prize Karl Lagerfeld Award earlier this month in Paris, Rachel Scott’s Diotima, and Ashlynn Park’s Ashlyn – each is distinct, but they share a similarly creative outlook.

There were also energetic debuts from Henry Zankov at Diane von Furstenberg, who channelled the free-spirited roots of the label, and Conner Ives, who showed for the first time at New York Fashion Week, having up to this point shown in London, where he lives and works. His homecoming show (Ives was born in Bedford, New York) took place at The Grill in Midtown, featuring his usual cast of it-girls – this time, from both sides of the pond.

The week was not without controversy, however. At COS’ S/S 2027 runway show, several PETA protestors interrupted proceedings to highlight the brand’s use of wool, before being physically restrained by Steven Kolb, the head of the CFDA. His use of force has been heavily criticised after videos of the event circulated on social media, prompting the CFDA – which organises New York Fashion Week – to put him on leave, pending a full investigation.

Explore our pick of the best shows of New York Fashion Week S/S 2027 below.

Coach

This season, Coach celebrated its 85th anniversary, a moment marked by Stuart Vevers’ latest runway show, held at Pier 36 on New York’s Lower East Side. But, despite models donning party hats and the type of bows that might adorn a gift, as well as a Coach-meets-Studio 54 after-party with shrimp cocktail towers and an enormous glitterball, the collection itself had a more lovelorn feel: this was not polished party attire, rather a selection of garments that sought to capture the idea of time passing. ‘I was thinking about memory and the way familiar things change as we live with them,’ he said, a continuing fascination of the designer, who has often drawn inspiration from the brand’s vintage handbags and enjoys fabrics that bear the marks of wear. ‘I didn’t want to make a retrospective. We turned familiar Coach ideas inside out, exposed their construction, softened them and left traces of a celebration on them.’ In the collection, this figured in slouchy, inside-out tailoring, battered leather tabard vests, and deconstructed knits, while other fabrics conjured peeled-away layers of wallpaper. Accessories drew a more distinct link with the past: a new ‘Turnlock Tote’ was inspired by the turnlock hardware introduced by the brand’s first lead designer, Bonnie Cashin, in the 1970s. Jack Moss

Proenza Schouler

A confident second outing from Rachel Scott at Proenza Schouler saw the Jamaica-born designer – who rose to prominence with her own 2020-founded label Diotima – look towards the New York woman for inspiration. ‘I think that there’s a lot of liberty in how women dress here,’ she told Wallpaper*. ‘We’re not following rules, like: eveningwear must be worn with this kind of shoe, or bag. I mean, you see people in New York in the middle of the day with a gown on, and it’s totally normal and invisible, and I find that really inspiring.’ Cue an amalgam of the dressed-up and the pragmatic: overcoats were adorned with bold zebra prints, sheer floral shirt-dresses were worn over a vest and jeans, while a series of sequin gowns were cut to appear thrown on. Vivid colour (a Scott signature), sinuous cuts and jutting peplums completed the freewheeling look. ‘There's just a freedom [to the way women in New York dress], a boldness and lack of inhibition that I find inspiring,’ said Scott. ‘I really want [my Proenza Schouler] woman to show up now, not just her quieter side. I want to see her in her truthfulness, feeling a bit wild. Summer her!’ Jack Moss

Tory Burch

Tory Burch continued a run of strong collections with a S/S 2027 outing that saw the designer advocate a ‘more is more’ aesthetic. Shown in the round at the Isamu Noguchi Sunken Garden in Lower Manhattan, the collection comprised intriguing combinations and a typically inventive use of colour and print. ‘Granny cardigans’ (which Burch said were the things she was most excited to wear) were richly embroidered; jacquard fabrics recalled fabric wallpapers; and ‘feather’ boas and poms were actually made from shredded silk velvet. This ‘opulent femininity’, as Burch described, was countered by something more pragmatic, like military-style tailoring, colourful trenches (some cut with the voluminous line of an opera coat), and knits constructed with chenille for lightness. ‘I was thinking about how people want to feel joy and optimism right now, that you still need to dream,’ said Burch. ‘Everything feels quite dystopian, so I was thinking about how do you dream, and how do you escape? You can do that through self-expression.’ Jack Moss

READ: At New York Fashion Week, Tory Burch says ‘more is more’

Tommy Hilfiger

For decades, Tommy Hilfiger lived in the penthouse of New York’s Plaza Hotel. Though he has since decamped to Palm Beach – he and his wife Dee now spend the majority of their time in Florida – he chose the landmark to show his S/S 2027 collection in what was something of a homecoming. Taking place in the Plaza’s Palm Court, he assembled perhaps the starriest guest list of the week: a handful of New York Knicks sat alongside Kate Moss, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Camila Cabello, while buzzy American artist Slayyyter provided a live soundtrack to the finale (joining Hilfiger on the runway was a fluffy white dog, rumoured to be owned by Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the latter having recently appeared in a Tommy Hilfiger campaign). The collection itself hit on the sporty, collegiate signatures that have long defined Tommy Hilfiger the label, and which are currently having a wider renaissance in fashion (houses like Dior and Celine have incorporated preppy elements into recent collections, while Polo Ralph Lauren has become increasingly ubiquitous). ‘Preppy is having a moment,’ said the designer, who also said he had looked towards the everyday style of New Yorkers for the collection. ‘For 40 years, I’ve been inspired by the style of New Yorkers – how the people of the city take the classics and make them their own.’ Jack Moss

Diane von Furstenberg

Henry Zankov chose New York’s High Like to present his first collection for Diane von Furstenberg, which marked a homecoming of sorts: the designer, who rose to prominence with his 2020-founded label, worked at the American brand from 2014-2018 as knitwear design director. It made for an assured start which saw the designer channel the label’s free-spirited roots: ‘She is a rebel; she dresses for herself and no one else,’ he told Wallpaper* of his woman for the season, citing von Furstenberg’s liberatory spirit as inspiration. ‘She moves through life to her own rhythm.’ Cue a collection of bold colour and vivid prints, with garments reflecting the sinuous line of the wrap dress, which von Furstenberg introduced to the house in 1974 (the design took women from office to evening; by 1976, she had sold one million pieces). New tailoring, cut with a roomy, 1970s silhouette, was described by Zankov as ‘languid and easy’, while a series of diaphanous gowns seemed to float on the body. ‘I believe clothes feel modern today when they feel light,’ said Zankov. ‘When a garment is made in the most wonderful fabric and constructed lightly, it is true luxury.’ Jack Moss

READ: Henry Zankov on his Diane von Furstenberg debut: ‘It’s all about body language’

Michael Kors

This season, Michael Kors took guests to the sculpture garden at New York’s MoMA, part of a continuing tour of the city’s cultural landmarks (last season, it was to the Lincoln Centre for opera). The idea had emerged from a summer of travel and visiting museums and galleries, which Kors sees as the epicentre of a city: ‘I love the idea of the mix of people that you see at a museum,’ he said at a preview. ‘Sometimes, it can be as interesting as the art.’ One inspiration for the collection was the modernist movement – particularly its architectural icons like the Breuer Building and the TWA Terminal – which lent the collection a precise, architectural sensibility through clean lines (the simplicity of 1960s silhouettes seems to have been a reference), moments of vivid colour, and sculptural jewellery and accessories. ‘Throughout the whole show, you’ll see these architectural accents, whether it’s the jewellery, the paddle earring, stripes, pops of colour,’ he said. ‘There’s an optimism about it, but it’s realistic optimism; it’s optimism for a city. I think we all need a little bit of optimism in the world today.’ Jack Moss

Calvin Klein Collection

The works of American Minimalist Walter De Maria provided the backdrop to Veronica Leoni’s latest show for Calvin Klein Collection, which took place in Manhattan’s Terminal Warehouse. ‘American Minimalism was a discipline of removal: take away everything that does not carry the work, until only what is necessary remains,’ said creative director Veronica Leoni, who applied the same principles to her collection this season. Taking menswear off the runway, she stripped things back to six foundational pieces that have defined Calvin Klein, but are also the elements of most women’s wardrobes: ‘the coat, the shirt, tailoring, the trouser, the pencil skirt, the slip’. This focus led to her strongest outing at the house yet: particularly appealing were a series of shrunken satin overcoats in powder pink, blue and black, while blazers were cut from cotton for lightness. Dresses, meanwhile, came nipped at the waist or in twisting handkerchief cuts. ‘Calvin drew from [American Minimalism] and turned it toward the body,’ said Leoni. ‘I turn it toward the woman inside it. My minimalism begins there, in the relation between design and a body, with nothing in between. Take everything away. What is left is desire.’ Jack Moss

READ: Calvin Klein Collection’s showspace featured the work of pioneering American Minimalist Walter De Maria

Eckhaus Latta

At Eckhaus Latta, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta continued to hone their intriguing blend of the sexy and the homespun with a S/S 2027 collection held on Tribeca’s Walker Street. Modelled by their usual cast of friends and collaborators, the collection eschewed thematics in favour of a comprehensive proposition for a spring wardrobe, from the quotidien (blazers in-set with technical hoods; rumpled skirts; utility trousers and jeans) to the more sensually charged, like beaded mesh trousers that revealed models’ underwear beneath, or sinuous sheer double-layered tops and dresses. The collection also featured a preview of their collaboration with J Crew, which saw the pair put their riff on the American brand’s preppy staples; as that took to the runway, guests were invited to open the envelopes on their seats – each was filled with confetti and glitter, which soon rained down on the showspace. It made for another strong outing from the New York label, which in the past few seasons seems to be enjoying a renaissance. And, 15 years in, that’s something to celebrate. Jack Moss

Conner Ives

This season, Conner Ives shifted from London – where he has shown since the advent of his label – to New York, choosing The Grill in Midtown Manhattan’s Seagram Building to do so (the landmark formerly housed the Four Seasons Grill Room). It was a homecoming for Ives, who was born in Bedford, New York, just an hour or so out of the city, and his playful, pop culture-inflected designs (kimono-style jackets with fur trims; shrunken polos and miniskirts; slogan T-shirts and embellished denim) found new energy here. Though he also did not leave London entirely behind: his usual cast of it-girls were in attendance, both on and off the runway, including the London-based writer and Wallpaper* contributor Osman Ahmed, who walked the show for the third season. ‘I had thought about this show for so long, and I really wanted something that spoke to old New York,’ he said. ‘When I lived upstate, and I came to the city, I think The Grill was one of those places that felt like a kind of hallowed hall or something. It's always really been about bringing my people into these spaces.’ Jack Moss

Ashlyn