Paris Fashion Week culminated yesterday, marking the end of a month-long season of shows that has seen previous stops in New York, London and Milan.

With a nine-day schedule standing at nearly double the length of its counterparts, Paris remains the defining city of fashion month – not least because it comprises shows from fashion’s heavyweight houses, among them Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent (to name just a handful).

After last season’s debuts dominated the S/S headlines, A/W 2026 was about the sophomore show, as designers settled into their positions as creative directors. Without the weight of expectation, we saw some brilliant shows – notably Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Michael Rider at Celine, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel (all were showing their second ready-to-wear collections).

Here, reported by Wallpaper* fashion & beauty features director Jack Moss and contributing writer India Jarvis, we pick the standout shows that defined the week.

The best of Paris Fashion Week A/W 2026

Dior

Jonathan Anderson staged his A/W 2026 runway show for Dior in Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries, constructing a circular show set around one of the park’s ponds (for the occasion, it had been populated with Monet-esque lily pads, meticulously constructed to look like the real thing), while the invitation comprised miniature versions of the park’s signature green metal chairs. Across the pond’s centre ran an elevated runway, echoing the line of the Tuileries’ Grand Allée, a historic promenade since the park opened to the public in 1667 after a renovation by Louis XIV. It led to a collection about ‘seeing and being seen’, a contemporary imagining of the promenade, ‘[where] a walk in the park becomes a performance’. Cue a ‘panoply of Parisians’ in eclectic, time-hopping attire, from the woozy ruffles of the Belle Époque (here transformed into mini dresses with bouncing trains) to plays on bourgeois tropes, such as fabrics that recalled heritage tweeds, blazers with golden buttons, and shearling jackets reimagined with wave-like hems. What was most striking, though, was a feeling of levity: lily-pad-adorned footwear, polka-dot motifs and crystallised denim were both playful and pretty. ‘Dior has this giant past, and I had to start there,’ Anderson said. ‘Now I feel free to release it from that.’ Jack Moss

READ: Jonathan Anderson’s latest Dior show was a walk in the park

Saint Laurent

A cinematic offering from Anthony Vaccarello unfolded in a simulacrum of a sleek, modernist home; at its centre, a sized-up recreation of a bust that lived in Yves Saint Laurent’s own apartment. Through it strode this season’s Saint Laurent heroine, her heavy-smoked eye and slick, side-parted hair a nod towards Helmut Newton’s Paris Vogue photograph of a model in Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo on Rue Aubriot in 1975. Indeed, tailoring was central to the A/W 2026 collection: eight trouser suits opened the show, while various other iterations appeared throughout (including Vaccarello’s own riff on the tuxedo, worn by model Loli Bahia, who walked exclusively for Saint Laurent this season and closed the show). Here, the silhouette was sloped across the shoulder and narrowed at the waist – though not constricted – for a riff on the power suit that was more ‘insouciant shrug than swagger’. As a counterpoint, Vaccarello looked towards the ‘troubled heroines’ of Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams, as well as Romy Schneider in the 1971 film Max et les Ferrailleurs (she was this season’s protagonist, he said), to capture an ‘elegance tinged with ennui… the beauty of intimacy and vulnerability’. To capture this mood, a series of slips and dresses came in lace coated in silicone, while enormous fur coats had a vivacious confidence. Jack Moss

Dries Van Noten

For many of us, the stylings of awkward adolescence are best not dwelt upon – after all, who looked or felt their best as a teenager? Evidently, Julian Klausner takes a more romantic view of this impressionable time, but, then again, Klausner was likely a more sophisticated brand of teenager than most. In any case, this was the impression given by his A/W 2026 collection for Dries Van Noten, which was inspired in part by a visit to Lycée Carnot, and the memories of being an adolescent ‘work-in-progress’. The Lycée is a Rive Droite public school with alumni including Gilles Deleuze, Guy Debord, and Daft Punk, and its Gustave Eiffel-designed great hall has been the backdrop for numerous Paris fashion shows over the years – in other words, a suitably rarefied and creatively rich starting point.

The 61 looks at Dries Van Noten asked that most teenage question: who am I going to be today? For the confident moment, a navel-bearing button-up knit with a vibrant silk skirt. When a suit of armour is required, a protective duffel coat that does the talking for you. Or maybe one day the mood might be scholastic – collegiate blazer and pleated skirt, but always, always customised, an embellishment here, a contrasting trim there. ‘Just like a pixelated picture, the more one gets far from that time of endless questioning, the clearer it becomes,’ Klausner said, a metaphor he extended through prints with digitally warped 17th-century Flemish still life paintings. Opulent, mature fabrics and finishings were styled with a youthful irreverence best summarised by the final lines from Gala Dragot’s vocal performance, which soundtracked the show: ‘Don’t be too serious... Wear a collar... Keep it blurry though.’ India Jarvis

Acne Studios

If Dries Van Noten was an homage to the experimental attitude of youth, then Acne Studios marked its 30th birthday year with a collection that declared (as one does at 30): I know exactly who I am. A/W 2026 was an affirmation of the house’s irreverent signatures, such as a revival of the particular 1996 cut of jean that made their name, and photographic elements that nod to the brand’s unconventional marketing style, including the bi-annual Acne Paper.

The setting for this season was a succession of intersecting cuboid rooms that, viewed simultaneously from the end of the runway, appeared like a Josef Albers work made three-dimensional. According to Jonny Johansson’s show notes, this was conceived ‘like an enfilade of salons … the portals marking what has come before, and what might follow’. Where a salon in the Parisian tradition might mean a bringing together of clashing or complementary ideas, at Acne Studios, the determination is to blur those boundaries as much as possible. Standout looks saw cropped aviator jackets worn with skin-tight jodhpurs and desirable point-toe pumps, Prince of Wales check jackets worn over one shoulder, and larger-than-life portraits of art school students, taken by Paul Kooiker, printed onto stiff pencil skirts and draped dresses.

Alaïa

Late last year, just after the completion of the Italian house’s sale to Prada, it was announced that Dario Vitale would be leaving his position as creative director of Versace (he lasted a single, but impactful season), to be replaced by Belgian designer Pieter Mulier. It meant that this season’s Alaïa show, watched by designers Matthieu Blazy and Raf Simons, was to be his last: the swansong of a five-year tenure defined by commercial expansion and critical success (he has also established a coterie of model muses, many of whom walked this final show, and will likely follow him to Versace). Held in an intimate showspace in the former Fondation Cartier – Mulier said he wanted it to recall a 1990s pre-iPhone runway show – the collection itself eschewed his more recent experimental silhouettes in favour of stripping things back to the essence of the house, from simple body-contouring tank dresses to lean tailored overcoats, stretch knits, and peplums and ruffles (the last flourishes rendered in Mulier’s contemporary, streamlined style).

‘This collection is about clothes to wear. What is a jacket? What is a dress?’ he said backstage after the show. ‘It’s basically a vocabulary of the last five years. It’s what I learned at Alaïa, that I’m giving to the next designer. It’s like leaving the keys on the table. At Alaïa, I learned precision, editing and [that] real luxury is not what we all think. It is a perfectly cut jacket.’ Jack Moss

READ: Pieter Mulier delivers a swansong collection at Alaïa: ‘It is a vocabulary of the last five years’

Rabanne

Of all the distinct fashions of the long 20th century, it could be argued that 1940s style is the hardest to reference without veering into the territory of costume. Perhaps it’s because boxy tailored silhouettes and victory rolls are so much associated with the vast canon of British war movies, or perhaps because austerity-driven ‘make do’ dressing is antithetical to contemporary fashion at either end of the high-low scale. It’s a testament to Julien Dossena’s eye, then, that for Rabanne A/W 2026 he incorporated patently 1940s-inspired styles – T-bar heels, tea-dress florals, and clashing knitwear – without evoking even a hint of reenactment.

After all, Rabanne has always been a house noted for its futuristic bent. Unconventional, industrial materials, like metal and plastic, are at its very heart, and remained so this season alongside those more vintage ideas – coming together in a collection that the brand called ‘a little louche’. This take on modernist femininity was told through blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses of a slip through an unbuttoned blouse, a hint of lace underneath a more conservative skirt, and pussybows left suggestively undone. Dossena told Wallpaper* post-show that the character he wanted to build with these contrasts was that of ‘a resistant woman’, and that for him, there was a suggestion of retro-futurism with the 1940s-derived shapes (for example, hair pulled into sculptural pompadour styles was less Vera Lynn and more replicants in Blade Runner). India Jarvis

Rick Owens

What might the cyberpunk cousin of Marlene Dietrich wear for a night on the town? It’s a question that could only be answered by Rick Owens – whose A/W 2026 collection was an homage to the ‘dignified sequence of her life stages’, all shot through with classics from his own particular design language. Think body parts augmented through prosthetics and sci-fi silhouettes in a post-apocalyptic landscape heavy with dry ice and punctuated by magnesium-bright beams of light. Presenting the collection as the second part of ‘Tower’, which premiered during the men's collections, Owens drew from Dietrich’s qualities of ‘steeliness’ and ‘grit’, and interpreted them as sheath-like dresses, abundant piles of faux fur, and flight jackets.

Just as the German star’s enduring legacy was in part a product of her striking collaborations with Josef von Sternberg, Owens is an artist quick to credit the rich input his work receives from his creative partners. This season, much attention has been lovingly devoted to name-checking the hands through which his raw materials pass – from the third-generation, family-run mill in Como, Italy, which weaves a high-performance fibre called Kevlar (purportedly five-times stronger than steel), to the Veneto-region wash house committed to reducing water waste, which treats industrial indigo canvas. India Jarvis

Loewe

Presented on a bright-yellow runway populated by German artist Cosima Von Bonin’s plush figures of clams, octopi and dogs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s sophomore Loewe collection was a welcome jolt of energy on the Friday morning of Paris Fashion Week. ‘What is fashion but an open field for endless creative play?’ said the American designers, whose poppy A/W 2026 collection translated their colourful beach-ready debut for the winter months, resulting in a riot of curvy dégradé shearling parkas, 3D-printed slips and shaggy-hemmed dresses with trailing trains. Other elements had a sporting feel – like face-shielding sunglasses, boldly coloured anoraks and chunky riffs on half-zip ski sweaters – while inflatable elements meant garments could be transformed in size and proportion (a lobster-claw-shaped pump, shown at the re-see the following day, will be sold separately).

Such experiments were made possible by the abilities of the Loewe atelier, particularly when it came to leather: bouclé overcoats were made from intricate loops of leather yarn, while the gradient shearlings were treated ‘in the same manner as poodle grooming’. ‘As we began [creating] our second collection, we were struck by a simple truth: for us, the act of making is, at its core, an expression of joy – an intellectual, process-driven pursuit charged with playfulness,’ said the designers. ‘The path taken matters as much as the end result. It is the idea of play as rigorous experimentation and problem-solving, moving between instinct and experience, between a devotion to craft and its endless opportunities for innovation.’ Jack Moss

Issey Miyake

For Satoshi Kondo, the role of designer is as much about relinquishing control as it is wielding it. Knowing when to hold back, not to overstep the mark, to let the materials speak for themselves. This was the credo he brought to the fore for Issey Miyake’s A/W 2026 offering – a characteristically Japanese recognition of innate, simple beauty.

Titled ‘Creating, Allowing’, the collection navigated this specific tension understood by designers through pieces where the artist’s hand was inserted sparingly, never tampering with the true essence of the fabrication, only enhancing. At its best, this looked like expanses of cloth cut with technical lines that left their impression on the negative space, like the wine-coloured single-breasted coat with inbuilt cape that the model held up over her shoulders to exaggerate its rectangular construction. The innate movement of the house-signature pleats was used only intermittently and, instead, dramatically inflexible lacquered washi paper was introduced through breast plates, bodices and belts – creating a contrast between motion and restriction. Kondo’s intention with this was that the most important impact was made through the human frame, by ‘minimising design intervention and leaving the form-making to the wearer's own body’.

As for the space itself, the Carrousel du Louvre was transformed with a layer of silvery sand and ‘finely shredded aluminum foil, [serving] as a device for the interaction between "material", "people", and "clothing"’. This surface became marked and patterned as the models moved across it, another allusion to Kondo’s metaphor of ‘considered disruption’. India Jarvis

Lanvin

This year marks the centenary of menswear at the house of Lanvin – a celebration that filtered into the season’s womenswear outing through nods to the boyish silhouettes that characterised interwar ladies’ fashion. It was a time when overtly feminine curves were flattened into straight lines from bust to waist, creating an elongated, athletic outline that came to epitomise the emancipated New Woman.

Peter Copping, who took the reins at Lanvin in late 2024, imagined ‘a dialogue between generations’, which came together beautifully to meld the concerns of Jeanne Lanvin’s customers in the 1920s with those who shop the brand in the present. What do they have in common? Evidently, a love of opera – gloves were cuffed and elbow-length, and belted opera coats were voluminous enough to be worn over an evening gown, and trimmed with faux fur. They wear hats (Jeanne Lanvin’s first foray into fashion was as an apprentice milliner), with A/W 2026’s borrowing from cloche shapes but with exaggerated sou’wester-style brims. They favour a dash of restrained glamour. If some of the cuts leaned slightly austere, they were countered with an opulence of fabric and finish: hand-embroidered bead droplets, inky velvets, laser-cut fringes.

Lanvin is the oldest French maison still in operation, its HQ still in its original site – therefore, the weight of its legacy must hang heavily over every designer who takes its helm. Its founder insisted on le chic ultime, a phrase that surely needs no translation, and which is no small order. It is a comfort that, for every moment of reinvention it undergoes, Lanvin is still a place that women can go to for guaranteed elegance. India Jarvis

Givenchy

The idea of individual style was a throughline of Paris Fashion Week, one expressed by Sarah Burton with her third collection for Givenchy – the former Alexander McQueen designer’s most liberated outing yet (and, as a result, her best). ‘How can we put ourselves back together in the world we’re living in?’ was the question Burton asked this season, elucidating after the show that she was thinking about the multiplicities of a contemporary woman’s life (as such, it found a companion with the Prada show in Milan, where Miuccia Prada asserted that ‘as a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself’). So there was some typically brilliant tailoring (Burton is known for her prowess in the medium, and has recently brought over her tailoring team from Alexander McQueen), though also more vivid expressions of style – a dress, hanging from razor-thin straps, in bright yellow leather; shimmering leopard spots that burst into tassels; silk T-shirts that had been refashioned by Stephen Jones into headpieces – as well as oversized riffs on carpenter jeans, off-the-shoulder bombers, and high-collared white shirts. ‘I wanted to make it feel very personal,’ said Burton. ‘Each woman is her own person, each silhouette is her own character.’ Jack Moss

Junya Watanabe

Junya Watanabe lets the clothes do the talking. The A/W 2026 collection was accompanied by show notes that came to two single sentences: ‘The Art of Assemblage Couture explores form born from pure creative instinct, free from conventional notions of dressmaking. Through the direct presentation of raw materials, this approach expresses the surrounding social environment.’ This succinct summary belied a frenzy of ideas, which played out over one of the most entertaining shows of the week.

Classic couture silhouettes were fashioned from a mish-mash of consumer goods and mass-produced garments. The opening look, worn by Irina Shayk, comprised a gown in a 1950s prom style, constructed from gloves, with a mesh flounce. A puff-sleeved dress, with a squared neckline and a central slit that showed a silver interior, appeared to be made from a gold Mylar blanket – its creased folds still visible, like it had just been ripped from its packet. Another dress used kitschily patterned curtains, pinch pleats and all, for its full, trained skirt, while its bodice was made from – what else? – scrap number plates.

So far, so Watanabe, but this season offered more in the way of spectacle than just unconventional materials. In a more choreographed display than usual, Watanabe called in the services of Poland-born movement director Pat Boguslawski. He directed a languid yet melodramatic routine for Watanabe’s models, who threw garments onto chairs with tango-inspired passion, and turned their heads with the kind of simpering doe-eyed expressiveness of silent movie starlets. This reference was reinforced through Eugene Souleiman’s hair design, sculpted curls slicked to the foreheads and cheeks in the manner of Josephine Baker, and glam make-up by Isamaya Ffrench – winged, heavy-lashed and sometimes tear-streaked eyes. India Jarvis

Celine

It hasn’t taken long for Michael Rider to define a signature look at Celine: a preppy, uptown-inflected uniform that feels like a vision of Parisian style through American eyes (Rider had worked at Celine previously, under Phoebe Philo, though more recently headed up US label Polo Ralph Lauren). And it has worked: his collections thus far have felt like you could wear them off the runway and straight onto the street, full of clever riffs on quotidian pieces that will no doubt be much copied by lesser brands (they have also been full of great accessories, from abundant charm bracelets to colourful handbags and slipper-like loafers). For A/W 2026, Rider continued his upward trajectory with a show held at the Institut de France amid a series of beautiful modernist speakers in wood and metal, presenting a collection that favoured perennial style over ephemeral trends. ‘Celine is a style: a mix of old and new that feels urgent and dreamy,’ said Rider. ‘Making the things we all dream of finding and wearing.’ And in among this ready-to-wear wardrobe (in the truest sense), flourishes of the playful and the romantic emerged, from enormous sequins and flashes of animal print to feathered headpieces and bold punctuations of colour. ‘Putting on clothes, a look, can change the day – [it can] change how we walk and feel,’ said Rider. ‘I love that.’ Jack Moss

Hermès

Staged on a runway of moss and soil (strangely, a trend of the week, later seen at Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton), Nadège Vanhée’s latest outing for Hermès saw her conjure what she called a ‘liminal realm’ between dawn and dusk, earth and space. It lent the collection an alien, otherworldly feel: models emerged from glowing orbs and looped around the Garde Républicaine show space on an inky runway, which also inspired the clothing’s palette of deep blues, greys and black. Mashing up the equestrian codes that remain at the heart of Hermès – here, sliced-away jodhpurs-cum-cycling shorts, dressage blazers and knee-high leather boots – with lean, futuristic silhouettes, it was a clever hybrid of the past, present and future, a liminal realm of Vanhée’s own. Ostrich and leather jump suits, with contrasting knit sleeves, were the season’s show pieces – the result of the house’s superlative leather atelier, they straddled sex appeal and function – while visible zips added an almost sci-fi feel, running down the front of dresses or slicing across the chest of a jacket. Prints came via AM Cassandre, an art deco artist, and saw clouds intersected by a geometric structure – a reflection of Vanhée’s own juxtapositions between the graphic and the elemental. Jack Moss

Comme des Garçons

A strong Comme des Garçons collection saw Rei Kawakubo find solace in her favoured colour, black, which – save for a brief interlude in bright, candy pink – made up the majority of the A/W 2026 collection. And, while recent collections have seen Kawakubo grapple with tumultuous world affairs, the choice of the colour was not necessarily to represent grief or mourning – instead, the Japanese designer said it captured the expansiveness of the creative process. ‘I have come to realise that, after all, black is the colour for me,’ she said in a typically brief statement issued to the press. ‘It’s just the strongest, the best for creation, and the colour that embodies the rebellious spirit. And has the biggest meaning: the universe and the black hole.’ Indeed, the use of a single colour allowed Kawakubo’s typically provocative forms to come to the fore: this season, pillow-like constructions draped in semi-sheer black tulle, undulating pile-ups of shirred ruffles and tassels, or saucer-shaped protusions that looped around the upper body. Like any Comme collection, it was a Rorschach test – revelling in the unfamiliar, Kawakubo always challenges you to draw your own conclusions. Jack Moss

Balenciaga

Of all the creative directors at the nascent stages of new tenures, Pierpaolo Piccioli might have one of the steepest mountains to climb at Balenciaga. In the 16 years he spent at Valentino, prior to taking this new position in the spring of 2025, he demonstrated a Cristóbal Balenciaga-worthy approach to dressmaking that prioritised proportion and colour. But while Piccioli was sending out breathtaking confections of ballooning silk taffeta at Valentino, Balenciaga the brand was being injected with a new edge, at the hand of Vetements-founder Demna, whose zeitgeist-defining designs were laced with subversion and irony. How to bring the grandeur and romance that are Piccioli’s calling cards, without alienating the new demographic of customers who flocked to the brand under Demna?

For this season, his second collection, Piccioli pinned his hopes on a collaboration with Sam Levinson – the creator of Euphoria, the teen drama responsible for making internationally recognised stars out of its cast, which includes Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer. Audiences at the Balenciaga A/W 2026 show were treated to a preview of clips from the HBO show’s third series (airing publicly in April), which played on screens across the venue; its interplay of light and dark was found running through the collection, which Piccioli had titled ‘ClairObscur’. The collection itself was a largely black affair, in light-catching high-gloss fabrics, punctuated by the occasional neon-toned print that harkened to Euphoria's colour-saturated visual style. If Euphoria – boundary-pushing, youth-orientated, and ever so slightly contentious – feels more spiritually within Demna’s wheelhouse than Piccioli’s, the High Renaissance references (‘ClairObscur’ is a play on clair-obscur or chiaroscuro, the artistic style beloved by Mannerist painters, which manifests as dramatically contrasting tones to create intense depth) brought proceedings firmly back into Piccioli’s world. India Jarvis

READ: Balenciaga taps Euphoria’s Sam Levinson for A/W 2026

Jean Paul Gaultier

After the shock factor of his debut last season – one which divided both critics and online commentators with its barely-there silhouettes and trompe l’oeil prints of nude bodies – Dutch designer Duran Lantink seemed to hit his stride this season, using his eye for the surreal and the sculptural to create a disruptive cast of archetypes, from the raver to the cowboy. Marlene Dietrich (or, more specifically, a treasured mesh T-shirt printed with the filmstar that Lantink had found in a vintage shop) was one figure on the moodboard, inspiring the clever opening tailoring, which came with jutting folds and sculpted lapels, while also being printed on a dress installed with dry ice (a nod to her favoured vice – cigarettes). The designer said she was a master in subverting tropes: ‘dominant, sexy and graceful, the ultimate hybrid’ – a mood that informed the shape-shifting collection. Tailoring metamorphosed into tech-y sportswear, trompe-l’oeil bodysuits of artist’s dummies were overlaid with lingerie, and puffer jackets became bodysuits. ‘It’s a spirit that suits the house of Gaultier, a place where the world is perpetually turned upside down,’ said Lantink via press notes. ‘Feminine and masculine, inside out, vintage and new, underwear as outerwear, technical and tailored all at once.’ Jack Moss

Chanel

Matthieu Blazy said that his sophomore ready-to-wear collection began with a quote from house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. ‘Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly. Be a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night,’ she said. ‘There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.’ It seemed an apt description for Blazy’s own vision for Chanel thus far, one which elevates the quotidien through expressive acts of craft, and finds joy in both the functional and the glamorous. These are special clothes, no doubt (as anyone who has had the chance to see them up close can attest), though they are designed to be worn, not simply exalted. As such, he will no doubt be satisfied by the busy shop floors earlier this week as his debut collection landed (it was an ongoing fashion-week talking point), and more so to see those purchases worn by attendees to the show on Monday evening (and not just by the usual high-spending customers, but editors and stylists alike).

Staged amid a series of vast primary-coloured cranes – Blazy is, after all, still in the process of constructing his Chanel – the designer’s A/W 2026 collection was a brilliant and comprehensive exercise in wardrobing, which, to borrow Coco Chanel’s categorisation spanned the ‘caterpillar’ (roomy blazers, tweeds reformulated into lumberjack-style overshirts, simple jersey dresses), but also the ‘butterfly’. The latter came in an extraordinary stream of lustrous, colour-sturated looks at the end of the show, loaded with embellishment – appliqué flowers, lace and beads – and matched with models’ pastel-coloured or metallic hair. Over the 78 looks, there was a multitude of iterations of the Chanel woman, and the accessories to match (from gleaming metallic court shorts, to squashy crescent-shaped bags that recalled croissants). ‘Chanel is day, Chanel is night. It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ said Blazy. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’ Jack Moss

READ: Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore Chanel collection is made for ‘women to be unapologetically who they are’

Louis Vuitton

Nicolas Ghesquière staged his A/W 2026 collection for Louis Vuitton amid a show set by Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle, seeing rolling green hills – like those found in pastoral landscapes – abstracted into a series of sharp, futuristic peaks. The collection itself had a similar rationale, drawing inspiration from nature – ‘mountains, forests, plains’, and the clothing traditionally used to live among such elemental landscapes – and reimagining them through a series of Ghesquière’s typically idiosyncratic, time-travelling silhouettes. The idea of expedition seemed a throughline – supersized-wide-shouldered jackets, shearling hats and furry-hooded duffel coats seemed primed for protection, while bags hung on leather staffs like bindles – though there was a ceremonial feel to garments, which recalled traditional rural dress (though, in Ghesquière style, they were mashed up in such a way that the references were hard to place). ‘It is not an escape from our realities, but an echo of them,’ said Ghesquière of the vivid collection, which also featured the ‘urban pastoral’ works of Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko. ‘[It is] a new folklore, for the future.’ Jack Moss

Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada has long interrogated a woman’s place in the world: how they move through it, and a wardrobe that feels reflective of their needs. For A/W 2026, she was thinking about the ‘smallness of the body’ – not in its physical proportions, but in opposition with the vastness of the world around us. It feels like a response to our current era of overload: the runway at Palais d’Iéna was covered in a layer of soil and moss, a reminder that beyond the pomp and ceremony of luxury fashion, we are simply humans living in communion with the earth (as a seatmate commented, perhaps this was her instruction to ‘touch grass’). ‘I am obsessed with the smallness of the body – in a human sense, the contrast between ourselves, our bodies and the vastness of that which surrounds us,’ she said. ‘Who we are, and the scale and magnitude of what we have to face. This collection is not about fragility – there is a confidence, and a strength. But always about a confrontation between a human and the expansiveness of the world.’

As such, the collection segued between moments of strength and intimacy: for the former, enveloping trapper hats, hiking shoes and sporty shearling-lined parkas, for the latter, slip dresses, satin shoes and bejewelled embellishment. There felt something of the 1990s to it: not only in the more minimal looks, which intersected the middle of the show, but in that contrast between glamour and utility (a parka over a mini dress; a studded handbag; a block heel), and also the appearance of Chloë Sevigny, a longtime house muse who first walked for Miu Miu in 1996. She was joined by a coterie of ‘individuals’ on the runway, from models Gemma Ward and Kristen McMenamy to the actress Gillian Anderson, who closed the show. Jack Moss

READ: Miu Miu’s all-star cast for A/W 2026 featured Gillian Anderson and Chloë Sevigny

The fashion industry is in a moment of historic change: over the course of the S/S 2026 season of shows, no fewer than 14 creative directors have presented their debut collections at some of the world’s best-known brands, a seismic shake-up which will no doubt reshape the style landscape for several years to come (add to that a number of sophomore collections from designers who debuted last season and you really do have a new chapter in fashion).

And, while there were a handful of debuts in New York and Milan, Paris saw opening gambits from some major players: most notably that of Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, which took place yesterday evening, a debut that has had fervent anticipation since the former Bottega Veneta designer’s appointment was announced in December (he presented a joyous collection which looked towards Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s ideas of ‘modernity and freedom’). Elsewhere, Jonathan Anderson presented his first womenswear collection for Dior on Wednesday, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez debuted their vision for Loewe on Friday, and Pierpaolo Piccioli and Duran Lantink also made high-profile debuts at Balenciaga and Jean Paul Gaultier respectively.

Here, in our round-up of the standout shows of Paris Fashion Week S/S 2026 – reported from the French capital – we unpack these debuts, alongside a slew of other runway shows that took place across the week, from the blockbuster (Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent) to the avant-garde (Junya Watanabe, Rick Owens).

Kiko Kostadinov

The closing Tuesday of Paris Fashion Week had just a handful of shows from designers who work on a smaller scale – a welcome gear-shift after the sensory overload of a week of blockbuster debuts and fervent online chatter. In an all-white gallery on the sunlit upper floor of the Palais de Tokyo, sisters Laura and Deanna Fanning presented their latest collection for Kiko Kostadinov, a London-based label which has established a close-knit community of followers (many were in attendance today). Known for an avant-garde approach to pattern-cutting and colour combinations – garments have an almost futurist feel – this season the Australian sisters, who helm the brand’s womens line said they wanted to ‘look inwards’.‘ ‘It is not just the clothes we made that matter, but how we made them,’ they said. ‘[We wanted to] return to the practices that defined our beginnings in fashion: [an] exploration of material, composition, proportion, and construction.’

As such, the collection took on a feeling of experimentation and collage, with elements that recalled traditional quilting, folk attire and workwear mixed up in the sisters’ typically offbeat style, while a series of bold three-dimensional chestpieces were more sculpture than clothing. One inspiration was the work of American artist Christina Ramberg and her female figures, ‘hulking bodies with stiff brassieres, jagged corsetry, and backcombed bangs,’ as they described, having been struck by her work on a recent trip to Berlin. ‘We push ourselves to design audaciously, think dynamically and abstractly,’ they said. ‘Even in the most uncertain times, we strive to find a silver lining: a freedom of body and mind.’

Chanel

It was the most anticipated moment of fashion month, the subject of fervent speculation and hearsay, a noise which was momentarily hushed yesterday evening as guests walked into the Grand Palais for Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel debut. Inside, the French-Belgian designer had conjured a solar system: a series of enormous glowing planets hung from the ceiling, while a black runway recalled the boundless stretch of the universe. In its scale, it recalled the show sets of Karl Lagerfeld, a statement from Blazy – who previously was at Bottega Veneta – that despite the weight of this debut, he wasn’t afraid of going big. In fact, as he told Business of Fashion prior to the show, he saw this as a one-time shot: how many times do you get to debut with Chanel? ‘We can go two ways. Either we do a clean, modern, by the codes, by the book Chanel show, and it’s a first step. Or we do this show as if it were our last,’ he said. ‘I took the last option. Let’s do a show as if it was the last one.’

Inspired by the feeling of ‘modernity and freedom’ which infused house founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s designs, the show began with a men’s suit and shirt – the jacket a recreation of Blazy’s own blazer (‘I only changed the buttons and added a chain’), the shirt made by Parisian shirtmaker Charvet, in a rare collaboration. He had become fascinated with the couturier’s relationship with the English polo player Boy Capel, who Blazy called her ‘most significant other’ – here, he imagined Gabrielle Chanel wearing Capel’s clothing, something she purportedly did. The latter two chapters of the show were more expressive, and recalled the experimentations with materiality Blazy excelled at during his time at Bottega Veneta: tweed jackets were cleverly manipulated to appear as if they were frayed at their edges (’the worn familiarity of the truly chic, items feel passed down and utilised’), while gowns bloomed with appliqué flowers or dramatic flourishes of feathers, like that worn by the model Awar Odhiang.

Indeed, the Ethiopia-born, Canadian model seemed to encapsulate the collection’s joyous mood: at the end of the show, she twirled across the runway as the sounds Snap’s ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ boomed over the speakers. A grinning Blazy joined her for his final bow. ‘I just wanted to have fun,’ he said backstage. ‘Something beautiful and enjoyable – [that’s] what we have to propose in fashion.’ Jack Moss

Thom Browne

You’ve probably wondered what aliens might be like if they arrived on earth. If you asked Thom Browne, he’d say they’d wear 7-inch platform heels and have glittering green heads. Presented yesterday on the final day of the S/S 2026 season, the designer’s playful show offered a much-needed injection of fun to tired editors, staging a campy alien invasion in the centre of Paris. Starting off with silver extraterrestrial characters who handed out cards that read ‘We come in peace’, the collection that followed was soundtracked by ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’ by The Carpenters.

The clothes themselves saw an over-the-top layering of Thom Browne signatures: assertive sport coats with shoulders twisted forward into sculptural shapes, drop-waist pleated skirts, and shrunken cricket sweaters cropped high on the torso. Bright, preppy palettes and stripes collided with sequinned tulle, while patchwork tweeds and flashes of metallic hardware shimmered ‘like signals from another planet’. It was both surreal and expertly tailored – as Browne’s wardrobe always is – a cosmic collision of classic Americana and otherworldly fantasy. As our fashion features editor Jack Moss noted, ‘it was impossible not to raise a smile.’ Orla Brennan

Miu Miu

In the mid-1980s, the German photographer Helga Paris spent time at a clothing factory in East Berlin, documenting its female workers in a series of black-and-white portraits. In the images, almost every woman wears an apron, or tabard; despite their function, they remain decorated with markers of femininity, from flowers and polka dots to ruffle trims. Paris’ photographs – as well as those of Dorothea Lange of women at work – provided the starting point of Miu Miu’s latest collection. Miuccia Prada said she had been thinking about ‘the importance of work. Its significance, its relevance and meaning.’ ‘We in fashion always talk about glamour or rich people, but we have to recognise that life is also very difficult,’ she said backstage. ‘And to me the apron contains the real difficult life and pain women in history, from factories to the home.’

Watched on by guests perched on rows of Formica tables in place of chairs or benches – they suggested the kitchen, or perhaps a worker’s canteen – this consideration of a woman at work led her to the apron, a garment writ with connotations. Versions spanned the resolutely utilitarian (like that in canvas, worn by actress Sandra Hüller to open the show), to the vaguely fetishistic (iterations came in leather or black taffeta, with French Maid-like ruffles), to those featuring floral prints, recalling cleaners and kitchen staff. A series of bejewelled versions, meanwhile, exalted and transformed the garment. ‘The apron is my favourite piece of clothing in general,’ said Mrs Prada backstage, which is no surprise. The uniform has always been a fascination for this designer: here, in this latest study, it was valorised – a recognition, said the designer, of the oftentimes invisible weight of women’s work. Jack Moss

Sacai

In the summer, Chitose Abe found a new home for Sacai – a brightly lit studio space in the 6th arrondissement, where Nicolas Ghesquière was based during his fabled tenure at Balenciaga in the 2000s. Sparking ideas of home and what it means to stay – and indeed, to leave – a place, her S/S 2026 collection arrived yesterday against ‘a backdrop of changing tides in fashion’ (the designer showed on the final day of a season of never-before-seen house-hopping, and the morning of Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel debut). Away from the noise of it all, she turned her attention to ‘what is undeniably and irrefutably Sacai.’

A storyline of the brand’s signature hybridisations unfolded in tailored looks of beautifully exaggerated proportions, moving from formal black and white to shades that recalled the explosion of spring – earthy greens and pink florals. Taking the simple act of ‘up-turning’ garments to extremes, sculptural silhouettes emerged from cargo pant legs folded into voluminous skirts and tank tops turned up to form blouses; while elsewhere, ideas of falling and unravelling appeared in fringed tweeds and hoodies that morphed into ruffled dresses. Beautiful and quintessentially Sacai, it was, said the show notes, the designer’s ‘boldest expression of her vision’. With it, she seemed to say: I’m not going anywhere. Orla Brennan

Chloé

Gaby Aghion founded Chloé in 1952 as an antithesis to the unrestrained luxury of couture, finding its exclusivity out of step with the contemporary woman. ‘A thing of beauty and quality should be seen on women in the streets,’ she famously once said. At the risk of going against the principles of the house’s founder, Chemena Kamali’s S/S 2026 collection looked to the world of couture for inspiration, parsing its meticulous craftsmanship through the brand’s effortless, liberated codes. ‘I liked the idea of going back to what Gaby Aghion rejected without betraying the original DNA of the house,’ she said. ‘I wanted to explore what the idea of couture could mean in the Chloé context.’

Shown at the UNESCO headquarters, Kamali’s collection found its starting point in the first collections Aghion presented for Chloé nearly 70 years ago at Café Flore and Brasserie Lipp – silhouettes that drew on the resplendent femininity of couture without the formality of boning, padding or ornate decoration. Employing a similar sense of lightness, Kamali’s clothes took on an instinctive volume and movement, transforming humble fabrics like cotton poplin into elegant silhouettes through pleating, knotting and drapery. Breaking from the soft neutral palette associated with Chloé, bright florals plucked from the house’s archives brought an enlivened spirit to the collection, which translated the grandeur of couture into a wardrobe that, as Aghion would have it, one could imagine on real women in the street. The setting – a postmodern building that serves the public – was, said the designer, intentional: ‘UNESCO is a place that stands for open dialogue and exchange, freedom and openness,’ she said. ‘A place that honours creativity in all its forms.’ Orla Brennan

Jean Paul Gaultier

The buzzy Dutch Duran Lantink has made a name with collections which take the archetypal elements of a wardrobe and exaggerate their proportions to surreal effect. It made his eponymous label – currently on pause – one of Paris’ most talked-about, and indeed critically lauded, labels, the winner of the Karl Lagerfeld award at the 2024 LVMH Prize (though not without some controversy: a pair of bouncing fake breasts worn by a male model at his A/W 2025 show proved divisive).

For his debut collection for Jean Paul Gaultier, held in the bunker-like basement of the Musée du Quai Branly on Sunday afternoon, Lantink brought this playful approach to the Gaultier archive, undertaking what he called a ‘Duranification’ of the house and its signatures. The conical bra was exaggerated into cushion-like protrusions which jutted outwards from the body; the sailor’s hat was blown up to become a hem of a top, while trompe l’oeil prints gave the illusion that the model was completely nude.

Lantink said he had been inspired by the younger Jean Paul Gaultier ‘Junior’ line, which ran from 1988-1994, and – while generally eschewing the moodboard in favour of working intuitively – photographs from Amsterdam nightclub RoXY taken by Cleo Camper in 1988, a nightspot Gaultier himself had attended. ‘RoXY was sweaty, debaucherous, anarchic, stylish in the most careless way,’ said Duran – an apt description of the collection itself, which in its bold, unapologetic vision felt like a welcome jolt to the system. An emotional Gaultier, himself a master of the shock factor, seemed to approve. Jack Moss

Valentino

The show set for Alessandro Michele’s latest Valentino show was, by the designer’s standards at least, relatively minimal. Centred around a square-shaped black runway, interest came from a series of lights which whizzed and swirled across the ceiling – a symbolic representation of a swarm of fireflies, the glowing insect from which this S/S 2026 collection took its name. A voiceover at the start of the show explained their relevance: Michele had begun this collection by looking towards a 1941 letter sent by Pier Paolo Pasolini to a childhood friend in which he talks about the magic of seeing fireflies in the forest. ‘We envied them because they loved each other, because they longed for each other through amorous flights and lights,’ it read. For Michele, as the voiceover (read by Pamela Anderson) continued, these ‘erratic luminescences bursting with life’ represented ‘the ability to resist the darkest night’ – namely, the rise of fascism and the onset of World War II.

Such an evocation was a clear allusion to our current tremulous era of political discontent, which Michele likened to an onset of ‘darkness’. He said that fashion is an unlikely but ‘precious ally’ in such moments – a reminder of ‘beauty that resists standardisation’, something resolutely human that connects us to the body. Clothing this season was a little more stripped back than the past two collections for the house, though still came with gestures of glamour: voluminous blouses were worn with gathered velvet skirts, sinuous gowns came in bold jewel tones or were sheer and adorned with crystals, while the bow continued to be a motif, appearing on the necks of blouses or the hem of a skirt. At the end of the show, the colourful coterie of models gathered on the runway, gazing upwards to the swirling lights above – it made for a cinematic tableau, a reminder of Michele’s ability to draw emotion with his runway shows, which are always directed with a showman’s flourish. Jack Moss

Akris

American abstract art is having a moment at Paris Fashion Week. For their Loewe debut, duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez drew upon the work of Ellsworth Kelly, using a 1989 masterpiece by the artist as a symbol of the ‘optimism and spirit’ they hope to bring to the Spanish house. Yesterday, in the Grand Verrièr space at the Palais de Tokyo, designer Albert Kriemler looked to the work of Oklahoma-born Leon Polk Smith for his latest Akris collection, using the vivid, hard-edged style of Smith’s paintings as a starting point for a collection rooted in ‘sensuality and intuition’. Unlike McCollough and Hernandez, however, Kriemler is no stranger to the brand he leads – the Swiss designer took over duties at Akris from his parents in 1980 (the brand was founded by his grandmother over a century ago, in 1922).

Kriemler first encountered Smith’s painting ‘Seven Involvements in One’ at Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich in 2023, describing the work as a ‘free-standing object full of pulse and offbeat bravado’. Beyond the obvious parallels in the collection’s bright colour palette, Kriemler says he was most inspired by the idea of paring clothes back to their essence. As such, classically elegant shirting and sweeping skirts appeared in shades of red, orange and yellow, while structure emerged through the properties of the materials themselves: trapezoid gowns crafted from embroidered couture-level fabrications, draped fringe knits, sharp cotton suiting and horsehair accessories. ‘Smith once said he thought of his work as the opposite of minimal,’ said the designer. ‘I can relate to that. [Akris] is not about looking minimal; it’s about being essential. It's about using form and fabric to bring a person to light.’ Orla Brennan

Celine

‘I thought it would be nice on a Sunday if we get out of the city and to a park,’ said the American designer Michael Rider of his decision to show in Parc de Saint-Cloud, a bucolic estate just outside of Paris which was once the grounds of chateau owned by Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (the building no longer remains, having been bombed during the Franco-Prussian War). The journey was worth it: here, in the fresh midday air, Rider presented a collection of clarity and focus, which he said was a ‘continuation’ of his debut for the house, a resort show held this past July during Haute Couture Week. With that collection, he cleverly synthesised elements of Hedi Slimane and Phoebe Philo’s tenures at the house (he previously worked there under the latter), with his own vision of French style – a little preppy, modern but timeless (his previous role at Polo Ralph Lauren was also an influence). ‘[I] did not want there to be a sense of erasure. There was a foundation to build on. That to me felt modern, it felt ethical, it felt strong,’ he said at the time.

Here, for men and women, the idea of a full wardrobe continued: there was brilliant tailoring, widened at the shoulder and long in the body (iterations came in bourgeois navy blazers and tuxedo jackets), volumnious trench coats with colourful foulard-print linings, and dresses which shifted between flared minis in 1960s floral prints, and billowing twisted gowns, the latter a pitch to the Philo woman. Elements of preppiness continued, like colour-blocked silk rugby shirts for men (though could equally be shared by women), or crisp white shirts and chinos. Trousers were cut both baggy and wide, or super-skinny (a nod, perhaps, to Slimane’s most well-known silhouette). In another designer’s hands, this kind of wide-ranging collection could fall flat, but Rider already seems to have honed in on what makes a shopper tick. ‘We were thinking about what Celine is and what it isn’t,’ he said. ‘About things that last, and things that are just a moment. And about how clothes, shoes, and all of it become a part of the memories we make wearing them.’ Jack Moss

Balenciaga

At Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli established himself as one of fashion’s best-loved designers with straight-from-the-heart collections, defined by an expressive use of colour and a generosity of silhouette. No wonder, then, that his first show for Balenciaga last night – taking the reins of the Parisian house from Demna – was titled ‘Heartbeat.’ Teased with a show invite in the form of a cassette tape which played the sound of a beating heart, the mood at the Kering HQ on Rue de Sevres was buoyant, with a starry front row of longtime muses, including Anne Hathaway, as well as some newer fans gathered to witness his debut (notably, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, in a rare public appearance).

Though there were no signs of nerves here: instead, the confident opening outing was an exercise in form and silhouette, with Piccioli translating archetypal Balenciaga couture garments – in particular, the trapeze-like line of the 1957 ‘Sack Dress’ – into resolutely modern pieces nonetheless infused with the mood of romance which has run through Piccioli’s oeuvre. The latter was expressed in moments of embellishment, whether the blooming floral appliqué across a hooded jacket, or flourishes of tassels and feathers. Colour was typically vivid, though a series of pieces in black leather – and the bug-eyed sunglasses worn throughout – felt a nod to the moodier aesthetic of his subversive predecessor (and a bid, no doubt, to retain that customer).

It ended with a standing ovation: this was another heartfelt collection from Piccioli – it’s the only way he knows how. ‘For every heartbeat there is a name, a moment, a gesture,’ he wrote in a letter distributed at the show. ‘This collection comes from that place of love and connection. It is as much mine as it is of those who lived it with me – in every way.’ Jack Moss

Vivienne Westwood

In 1998, Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler released a scent created in collaboration with master perfumer Martin Gras. Inspired by the heavy, antique perfumes of Versailles, the couple named it Boudoir. Shown in the Ikebana room of L’Institut de France, Kronthaler’s S/S 2026 collection for the house shared the same name. ‘It’s all about a private, secret space without non-stop distraction,’ he said after the show. ‘It’s this space where you are nearest to yourself, where truth lies.’

The collection that followed made for a particularly sensual display from the eccentric Austrian designer, who has designed in Westwood’s memory since her passing in 2021. Starting by looking at designs of decadent antique bedroom drapes, this season an attention to fabrics recalled the deep romance of Italy – where Kronthaler spent much of the summer – mixing the brand’s cult patterns with brocade lace you’d find in typical Italian markets, embroideries left in drawers of Sicilian villas, and punched leather that appeared worn and ‘lived in’.

Silhouettes, meanwhile, were typically esoteric: waist-cinching bodices, bunched and chaotically draped hemlines, and off-kilter tailoring rooted in Westwood’s subversive codes. It was a love letter to Milan, where the designer lives; to London, the brand’s spiritual home; and to Paris, where Westwood had long presented its shows. Kronthaler’s final message came through the show’s soundtrack. ‘We are living in a world of great change; therefore, I’ve chosen the last movement of Jupiter by Mozart as the music,’ he said. ‘It’s a sound that foresees the future in the most hopeful way.‘ Orla Brennan

Junya Watanabe

Set to a soundtrack configured by Brian Eno, Junya Watanabe’s S/S 2026 display felt more like a piece of theatre than a runway show. Models moved down the runway showing cards that explained their looks to the audience – designs that weren’t ordinary clothes, but that used ordinary clothes to shape their surreal forms. Piles of red high heels made the shoulders of a black cascading gown, layers of shirts on hangers formed a tent-like dress that looked like the model had tumbled through a dry cleaner, and a series of black looks that closed the show used wire and soft inky jersey to create villainous silhouettes that clung and jutted from the body in geometric forms. As ever, it was a display that pushed the boundaries of what clothing can be, offering a moment to revel in Watanabe’s unbridled imagination amid a packed day of shows in the French capital. ‘I took a different approach to making clothes than before,’ said the designer in a statement. ‘By treating ready-made items – objects originally intended for specific purposes – as materials, I recontextualised them and explored forms that could never be achieved through conventional methods.’ It was, as the designer intended, ‘extraordinary art born from the everyday.’ Orla Brennan

Maison Margiela

In 1989, Martin Margiela hosted his S/S 1999 show in a derelict playground on the outskirts of Paris. Local children designed the invitations in crayon and marker; when the show began, they ran around models' feet or crouched, watching on from the front row. Back then, it was a revolution: far away from Paris’ gilded salons and ballrooms, it stripped away the artifice of the 1980s and altered what a fashion show could be. ‘I always thought fashion was a bit superficial, but this show changed everything for me,’ said Raf Simons, one of the several notable people who gathered that evening.

For his first ready-to-wear collection for Maison Margiela – Martin Margiela’s eponymous house, which he exited in 2009 – the Belgian creative director Glenn Martens seemed to have the 1989 show on his mind. Presenting at the Centquatre-Paris cultural centre in the north of the city, where he showed his debut Artisanal show for the house earlier this year, Martens drafted an orchestra of local children from Romilly-sur-Seine to provide a live soundtrack. Clad in Margiela suits in sizes too big, the miniature musicians (who prompted smiles from even the stoniest of the fashion crowd) proceeded on a whistlestop tour through classical music’s radio greats – from Mozart’s to Symphonie N°40 to Strauss’ Le Beau Danube bleu. While it might be hard to replicate the energy of that initial show, the happily unpolished performance captured some of the house’s DIY spirit.

The collection itself was a selection of ‘concepts and proposals for real life’ which drew heavily on the Maison Margiela archive. Models’ lips were pulled open with contraptions that gave the illusion that their mouths had been stitched open at each corner – a nod to the house’s signature branding – wearing a collection of deconstructed glamour, which largely drew on, and warped, tropes of eveningwear. Tuxedo jackets were worn with torn shirts beneath; a column gown was remade in leather, and the scooped line of a waistcoat informed the cut of the collection’s outerwear. Elsewhere, dresses were pieced together from an energetic collage of fabrics, from sequins to jewellery-like appliqué, while the collection’s closing gown looked to have been wrapped in red plastic bags – a typically Margiela flourish. Jack Moss

Hermès

Horseriding is part of the Hermès DNA, something that Nadège Vanhée embraced for her S/S 2026 outing for the house. Staged on a sand-covered runway, its surface strewn with tiny shards of shells, she said that this season’s collection had begun with an antique Camargue saddle she had discovered in the house’s archive. The famous white horses of Camargue, located in southern France, are known for living wild in herds on the marshes of the region, an unusually harsh environment for the animal which has made them a local attraction. Vanhée sought to channel this wild spirit with a collection she titled ‘Free Rein’, using the saddle’s construction to inform the silhouettes of the collection, while bra tops took their cue from harnesses. There was a bohemian inflection to looks here – Vanhée called Camargue France’s ‘Wild West’ – which came in the Hermès silk carré, twisted around the neck or becoming a ‘makeshift top’, as well as buckles, criss-crossing fastenings and traditional ‘boutis’ needlework. As ever, accessories were particularly seductive, from the practical – a brilliant riding boot with chevron quilting – to the tiniest of crescent-shaped handbags, with just enough room for a lipstick and house keys. Jack Moss

Alaïa

This season, Pieter Mulier was thinking about the rituals of uniform. Not the stiffness of army gear or the naivety of school dresses, but the idea of ‘clothes as machines for living’. As such, the collection he presented (shown as part of the official calendar, rather than during couture week) saw a sharpening of the wardrobe that has become a cult favourite – a uniform of its own sorts – to women around the world since he took over the house in 2021.

‘Reduced, sculptural’ and ‘precise’, it drew upon the essential glamour of the house’s namesake in a series of looks rendered with inventive attention to craft. Playing with extremes of luxury and simplicity, bold shades of humble cotton mixed with textures of python, leather, and silk, cut in womanly silhouettes that ergonomically wrapped around the body in shapes prioritising freedom of function. Amid these looks, which Mulier described as ‘uncompromising’, flourishes of decorative beauty appeared through intricate textures of macramé feathers, knitted pearls, and the movement of fringe. Accessories – a strong category for the house – were all sharp lines, from pointed chunky stilettos to skinny rectangular snakeskin-embossed handbags.

Shown at the Cartier Foundation on a digital screen floor that played footage of his model muses – reflected onto a mirrored ceiling – the clothes, as ever, displayed Mulier’s attention to what women want to wear, and his understanding of how his designs make them feel. As he wrote in the show’s notes, ‘there is a sense, always, of the woman’s body within – moving, alive’. Orla Brennan

Givenchy

Backstage after her sophomore show for Givenchy, creative director Sarah Burton said that for women, power dressing doesn’t always have to mean wearing a suit (although, in this confident second outing, there was plenty of brilliant tailoring, one of the former McQueen designer’s strengths). Why, she questioned, does power in fashion always have to be figured through traditionally menswear garments? Instead, she looked to find strength in what a note on attendees’ seats called ‘feminine archetypes’ – there were bra tops and bodysuits emblazoned with pearls, frilled mini dresses which flared out like tutus, and bold flourishes of jewellery, like a twisted metal and crystal bodysuit worn by model Vittoria Cerretti in a rare runway outing (Naomi Campbell, a longtime Sarah Burton muse, also walked the show, as did Kaia Gerber).

‘It started by peeling back the structure of tailoring to reveal skin and a sense of lightness and ease – and then exploring the female vocabulary of dress and undress,’ she explained. As such, other garments had a feeling of intuition – the designer said she was thinking about the idea of a woman taking a piece of fabric and wrapping it around her body – like a ‘bedsheet gown’ in rose-stitch satin, held closed by the model across the chest, or nets of tulle which appeared thrown on. Free of the weight of her debut, this expressive collection showed a designer now in full flow – a feeling of liberation which was felt in the clothes. Jack Moss

Victoria Beckham

Looking back at pictures of herself as a teenager, this season Victoria Beckham was thinking about how, ‘as we transition from girls into women, we search for our voice not only verbally but visually, too’. Choosing to show in the 17th-century Val-de-Grâce church in the center of Paris yesterday evening, her S/S 2026 collection was a love letter to the ‘coming-of-age wardrobe’ – the naïve fantasies, compositions, and accidents that shape how we learn to express ourselves through clothes.

The rewatching cult rite-of-passage films Romeo and Juliet and The Virgin Suicides led to a storyline of feathers that opened the show, which plumed from inky black scoop-necked minidresses and crisp white tank tops worn with tuxedo suit trousers. These looks moved to sprayed jersey top and dresses, which nodded to the girly glamour of Beckham’s own youth, while pastel negligees, camisoles and slip skirts in silky pinks and organza florals unmistakably evoked the wardrobes of Sofia Coppola’s Lisbon sisters. The youthful spontaneity of these looks were grounded in Beckham’s sharp, contemporary silhouettes – especially in her tailoring, which this season came in shades of Herringbone cotton that nodded to inherited pieces and tailored trousers suspended from georgette basques, winking at the teenage accident of tucking your top into tights.

Adolescence may have been the theme but Beckham’s wardrobe was still grown up, restrained and desirable in the way her clothes always are. The collection, said the show’s notes, was designed from the perspective of a mother to a teenage daughter, a celebration of ‘the pure joy of dressing inherent to the exceptional stage of girlhood.’ Orla Brennan

Issey Miyake

Recent seasons have seen Satoshi Kondo push the boundaries of what clothing can be. His experiments continued for S/S 2026, asking the question: ‘What if garments are conscious?’. As such, polo shirts and hoodies crept up the neck in strange, sculptural forms, like the model was in a perpetual shrug, while trousers and tops were inset with bulging pockets (through the semi-sheer fabric, you could see objects like pens and stacks of plastic mugs lurking inside). Other garments seemed to grow with extra sleeves, or were printed with slogans like ‘I am autonomous’ and ‘I am animated’, while bold expressions of print and texture – from tropical motifs to dresses adorned with leaf-like fronds of fabric – added a feeling of collage. It made for an enlivening, mood-elevating collection and continued a brilliant run from Kondo, who is readily embracing the house founder’s spirit of innovation and play. But more cleverly, it was also desirable: in amongst the more expressive pieces were his riffs on the everyday, from slouchy twisted shirting to layered dresses with stretch – you could see anyone in the Pompidou Centre showspace being seduced by them. Jack Moss

Loewe

The entrance to Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s debut show for Loewe, held in a specially constructed box in the grounds of Paris’ Parc Cité Internationale Universitaire on Friday morning, was hung with a 1989 work by Ellsworth Kelly. That work, Yellow Panel with Red Curve, and indeed the American artist’s wider oeuvre, provided what the pair called a ‘visual language’ with which to approach their tenure at the Spanish house (they take over from Jonathan Anderson, who is now at Loewe, having left Proenza Schouler, their own New York-based label founded in 2002).

‘Reduced, sometimes sculptural forms and elemental colour,’ is how they described both Kelly’s work and their own S/S 2026 collection, which was defined by graphic silhouettes and a bold use of colour – like a series of brightly hued hourglass mini dresses in moulded leather, Loewe’s signature material. Elsewhere, wardrobe staples were approached with what they called a ‘sensuality and fervour’ – from slouchy polos and windbreakers, to a cleverly textured fabric which gave the illusion of frayed denim.

‘[In Yellow Panel with Red Curve] lies a vibrancy and tactility that feels fundamental to the house,’ said the pair. ‘A chromatic intensity and sensuality that feels inherent to its Spanish roots, and ultimately an optimism and spirit that we deeply identify with. Hung within the show space, it operates as a starting point, a prelude of sorts, to what lies ahead.’ Jack Moss

Schiaparelli

When Daniel Roseberry presented his first ready-to-wear collection for Schiaparelli two years ago, the designer wrote in his S/S 2026 show notes, he would often hear, ‘This is ready-to-wear? I thought I was looking at couture.’ Once unsure what to make of such critiques, he now sees things differently. ‘What felt like a liability now feels like a strength. Why can’t fashion – even everyday fashion – be art?’ As such, his latest collection, shown last night at the Pompidou Centre, possessed all the unrestrained glamour and spectacle one might expect during couture week.

The designer looked to the house’s namesake Elsa for inspiration, exploring her love of ‘unexpected frictions’ in exaggerated-shouldered jackets cut with ‘tailleur rigour’, and texturally expressive gowns that captured a feeling of ‘hard chic’ – gauzy black chiffon dotted with bird-like polka dot feathers, shimmering gold chainmail torn to reveal skin beneath, and satin columns of deep crimson. Elsewhere, Roseberry drew from Elsa’s personal wardrobe, presenting a series of trompe l’oeil knits in loud triple-tone jacquards (‘shocking then, shocking now’ he joked), while the house’s flair for the surreal came in accessories made to ‘surprise and delight’, from gold metallic sandals to handbags inspired by Dalí’s melting clocks.

Both a celebration of Schiaparelli’s codes and the emotive experience of a runway show, Roseberry wanted the display to offer a moment of light amid the ‘cultural black hole’ of our times. ‘I read that while attendance to movies has plummeted in recent years, museum attendance has skyrocketed,’ he said. ‘It made perfect sense to me. Our phones are a slophouse of cheap thrills, with lifespans no longer than a few hours. That’s why I leapt at the opportunity to show at Centre Pompidou. Not because I wanted this collection to explicitly centre on the relationship between fashion and art, but because I felt, and feel, that going to a Schiaparelli show should feel like going to a museum: an experience equally inspirational, aspirational, and reassuring.’ Orla Brennan

Rick Owens

Just across the road from Rick Owens’ Palais de Tokyo showspace is the Palais Galliera, where the American designer’s career-spanning retrospective ‘Temple of Love’ continues until January. At his menswear show in June, which coincided with the opening, Owens said that the process of putting together the exhibition had inspired the collection: ‘a retrospective summons up thoughts of tenacity, peaking and decline, and I relished leaning into that,’ he said. As such, the theatrical presentation saw a troupe of models descending from an enormous scaffold structure erected in the Palais de Tokyo’s front pool and into the water below, before hauling themselves back up again – platform boots on and dripping wet – and triumphantly exiting the catwalk. Back then, I said that the display was ‘a symbolic gesture of Owens’ tenacity and staying power’, a testament to continuing, unwaveringly, on.

The exhibition’s presence continued to be felt at this season’s womenswear show, which saw models descend a vast staircase and into the water below – a similarly cinematic scene (both collections were titled ‘Temple’). ‘[The] exhibition tracks the pursuit of glamour and sleaze that I was looking for on Hollywood Boulevard, and eventually, improbably, ended up displaying in a Paris museum,’ he said in an email distributed to guests prior to the show. ‘I have always thought of what I do as a fascination with the denseness of European aesthetic sophistication seen through a filter of American bluntness.’ This idea of ‘glamour and bluntness’ ran through the collection: sinuous semi-sheer dresses, with criss-crossing exposed seams, were his subversion of the classic column gown, while sculptural twists of fabric protruded from the body, at once intuitive and elegant. Widened shoulders, elongated bomber jackets and spiky leather tassels, meanwhile, suggested a mood of protection. ‘Steely tenacity,’ Owens concluded. ‘Rough clothes for tough times.’ Jack Moss

Carven

How do the women of Paris dress when the weather turns warm? It’s a question British-born designer Mark Thomas asked himself in preparation for his debut collection as Carven’s new creative director, shown yesterday afternoon at the 85-year-old maison’s stately headquarters on the Champs-Élysées. Unlike many of this season’s appointments, Thomas is an in-house hire, designing under Louise Trotter before her move to Bottega Veneta earlier this year. Building on the wardrobe they established together – but dialling up the sensuality – Thomas’s women appeared in looks that held a distinctly Parisian air, elegant and effortlessly undone. Colours were ‘confident and calm’, taking inspiration from Madame Carven’s favourite flower – the orchid – offset by smoky shades of black and grey. A play between looseness and the body came in subtly layered looks that drew upon ideas of the bedroom – lacey nightgown dresses worn over basics, billowing strapless dresses that reminded of French bedlinens, and lightweight sporty jackets paired with delicate organza skirts that revealed lingerie beneath. Bringing the house’s history into the present, Thomas put his own spin on ‘esperanto’ – the graceful waistline contour detail that has been a house signature since the 50s – employing it in sportswear pieces designed to keep up ‘with the pace of city life’. Balancing deliberate lines with an insouciant kind of ease, it was a clean, clear and sensuous debut – a love letter to the women of the city, and the quiet power of the small but mighty maison he now leads. Orla Brennan

Rabanne

A bold use of colour and print has run throughout the S/S 2026 season so far, as have themes of freedom and escape. Yesterday afternoon, Rabanne designer Julien Dossena took it to another level. His kaleidoscopic summer outing was a heady melange of vivid sorbetto hues, graphic stripes, tropical motifs, floral appliqué and futuristic ‘car crash’ metallic ruffles – a nod to the Parisian house’s foundational material (founder Paco Rabanne loved the space-age sheen of the material; ‘he’s not a couturier, he’s a metal worker,’ Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel once cattily quipped).

Dossena said this season began with a consideration of the construction and shape of 1950s swimwear, a garment he said epitomised the era’s ‘sheen of optimism and a foreshadowing of disruptive change’ – one which the French designer linked with our current moment of turbulence and change. It lent the collection a mood of surreal escapism: the construction of those bathing suits inspired the cut of bra-tops and bustiers, layered under cut-out, chest-exposing jackets or adorned with spikes of fabric around their edges, while neoprene trousers – evocative of wetsuits – were rolled down as if after a day on the surf.

Accessories were equally expressive: a brilliant high-heeled sandal, teased by Dossena on Instagram prior to the show, sprouted with fronds of fern-like metal leaves, while enormous sunglasses evoked vintage goggles. Dossena said the collection was an expression of his ‘yearning for a hopeful horizon [with] a touch of surrealist shine’ amid the ‘tranquil and turbulent episodes of life’. In its no-holds-barred vision, it was impossible not to be seduced – or, perhaps more shocking still, feel optimistic. Jack Moss

Acne Studios

Transforming the inside of the 13th-century Gothic church Collège des Bernardins in Paris into a moody ‘cigar salon’, Acne Studios’ S/S 2026 collection was an exercise in balancing contrasts. Unveiled with a cast of protagonists chosen for their ‘strong, androgyne energy’, models wore looks that not only wilfully ignored the boundaries of mens- and womenswear, but that slashed and stitched evening glamour with the everyday. Lumberjack flannel was tucked into girlish lace slip skirts, cotton poplin was washed into soft dishevelment, and couturier’s lace was sliced and patchworked into contemporary body-hugging dresses. Elsewhere, the house’s denim and knitwear staples were reworked with tactile materiality and cut, so that straight-leg 1996 jeans were distressed and coated with latex, and chunky jumpers came with windowpane holes that exposed shirting beneath.

Together, it proposed a wardrobe where toughness and tenderness can co-exist. The collection’s story was reflected in the works of Brooklyn-based collage artist Pacifico Silano, whose gestural scenes made from vintage gay erotica were suspended throughout the wood-clad space. The show was soundtracked by Swedish pop icon Robyn, who stated she felt aligned with Acne Studios’ vision this season – the way it ‘questions and celebrates the typical idea of female identity’. Honouring the community of artists that has long surrounded the brand since it was co-founded by Jonny Johansson in 1996, the show also marked the beginning of Acne Studios’ anniversary celebrations. ‘Strong, playful, poised and most of all free, these women have been here all along,’ said the brand. ‘Only now, as Acne Studios advances towards its 30th year, they are leading us into the next chapters.’ Orla Brennan

READ: Acne Studios’ cigar salon runway set is decorated with Pacifico Silano’s homoerotic ‘objects of desire’

Dior

Jonathan Anderson’s debut womenswear show began with a short film by British documentary maker Adam Curtis.‘Do you dare enter the house of Dior?’ it began, before shuddering through archival footage from the house’s near-eight-decade-long history, intercut with clips from horror movies in Curtis’ dizzying, anxious style. And then – just like that – the screen turned a bright optic white and the room was illuminated, a symbolic gesture of Anderson shrugging off all that weight of history to begin anew. In the light, this was his clean slate. ‘Daring to enter the house of Dior requires an empathy with its history, a willingness to decode its language, which is part of the collective imagination, and the resoluteness to put all of it in a box,’ said Anderson via the collection notes. ‘Not to erase it, but to store it, looking ahead, coming back to bits, traces or entire silhouettes from time to time, like revisiting memories.’

So here Anderson drew on Dior’s venerable archive not in whole but in fragment, refracting silhouettes through his typically inventive lens. The Tailleur Bar – the nipped-waist Bar suit which pioneered Christian Dior’s ‘new look’ – was shrunken in size, its full skirt swapped for a mini that grazed the upper thigh, while the cantilevered waistline of a 1952 La Cigale dress appeared to inspire sculpted trapeze dresses, or double-breasted overcoats which folded across their front. Anderson said he was thinking about the ‘tension’ between fantasy and reality, of dressing up and dressing down. As such, there was theatrical cornette-style headwear, face-covering trims of lace and hourglass dresses which descended into a melange of bows, but also denim skirts, shirts and jeans, slouchy suede handbags, and classic pointed pumps. Before the show, Anderson had said he wanted to bring new women into the house of Dior, something he was no doubt thinking of in the collection’s breadth.

It made for a statement-making collection which has already got everybody talking. That is what Anderson does best. The Northern Irish designer is well aware that to sell a handbag or a pair of shoes, one must also create a distinctive, surprising universe to surround them – here, he did so in a collection that was both audacious and intuitive. It is what he did so well at Loewe, transforming the formerly sleepy Spanish house into a megabrand that he taught the world to pronounce. Now, with the eyes of the world watching, he seeks to make similar magic. Or to go back to that clever opening film, Anderson not only dares to enter the house of Dior, but he wants to renovate it too. Jack Moss

READ: ‘Change is inevitable’: Jonathan Anderson’s first Dior womenswear collection recodes the house’s archive

Louis Vuitton

Though Nicolas Ghesquière has presented his collections numerous times at the Louvre across his tenure at Louis Vuitton – all the way back to his debut in 2014, which was held in the palace’s Cour Carrée – for S/S 2026, he chose the lesser-visited former summer apartments of Anne of Austria, Queen of France as his runway (in fact, the spaces are currently closed to public as they are in the midst of a renovation, opening again in 2027). Ghesquière said he had been thinking about the idea of intimacy, ‘the boundless freedom of the private sphere’.

In the opulent apartments, where Anne of Austria would once have roamed, Ghesquière presented a collection which reimagined hallmarks of ‘indoor’ dressing – swaddling robes, nightdresses, slippers – in imaginative style. As ever, it was an idiosyncratic melange of elements, traversing eras and styles – elongated pointed collars looked picked from a monarch’s wardrobe, while shaggy shearling collars, plissé ruffles and turbans suggested a louche 1970s glamour. Other elements seemed to recall domestic interiors: sweeping draped dresses could be read as curtains, while bows, tassels and opulent embroidered flowers evoked home furnishings.

As is Ghesquière’s skill, the borrowed elements were both recognisable and hard to place – his Vuitton woman is never restrained to a singular place or time. Instead, it was a testament, said Ghesquière, to the idea of individual style: ‘The ultimate luxury of dressing for oneself and revealing one’s true personality,’ he described. With this, it fits neatly into the season’s emerging theme: the idea of liberation through clothing, the freedom to dress as you please. Jack Moss

Lanvin

Last week, Lanvin announced ‘Lanvin Blue’, a new signature colour developed by creative director Peter Copping and M/M (Paris) – a nod to house founder Jeanne Lanvin’s favoured colour, a fixation that began with the skies of Fra Angelico’s frescoes (over the French couturier’s career, she would develop 23 shades of blue in her Nanterre dye factory). At yesterday afternoon’s runway show, blue provided a bold backdrop to Copping’s sophomore outing for the house, which evolved the 1920s-inflected vision of his debut earlier this year. This included Jeanne Lanvin’s signature robe de style dress of the era – a garment that drew on the wide, panniered gowns of the 18th century, loosened from restriction and dropped at the waistline to reflect the decade’s radically changing dress codes (a version also opened this season’s show, featuring a trim of bows around the neckline and a ruffled hem).

The use of blue is symbolic of Copping’s vision for the house, which is rooted in the Lanvin archive, and Jeanne Lanvin herself – after his first show in February, he described it as an ‘homage’ to the couturier... ‘I sought to project the essence of her wardrobe today while imagining it on a cast of modern characters,’ he said. It is a leap between centuries that feels particularly pertinent this year – 2025 marks 100 years of art deco, the movement with which Jeanne Lanvin is most associated (in 1925, Armand-Albert Rateau – a leading designer and furniture maker in the movement – designed a trio of blue-coloured rooms in her apartment, now on display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs).

Here, the era’s liberated spirit came in billowing silk blouses, diaphanous twisted dresses and draped headscarves, while surface decoration – in beading and sequins – recalled deco motifs. As we reach the mid-point of our own (perhaps not so) roaring twenties, the idea of freedom through clothing that Jean Lanvin sought feels more vital than ever – a parallel Copping cleverly struck in this sophomore show. Jack Moss

Courrèges

Nicolas di Felice’s mind was still on the beach – or, indeed, looking forward to next summer spent on one, the time when this collection will arrive in stores. Swapping his usual square-shaped runway for a circle (still conceived alongside artist Rémy Brière and Matière Noire, longtime collaborators), Di Felice imagined a ‘solar ascension’, designing a collection that was built around the heat of the sun on a summer’s day – specifically, from 21 degrees in the morning to 30 degrees in the heady warmth of the afternoon (in the showspace, this was imagined by the light changing from cool optic white to a warm, sunlit yellow).

Protection was a theme: the opening looks featured cleverly draped hats that shielded the models’ faces (the design was a reinterpretation of a piece from the house’s archive), while sculptural dresses took inspiration from sun visors. Skin-bearing looks provided a juxtaposition, with swimsuit-style bodysuits, mini dresses and tank tops featuring graphic cut-outs – a contemporary nod to the house founder’s space-age silhouettes. ‘Melting’ metal jewellery completed the look, which continued Di Felice’s astute reinterpretation of André Courrèges’ pioneering spirit. ‘As designers, it’s our duty to provide a unique point of view,’ Di Felice told Wallpaper* earlier this year. ‘It’s one of the many, many things I admire about André Courrèges: he wasn’t afraid of radical thinking.’ Jack Moss

Dries Van Noten

It was the day of sophomore shows: after Peter Copping’s at Lanvin, Julian Klausner swiftly followed with his own second womenswear collection for Dries Van Noten (between his debut and now, he also showed a widely acclaimed menswear show this past June). There were no signs of the tricky second album here – the Belgian designer is already honing a vision for the label that is undeniably ‘Dries’ (Klausner worked on the brand’s design team for some years before taking the role), but has its own feeling of freshness and play. An eclectic use of colour and print (longtime hallmarks of the Antwerp-based brand) continued to define the collection, which saw clashing motifs of flowers, stripes and polka dots slowly blown up in size as the show went on – all the way to the closing looks, where the patterns became bold abstracted forms. It felt an apt companion piece to the menswear show earlier this year, where stripes and sequins were used to similarly striking effect. ‘Approaching this collection, I had in mind the Dries Van Noten wardrobe that I always loved – traditional yet daring, the different layers of dressing up,’ he said back then. This collection delighted in a similarly audacious spirit – one laced with the romance and sensitivity which defined Dries Van Noten’s best collections. Jack Moss

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney drafted Helen Mirren to serve as the opening act for her S/S 2026 show, which took place yesterday evening at the Pompidou Centre. Clad in a grey suit from the British label, Mirren read the lyrics of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ – a song McCartney chose for its plea for unity (so the story goes, the song began life as an attempt by John Lennon to write a campaign song for LSD advocate Timothy Leary’s Governor of California run). Its central message, said McCartney (herself a longtime activist), felt particularly pertinent in turbulent political times – ‘Come together for humanity, animals and Mother Earth,’ was the designer’s own appeal to the gathered audience. In the collection, this was figured through typically innovative fabrications, free of animal cruelty and with meticulous sustainable credentials, from ‘Fevvers’ – a plant-based alternative to animal feathers – to Pure.Tech, the first ‘programmable’ fabric that ‘absorbs and neutralises pollutants including CO₂ and NOx’. The latter was applied to deconstructed denim, part of a collection which was built on the idea of juxtapositions: ‘masculine and feminine, grounded yet ethereal’. Wide-shouldered power tailoring – a redux of last season’s ‘Working Girl’ look – and baggy carpenter trousers represented the former, while sequined minis, froths of ruffles and body-wrapping gowns captured a contemporary femininity. Jack Moss

An imagined meeting between photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and couturier Yves Saint Laurent – two men responsible for honing the aesthetic of the 1980s – provided the inspiration for Anthony Vaccarello’s A/W 2025 menswear collection for Saint Laurent, presented in the Tadao Ando-designed rotunda of Paris’ Bourse de Commerce earlier this year. Hanging chandeliers – lowered to just a few feet from the floor – lent the space a moody half-light, inspired by those which hung in the ballroom of Paris’ Intercontinental Hotel, where Yves Saint Laurent held his couture shows from 1976 onwards.

Out of the darkness emerged his protagonist for the season: part-Yves Saint Laurent in ‘bookish’ houndstooth and flannel tailoring, a recreation of his distinctive Parisian uniform, part-Mapplethorpe in the thigh-high leather boots worn atop, inflected with the suggestion of kink that ran through his photographic oeuvre (Mapplethorpe remains best-known for his homoerotic male nudes, which often featured elements of fetish and BDSM-wear, from leather boots, chaps and harnesses to gimp masks and latex). Vaccarello described the collection as capturing ‘a menacing, seductive elegance’, further figured in hefty leather overcoats and flourishes of ‘fur’ (in fact, these pieces were constructed from thousands of meticulously placed feathers).

Dangerous elegance: A/W 2025’s new menswear mood

This feeling of ‘menacing elegance’ ran through the season, with 1980s-inflected designs capturing a mood of dangerous sensuality through moments of leather, denim and western-wear, often clashed with classical tailoring or corporate attire. At MM6 Maison Margiela, tasselled leather gilets and pants looked to have stepped out of a Karlheinz Weinberger photograph; at Versace, slick leather tailoring was worn with silk shirts adorned with animal prints and baroque motifs; while at Prada, an influence of western-wear came in cowboy boots tweaked upwards at the toe, and tailoring made from a patchwork of leather. Playing out amid a scaffold show set designed to evoke the intimacy of a nightclub, co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons called it a collection of ‘instinct and passion’.

Here, taken from the cover shoot of the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, a series of these looks is captured by French photographic duo Melanie + Ramon and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes. Together, they encapsulate the A/W 2025’s dangerous, sensual mood – an invitation to embrace a sense of risk when dressing for the season ahead. Our short film of the shoot, above, plays out to the voice of a young Marlon Brando, as recorded in an early screentest for Rebel Without a Cause (the part later went to James Dean).

Model: Colin O at Tomorrow Is Another Day. Casting: Noah Shelley at Streeters. Hair/grooming: Michael Harding at Blend Management using Davines. Digi tech: Grzegorz Stefanski. Photography assistants: Joe Conway, Jason Colledge. Fashion assistant: Anna Sweasey. Production assistant: Danielle Quigley. Retouching: Courtoisie.

A version of this story appears in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Themes of glamour, danger and seduction ran through the A/W 2025 collections – from Saint Laurent’s thigh-high leather boots to ‘fur’ coats, animal prints and sculpted tailoring. As seen in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper* (on newsstands now), we capture the season’s sensual new mood in 12 objects and looks for men and women.

Power trip (top left)

Tropes of glamour – from bullet bras and brooches to red lips and fur coats – were riffed on by designers in unexpected and imaginative ways. At Alaïa, towering shearling ‘fur’ coats looped around models’ necklines and tassels jutted from skirt waistlines, while vast corsages sat flush to the neck. ‘The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,’ said creative director Pieter Mulier. ‘That inspired Azzedine, and it always inspires me – the strength of beauty.’

Thigh high (top right)

An imagined meeting between Robert Mapplethorpe and Yves Saint Laurent sparked Anthony Vaccarello’s menswear collection for Saint Laurent. Clashing the carnal desires of Mapplethorpe’s photography with the ‘bookish’ classicism of Yves Saint Laurent’s Parisian uniform, it was defined by thigh-grazing leather boots worn with 1980s-inspired tailoring. Referencing a ‘Robin Hood’ boot created by Yves Saint Laurent in 1963, they were perhaps the season’s most talked-about accessory, finding fans in Alexander Skarsgård and Pedro Pascal.

Buffer zone

The proliferation of faux fur – or fur reproductions in cleverly manipulated feathers or dyed shearling – suggested a desire for protection, whether against the elements or something more existential. Enveloping ‘yeti’ coats were most appealing in their hefty weight and size, from those at Dolce & Gabbana – evoking the thrown-on style of off-duty models – to Sportmax’s shaggy monochromatic overcoats. ‘Hyper-reinvention – where the ordinary becomes extraordinary,’ said the Italian label of the collection.

Swan song

After a five-year tenure, Kim Jones held his closing act as artistic director of Dior menswear amid a dramatic monochromatic mişe-en-scene that saw models descend an enormous optic white staircase and onto the runway – a play on the staircase at the house’s Avenue Montaigne address. Silhouettes took inspiration from the streamlined proportions of Christian Dior’s 1954 H-Line couture collection, while ribbon-like eye masks were tied at the back with a bow, evoking those found on the bottles of the Miss Dior fragrance.

Magic eye

Awaiting the arrival of incoming creative director Matthieu Blazy, Chanel has used recent collections to reinforce its most distinctive codes. For A/W 2025, it did so through a collection designed to ‘alter perceptions’, reimagining Chanel emblems using tricks of the eye – whether trompe l’oeil bows or a series of surreal accessories blown up in size or shrunk into miniature. These included a huge version of its signature pochette, a tiny quilted handbag, and this Borrowers-style string of pearls, one of which flips open to make a bag.

Dark arts

‘A menacing elegance’ is how Anthony Vaccarello defined the mood of his menswear collection for Saint Laurent, with its sense of danger, inflected with hints of kink. There was also Prada’s patchworked leather tailoring and raw slices of shearling ‘fur’; Lemaire’s leather foulards, worn as headscarves; and elongated trench coats and leather gloves at Ferragamo. The latter was presented by Maximilian Davis on a darkened runway strewn with red roses, a nod to the sensual staging of Pina Bausch’s Nelken, performed by the Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Wild ones

Designers embraced a wilder side this season, with Duran Lantink’s collection sporting a heady collage of zebra, leopard and tiger prints, some painted directly on to the models’ bodies, while Peter Copping’s Lanvin debut – an ode to the louche 1920s eveningwear of founder Jeanne Lanvin – featured oversized leopard-print coats with a soft, shaggy finish. At Sacai, Chitose Abe looked towards more fantastical realms, conjuring up the monsters of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are with brightly coloured flourishes of dyed shearling.

Hat trick

The hat is having something of a renaissance, appearing in various guises on recent runways. Signalling a move beyond the casual spirit of a cap or beanie, designers instead delighted in the nostalgic elegance of more classic millinery. At Sportmax, it was something between a pillbox and a panama, at Duran Lantink, there were amped-up versions of the trapper and woolly hats in his signature sculpted form, while Loro Piana featured a play on the cloche hat, a style synonymous with the liberatory dress codes of the 1920s.

Pump action

The pointed, heeled pump has been an archetype of femininity since its rise to prominence in the 1930s, a moment that coincided with the growing influence of Hollywood. Interpretations of the pump appeared throughout the collections, though it was those at Prada that proved most intriguing, featuring raw-cut edges as a riposte to perfection. Co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons noted it was part of an interrogation of femininity. ‘We asked ourselves, what is feminine beauty?’ said Mrs Prada. ‘It is a constant questioning.’

Carry all

This was the season of the XXL bag, perfect for transporting the necessities of contemporary life. Hermès offered up a new take on its ‘Haut à Courroies’ bag, which, in its roominess, can double as a weekend bag or plane carry-on. Stripped of the usual hardware, the various straps and clasps were replaced with ghostly embossing, as if a trace of what was there had been left behind. It came as part of a collection that artistic director Véronique Nichanian described as ‘a play between front and back, inside and out, visible and invisible’.

Body work

Stella McCartney staged her show at the ‘Stellacorp’ HQ – a surreal simulacrum of an office, complete with spinning chairs and desks, which was eventually invaded by underwear-clad pole dancers. Titled ‘Laptop to Lapdance’, playful juxtapositions ran through the collection, which saw the corporate uniform, from pencil skirts to blouses, shot through with a frisson of perversity. Collections from Acne Studios, Balenciaga and All-In presented similar riffs on office attire, the latter inspired by Mike Nichols’ 1988 movie Working Girl.

Take shape

Men’s tailoring this season was sculpted in silhouette, with a focus on the waist. Kim Jones’ final collection for Dior Men included a tuxedo-style riff on Christian Dior’s Bar jacket, while at Wooyoungmi, a reconsideration of eveningwear saw a carved waistline on a jacket adorned with 3D-appliqué flowers. Madame Woo, who staged the show in the opulent surrounds of Karl Lagerfeld’s former residence on Rue de l’Université, said she was thinking about ‘ideas of proper dressing’, reimagining formalwear in louche and sensual style.

Models: Hollie-May Saker at Models 1, Tristan Watkins at Menace Models. Casting: Dean Goodman. Hair: Anna Chapman at Julian Watson using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Kirstin Piggott at Julian Watson using Charlotte Tilbury. Manicure: Hayley Evans-Smith at Saint Luke using Byredo. Interiors: Olly Mason. Digi tech: Laura Heckford. Photography assistants: Tom Porter, Ed Philips. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor. Interiors coordinator: Archie Thomson. Production: Victoria Watkins at Birdhouse. Production assistant: Melina Grace Bryant. Retouching: Aly Studio.

A version of this story appears in the September 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

While January might typically be a month of piety and abstinence, we have always been proponents of embracing the new year in a more celebratory fashion. Particularly when it comes to clothing – after all, in the year’s darkest months, there is still joy to be had in dressing up.

Here, taken from the January 2025 issue of Wallpaper* – a celebration of a new era of design – photographer Dham Srifuengfung and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes capture the best men’s and women’s looks from the Resort 2025 collections, which herald the beginning of a new year in style.

The best Resort 2025 fashion

Reflecting a wider shift in fashion, away from the quiet and the beige, the Resort 2025 collections are defined by a mood of nostalgia and eclecticism, with looks made to be mixed and matched with abandon – whether flourishes of animal print or faux fur, pussybows or neckties, or playful combinations, like a classic Dunhill tuxedo worn with MM6’s riff on the carpenter jean.

Each look comes complete with an equally sonic accessory: an assemblage of vintage music devices, from Walkmans and Discmans to dictaphones and iPods. It’s our nod to the season’s free-spirited mood: we imagine these looks as ones to pound the streets in (complete with your own soaring soundtrack) or for letting loose at your very own silent disco.

Models: Giovanna Pinho and Anick Chan at IMG, Valentin Haedecke, Raad Al Gabril and Abdallah El Farjani at Supa Management, Jamie Riselay, Kentha Kirezi and Marcello Chang at The Milk Collective, Zhou at Linden Staub. Casting: Hien Le Casting. Hair: Anna Cofone using Authentic Beauty Concept. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Surratt. Props stylist: Haleimah Darwish. Photography assistants: Emmet Banahan, Ben McManus. Fashion assistants: Lucy Proctor, Leonie Dennett. Hair assistants: Jessica Hau, Lee-Anne Willoux. Make-up assistants: Craig Hamilton, Lily Simmonds. Props assistant: Kash. Production assistants: Archie Thomson, Ady Huq.

A version of this article appears in the January 2025 issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

It is over a year since Bruno Sialelli, who was appointed in 2019, exited his role as creative director of Parisian house Lanvin. Now, after a year of collaborative collections and speculation over the future of the label, Lanvin has announced that its new artistic director is the British designer Peter Copping.

A graduate of London’s Central Saint Martins, Copping is a tested, veteran designer with an impressive breadth of experience at Paris’ luxury houses. Beginning his career at Sonia Rykiel, he would go on to spend a decade at Louis Vuitton with Marc Jacobs, where he was head of womenswear. Later, he would become creative director of Nina Ricci in Paris and Oscar de la Renta in New York.

Most recently, he assisted with the relaunch of Balenciaga’s haute couture line under creative director Demna and subsequently became head of VIP and special projects. With the appointment, Lanvin has shirked the recent trend of hiring lesser-known, behind-the-scenes designers, as has recently been the case with Sabato de Sarno at Gucci, Séan McGirr at Alexander McQueen, and Chemena Kamali at Chloé.

‘Jeanne Lanvin was a visionary of her time whose interests and passions extended far beyond fashion, as do my own,’ said Copping, who will lead both the men’s and womenswear collections. ‘I am extremely honoured to have been chosen as artistic director of Lanvin and to be able, along with the atelier and teams, to write the next chapter for this iconic house.’

‘Peter Copping’s arrival at Lanvin is an important milestone in the renaissance of one of the great French maisons,’ added Siddartha Shunkla, Lanvin’s CEO. ‘I am confident that with Peter’s vision and technical rigour and the continued perseverance of our teams globally, we will identify a new frontier in fashion and deliver beauty and results in equal measure.’

The appointment marks the first of several open roles in fashion to be announced, including Givenchy and Chanel, which are both currently without creative directors after the departures of Matthew M Williams and Virginie Viard respectively. Meanwhile, former Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele will make his much-anticipated debut at Valentino in Paris in September 2024.

lanvin.com

Just two chapters into Lanvin Lab – the historic French house’s ongoing collaborative project with artists across disciplines, introduced in 2023 – it is already clear that when it comes to the participants, one should expect the unexpected. 

First, there was the American Grammy Award-winning rapper Future, a somewhat leftfield choice for a house most associated with seductive party dresses and Parisian insouciance (his resulting collection comprised a collection of louche, undone tailoring adorned with eagles and stars). 

Lanvin Lab with Erwin Wurm

‘I created a vibe with this collection, something you can feel when you wear it,’ he said at the time. ’Jeanne Lanvin drew inspiration from her life and lifestyle. We are the same in that way, we create from experience.’ 

Now, for chapter two, it is the turn of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, whose sculptures often begin with elements of the quotidian – hot water bottles, pickles, clothing, oranges and chairs – which are then reimagined in the artist’s distinct, absurdist style. 

Such is the case with his Lanvin Lab collaboration, which sees Wurm create a large-scale sculpture for the house, which will travel around China in the coming months. Comprising an enormous set of legs on which a blown-up version of the house’s ‘Cat’ bag balances, it continues the artist’s ’anthropomorphized’ series, which sees Wurm imbue objects with human characteristics. 

Wurm says that the ’Lanvin blue’ sculpture, which is titled Desire, provides a musing on the way we use objects to alter the way we are perceived by the world. ‘Symbols of self-expression are what we desire,’ he says. ’We often look for this self- expression in objects, such as a beautiful handbag, that represent how we would like to be seen by others.’ 

It also explores the idea of ’layers’, another long-running fascination. ’We use clothing as a layer – be it garments, shoes, or accessories – to portray a specific image to the world around us. It’s a recurring subject in my work, and it’s a pleasure to be able to connect these ideas with contemporary clothing objects from Lanvin.’

The Lanvin Lab project – which came in the wake of the exit of former creative director Bruno Sialelli in 2023 – is born from the legacy of Jeanne Lanvin, the house founder whose work as a couturier saw her socialise with the burgeoning Nabis movement in the late 19th century. She was also an avid collector, amassing a vast catalogue works from artists including Renoir, Degas, Fantin-Latour and Fragonard.

Now on view Beijing, ’Desire’ will travel to sitesnear Lanvin boutiques in Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Shenyang, including an appearance at the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai, where Wurm will open a major solo exhibition in June 2024. 

The ‘Cat’ bag is available at Harrods.

lanvin.com

A heady host of designers took to heart the maxim ‘life’s a beach’ for S/S 2022, creating body-revealing women’s beachwear that had all the dramatic abandon of not just barefoot dancing on smooth pebbles, but a disco ball spinning above. For the upcoming season, make the disco-inflected beach party your ultimate escapist event, where any outré embellishment – be it beading, sequins or spandex – is invited.

Illustrator Antonio Lopez was a regular at Studio 54 in New York, before he swapped its packed dancefloor for the white-sanded shore of St Tropez in 1970, hanging out with then-rising fashion star Karl Lagerfeld, who had joined Fendi three years before. For S/S 2022, the Roman house’s Kim Jones was captivated by a series of Lopez’s archive drawings – featuring flowing-haired beauties and rainbow-splashed stripes – and emblazoned these across glittering strapless dresses, best worn barefoot. 

The 1970s also resonated with Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent, who looked to its founder Yves Saint Laurent’s longtime muse Paloma Picasso as inspiration. A ‘glamorous toughness’ punctuated the Parisian maison’s collection, which included skin-flashing spandex catsuits that would make for a sublime swimsuit-centric silhouette on the shore. 

Best women’s beachwear: Chanel to Fendi

Celine, likewise, looked to the spirit of the French Riviera, showcasing its collection on the Nice beachfront. Its suggested look for a sunset party poolside? A gown glittering in sequins and beads, slashed seductively at the décolleté.

Lanvin’s Bruno Sialelli had an ocean of references for the Parisian house’s glamour-oozing S/S 2022, spanning from Batman to Bavarian churches. What will the brand’s heroine be sporting this summer? A densely tinselled puffball skirt and matching bra top in beaded abstract pansies. 

Any scintillating soirée – be it at a beachclub or on a private shore – requires an eye-catching accessory. The bag to hold all your escapist accoutrements? Chanel’s ‘2.55 Hobo’ – an elegant, roomy style with a tactile chain strap – in which to stow your emergency towel and snorkel, for when you go for a spontaneous late-night swim.

INFORMATION

A version of this article is featured in the March 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, on newsstands now and available to subscribers

There are some people who would describe their current style as slovenly. If you are one of those adherents, then we suggest you now step away from those slouch-inducing sweatpants and oversized sweaters. Your aspiration for spring should be sprezzatura, an Italianate nonchalance most effectively achieved through investment in appearance-uplifting, lightweight suiting.

Men’s suits for spring: the post-pandemic transition piece

Think of the springtime suit as a post-pandemic transition piece, sitting serendipitously between the sportswear silhouettes of your lockdown wardrobe, and the stiff, starch-filled tailoring of your former office-bound existence. Look to subtly oversized proportions that have a laidback lilt, easy unlined silhouettes and fabrics that welcome the warmer weather.

As we ease gently back into the outdoors, it’s only natural to feel the pull of organic tones, such as chestnut, honey and walnut. At Ermenegildo Zegna, artistic director Alessandro Sartori has looked to the hues of the label’s Oasi Zegna nature reserve, in the Biella Alps in northern Italy, for inspiration, while at Jil Sander, softer silhouettes have been imagined in slate, caramel and sky blue.

For those keen to emerge from lockdown with a more exuberant energy, we recommend offsetting that spirit with an insouciant stance, hands shrugged into loose trouser pockets. Turn your attention to Bottega Veneta’s bouclé suiting, which is striking in its textural fabrication. There’s another winning adjective for your new season style glossary.

INFORMATION

This article appears in the May 2021 issue Wallpaper*, available to download

A common style trick over the last 12 months has been to throw a tailored blazer over a tracksuit for a impromptu Zoom meeting, or to pop a smart layer over loungewear when nipping outside for essentials. Now that there's more opportunity to embrace elegant dressing codes, an elevating women's jacket should be the top item on your shopping list. Here we present the brands for bolstering your smarter spring mood, whether you're easing back into office life or simply sitting en plein air.

Lanvin: Hit the right buttons

Lockdown has made us more aware of life's smaller details. Lanvin's elegant double-breasted jacket accentuates the body with eye-catching mother-and-daughter motif buttons.

Paul Smith: Hot under the collar

Months at home put you in a more relaxed state of mind? Layer up in a sleek textured shirt, as demonstrated by Paul Smith's luxurious leather design, which also features a handy front pocket.

Max Mara: Coffee-break colours

The chicest way to celebrate your first coffee outdoors? Complement your cappuccino with your clothing, courtesy of Max Mara's smart, organically hued blazer. This silhouettes scores office-worthy style points, even if you're only sitting in the park.

Petar Petrov: In good sport

If you're unsure you'll ever separate yourself from sports-inspired comfort, Petar Petrov has the ease-fuelled answer. The Viennese brand's sleeveless leather anorak speaks of luxurious yet laid-back style.

Paco Rabanne: All dressed up

Glam has been perilously low on our style radar. Keen to inject some going-out inspired chic into your wardrobe? We suggest sporting Paco Rabanne's double-breasted coat as a mini dress.

Louis Vuitton: Buckle up

Bring some belted bite to your blazer with Louis Vuitton's waist-cinching buckled jacket. This silhouette has a futuristic, deconstructed silhouette, a fitting way to embrace today's new world.

Chanel: Stay in touch

Jacket, £1,950; shirt, £1,450; trousers, £950, all by Fendi. Photography: Alexandre Guirkinger. Fashion: Benoit Martinego. Originally featured in the May 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*265)

With social distancing limiting our sense of touch, tactile fabrications take on a new importance. Chanel's bouclé jacket revels in the maison's signature fabric, accentuated with beaded embellishments.

Boss: The palette cleanser

Spring calls for palette-cleansing colours. Draw attention in optic white silhouettes, like Boss' minimalist duster coat. The simplest way to avoid grass stains? Carry a picnic blanket when embarking on a sit-down sortie.

Gucci: An exotic escape

If an exotic escape feels like something of a pipe dream, let tropical prints and motifs take your fancy instead. For spring, Gucci's casual button-up jacket shows an affnity for the eye-catching pattern of snake skin.

Hermès: Make it minimal

Look to Hermès for an incredibly elevated take on 1990s minimalism. Sometimes pared-back silhouettes have the most power, as demonstrated by this zip-up leather coat, which is conceived in the finest of fabrications.

Peter Do: Utilitarian attention

For the more adventurous of dressers, consider the apron your new take on outerwear. Peter Do's version is sumptuous in its tactile finish, and should be worn to reveal a flash of flesh.

Bottega Veneta: Craft flair

A hand-crafted finish will draw attention, whether you're sitting outside on a terrace or sauntering through a city street. Bottega Veneta's denim jacket features a delicately crocheted hooded detail, fusing sportswear with sophistication. 

INFORMATION

A version of this article first appeared in the April 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*264) – available to download here

Mood board: The invitation to the show was a limited edition print of two men at sea by the Italian comic book maker Hugo Pratt. Since arriving at the house, creative director Bruno Sialelli has conceptualised a waifish sailor-boy charm. ‘It is a very accurate time to talk about your youth and naivety, about expectations and plans,’ he said of the collection. Growing up he was obsessed with the Corto Maltese series of comics created by Pratt in the late 1960s. The books followed the pursuits of an adventurous sailor. ‘His father is Cornish, his mother is Spanish and he crossed the sea. There’s something very beautiful in this story and thinking about him, his wardrobe, his trips. It felt very inspiring to me.’

Best in show: Striped blousons were worn with lightweight jackets. Pants ballooned at the hem or were tie-dyed at the cuff. Cotton shirting had matching cummerbunds. The look brought the maritime into the 1990s America of MTV and skater kids. ‘I was not really a skater but I was really into Tony Hawk and Jason Lee and the whole movement. It felt right to dig into that and imagine a cool, young crew who are looking further,’ Sialelli said. Some of the cropped wide trousers and boots were inspired directly by Corto Maltese. ‘He is a universal masculine figure that you would want to relate to. With certain constructions and covered buttons, we wanted to have an almost historical feeling but still very urban and real.’  The show was staged inside the Centre National de la Danse – on Instagram, models were taped skateboarding in and out of the lifts and up and down the ramps of the Jacques Kalisz’s brutalist citadel. Denims had swag. Knitted collars flopped out of coats. Clear paillettes on striped knitwear caught the sunlight.

Sound bite: Jeanne Lanvin was one of the first to create a logo and apply it to more than just the label. For A/W 20, it appeared liberally spilt over leather hold-alls and accessories: ‘It has been interesting to discover how she used the logo and that made me want to be more playful with it. It is the image of a woman dancing with her daughter so it has a softness. I wanted to use that image that comes from the very beginning of the house. It reflects the emotion, the reason she started the business in the first place,’ Sialelli said.

Mood board: Jeanne Lanvin began her career in the early 1900s first as a milliner, then as a childrenswear designer, creating clothes for her daughter Marguerite, which were soon coveted by other wealthy parents. There was a young naiveté behind Bruno Sialelli’s sophomore collection for the Parisian maison, which was based on the time and dimension-spanning comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, that ran in the New York Herald from 1905-11. It detailed a young boy’s dream adventures, which Sialelli found paralleled not just his own childhood in the South of France, but his own fantastical interpretation of Lanvin. For S/S 2020, the designer took a deep dive into different eras and genres, in a collection brimming with comic strip and bold checkerboard prints, cocooned or draped couture silhouettes and utilitarian outerwear, nodding to the clothing sported by Capote’s ‘Swans’, ancient Egyptian embellishments and archival 60s prints. 

Scene setting: Last season, Sialleli held his show at the The Musée de Cluny, which houses one of the largest collections of medieval art in the world. For spring, he showed in the Gilles Clément-designed gardens of the Quai Branly Museum. In a bid to take guests into a closed panel of their own comic strip world, Sialleli presented his show in silence, with guests tuning into a set of headphones, with excerpts from Lord of the Flies and King and the Mockingbird. Fashion has the power to confront socio-political issues (see Dior’s forest-lined show set or Marni’s upcycled jungle, both a nod our environmentally fraught era) or offer an escapist antidote (like Richard Quinn’s imagined bygone world). Even in the pouring rain, this show had the power of dreamlike transportation.

Finishing touches: There were a plethora of covetable accessories on display here, like leather shoulder bags pieced together with oversize running stitch, Sou'wester hats with floral earrings formed from graphic leather petals and camera bags in bold polka dot and stripe prints.

Mood board: Before the departure of Lucas Ossendrijver, Lanvin’s menswear offering had an exacting utilitarian tone. His successor, French designer Bruno Sialelli, has a more halcyon muse. ‘For me travelling is part of the vocabulary of the House. Jeanne Lanvin got a lot of inspiration from her trips; she was inspired by many things she would see. Travelling is what we all crave, so it was my interpretation of summer,’ he said of his S/S 2020. The rigidity and functionality or re-imagined outerwear and archetypal menswear garb have gone in favour of a more playful, poetic naivety. Barbar prints were a continuation from Sialelli’s debut for A/W 2019, but this time applied to leather accessories too. Mini-bells lined the edges of tailored jackets. The sleeves on blazers came hand-painted in abstract wave designs. Sialelli used a bricolage of references with a boyish charm.

Scene setting: The show was staged around the 33m swimming pool at Espace Sportif Pailleron. Conceived by architect Lucien Pollet, it opened to the public in 1933 and was restored to its original design in 2001 by architect Marc Mimram. Guests sat on bright blue plastic chairs settled in the nooks of changing rooms lining the floors. The brawny sun threw reflections of water onto the ceiling. The invitation was a painterly scene of youths mid-frolic by London based artist Luke Edward Hall, produced in a limited edition of 700. It introduced the jejune charm of the season. ‘I love my job but the holidays are the best part! I wanted to express that, something bright and playful. Really it is about this idea of travelling,’ Sialelli said.

Sound bite: The collection moved through nautical references, ‘as well as a bit of this, a bit of that’. Small items such as the crocodile and pearls worn as jewellery suggested what you might buy when bored on a sleepy island. ‘That’s the best feeling, so I wanted to express something easy and cool and French. This candour between being a boy growing to be a man.’ Colours were strong. The fabrics had washes that looked as if they were sunburned – or weathered by the salty sea. Bells tinkling on tailoring returned to the nonchalance of the House when Jules-François Crahay was its head designer. ‘He used a lot of prints, it was very free, bohemian, and I wanted to express that. Like when European kids finish their studies, they would go to South America and experience new things. So this has a 70s vibe too.’ 

Scene setting: The Musée de Cluny houses one of the largest collections of medieval art in the world. Located in a former townhouse from the 14th century, the museum has a Renaissance façade. In 2016 its permanent exhibition rooms were overhauled by Le Studio Adrien Gardère and Bernard Desmoulin Architecte. These bare-bricked, sculpture-lined rooms were the location for Lanvin creative director Bruno Sialelli’s debut show for the brand. The 32-year-old designer recently worked for Loewe menswear and also cut his teeth at Balenciaga and Acne Studios. In recent years, the oldest couture house in France has worked to regain the footing of its heritage, after creative director Alber Elbaz departed the brand in 2015 following his 14-year tenure. In womenswear, two more creative directors followed, and in August 2018, the brand acquired a new owner – the Chinese conglomerate Fosun International. The show’s location nodded to a label in the midst of its own renaissance.

Mood board: In his show notes, Sialelli made reference to ‘a symphony of romantic archetypes’. There were allusions to Lanvin’s heritage here – like the opening knitted dress with an inbuilt cape in the brand’s signature Quattrocento blue, or full swishing skirts which nodded to the brand’s robe de style silhouette, or prints of the brand’s 1924 Paul Iribe designed La femme et l'enfant logo. Amongst the multifaceted offering, there were also tartan capes and trenchcoats with knitted Norwegian blanket details for women, and for men, sailor’s suits and retro leather jackets with scalloped edges.

Best in show: Sialelli placed focus on typographic details, tessellating the graphic Iribe logo on floaty skirts and a new ‘JL’ monogram on bold Fair Isle knits. There were also medieval prints of manuscripts emblazoned over silk shirts and dresses, a nod to the location of the show venue. Sialelli too is in process of writing the house’s next chapter.

Left, jacket, $2,160, by Templa. Wool jacket, £625, by Stone Island. Shirt, ¥9,000 ($81); trousers, ¥33,000 ($299), both by Nonnative. Shorts, £100, by PE Nation. Collar, ¥8,000 ($73); hat, ¥16,000 ($145); gloves, ¥11,000 ($100), all by Nonnative. Shoes, €305, by Roa. Right, jacket, €890; vest, €545; liner, €490, all by Nemen. Shirt, £305, by Descente Allterrain. Trousers, £305, by Stone Island. Hight. Fashion: Jason Hughes

Few of us will ever take on the trek to Everest Base Camp, but that hasn’t stopped men’s fashion from harnessing the mountaineering spirit, now as sought after on the street as on Himalayan hiking trails. Think haute couture meets high performance: a tapedseam, Thermolite-padded and heat-bonded spin on the savoir-faire of Savile Row.

It’s a trend that trekked firmly onto the A/W18 runways: take the reflective and multi-pocketed gilets and fleece sweaters at Lucas Ossendrijver’s Lanvin, Gucci’s gem-swathed hiking boots, Junya Watanabe’s collaborations with North Face, Karrimor and Canada Goose, and Prada’s celebration of functional nylon. Even at June’s Pitti Uomo 94 – considered the epicentre of tailoring and Italian sprezzatura – the menswear platform’s I Go Out installation was aimed at assimilating fashion with an active lifestyle.

The installation showcased nearly 30 global activewear brands, including hiking shoe stalwarts Danner and Diemme, and merino wool specialist Reda Active, against a leafy eco-friendly backdrop. This fresh-air focus is one pioneered by hip menswear retailers like the UK’s End and Present, and Japan’s United Arrows & Sons, as well as niche, expedition-inspired magazines such as Stay Wild, Sidetracked and Another Escape.

British fashion boutique Browns bolstered its sporting connections in April, inviting customers on a 10km run to celebrate the opening of a Satisfy pop-up shop at its east London store. Satisfy, a Paris-based running brand, is one of ten high-performance labels that Browns’ menswear buying manager Dean Cook chose to stock for spring, before increasing the boutique’s buy for A/W18.

Breaking down the distinction between functional and high fashion, Browns presents performance-wear brands – running-shoe label Hoka One One and Canadian outerwear specialist Arc’teryx – alongside luxury labels. ‘We don’t have a dedicated sports section on our site,’ Cook says. ‘The clothing is geared to be worn with brands like Rick Owens.’ Browns are also the exclusive UK stockist of knitwear studio Byborre, and have celebrated the launch of its newest collection with a pop-up space at its Browns East outpost in Shoreditch, on view until mid-November.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual survey, wearable technology is the third biggest worldwide fitness trend of 2018. Increased interest in quantifying our physical activity has extended into a desire for super-functional gear – such as Japanese label And Wander’s odour-reducing Deodorant Stitch pieces, or Italian hiking footwear label Roa’s use of resistant aramid fibres, a material seen in bulletproof vests – whether or not we’ll actually test such items to their limits.

Ultra marathon-running twins Steve and Nick Tidball launched British label Vollebak in 2016. Their ‘100 Year Hoodie’ is made of Kevlar, pitched as being five times stronger than steel and able to withstand extreme temperatures. In May, the brand launched a global treasure hunt, enlisting former military operatives to hide a lifetime discount card, and encouraging active Vollebak enthusiasts to find it. Another brand using an adventure-led retail strategy to emphasise the strength of its product is Woolrich. Its Milan flagship features an Extreme Weather Experience Room, a snow-filled space where customers can test out its signature parkas to temperatures of minus 20°C.

Performance-wear stalwarts are also designing specifically for the luxury market. Salomon’s Black Edition (a sell-out collection for Browns) sees the French brand’s footwear styles reinterpreted in monochrome, while North Face’s Black Series (available in select fashion stores only) blends technical prowess with a more everyday aesthetic.

Material innovation is keeping leading brands at the top of their game. Rainwear expert Herno, which has an annual turnover of nearly €100m, turns 70 this year and marks its 50th year selling in Japan. The label produces nearly 3,000 prototypes a year at its HQ in Lesa, Italy. ‘We have exclusivity on a specific type of machinery for the next three years,’ says Herno president and CEO Claudio Marenzi. ‘It is focused on the production of 3D-thermobinding and ultrasound stitching for the neck and armholes of garments.’

Similarly, two years ago, Stone Island, the Italian sportswear brand founded in 1982, introduced the Prototype Research Series, an annual project showcasing treatments that have not yet been industrialised. For 2018, the brand predicts a turnover of nearly €200m, an 83 per cent increase on 2016. It attributes this success, in part, to selling to high-end retailers (Mr Porter buying director Fiona Firth notes an uplift for 2018), and to pushing a wide range of performance-focused products, not simply entry-level categories.

A host of newer brands, too, is developing high-tech fabrics and treatments. Leonardo Fasolo, who cut his teeth at CP Company and Stone Island, co-founded Nemen in 2012 in a bid to ‘investigate unknown territories in textile research’. Specialising in dyeing techniques, the brand created one-of-a-kind hand-sprayed nylon jackets, and has just developed a nylon with a flame-retardant metal lamination, which when acid-dyed resembles Tyvek (a protective synthetic fibre commonly used in construction).

The month it launched in 2017, Alpine outerwear brand Templa was awarded the prestigious Ispo Brandnew Award for Apparel. ‘Every piece is meticulously made to function in different moments,’ says Templa’s Antwerp-based co-founder Anati Rakocz. Its outerwear boasts details such as internal sleeve extensions, Recco Avalanche Rescue technology, and a removable snow skirt. For S/S18, the brand launched with three global stockists. For autumn, it increased its retail presence by five times. ‘We push the boundaries of functionality and design,’ says Rakocz. ‘Our pieces are meant to be worn on the slopes but can be placed in any urban location.’ Whether you are base jumping or just strolling, looking the part is no sweat. §

As originally featured in the September 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*234)

Mood board: Minimal and sharp, these clothes had a city slickness to them, with no frills or highfalutin proposals on gender. The look was direct and masculine. ‘I wanted to go beyond streetwear, to find a new form of sophistication, to place value on design and craftsmanship,’ artistic director Lucas Ossendrijver said. ‘I wanted to rediscover a more intimate form of luxury.’ He explored contrasts; daytime and evening, fullness and flatness. A strip of fabric sewn between the layers of a bomber jacket inflated the garment, giving it volume as it moved. A tattoo artist created a series of prehistoric animal drawings, mystical symbols, stars and insects printed on silk shirts.

Best in show: The clothes were dynamic. A real proposition for men with a metropolitan sensibility. S/S 2019 had none of the poetry or loucheness seen elsewhere this season; there wasn’t a bias cut drape, couture cuff or elaborate textile. There was no subverting of archetypes. Ossendrijver was more forthright. Summer suiting had sheer backs; a long shirt had a regular cotton crepe t-shirt back and could be worn either way. There were lots of different trousers too, some cropped with slight flare, skinny with cargo pockets and wide with straps at the cuffs. Arms were free, jumpers undone into tabards, padded parkas worn open and asymmetrically. Zip up sides on gilets were left open, giving movement and undoneness to the look. A technical jacket was worn on the shoulders of a tailored coat. A jacket collar was gathered to suggest a hood.

Scene setting: There have been some wow sets this season – a 200-metre-long rainbow runway at Louis Vuitton. A colossal BFF by KAWS made out of fresh roses at Dior. Galliano borrowed surrealist vanitas works by the American artist Tony Matelli and placed them into Margiela’s atelier. Ermenegildo Zegna’s show was held in the shadow of Oscar Niemeyer’s Mondadori building in Milan. Yet, there is real impact when a designer has the confidence to strip the set to the minimum.

Ossendrijver took us deep into the basement of the Palais de Tokyo. Its unfinished walls and concrete floors said nothing – the staging was bare but for the finale which saw the models race down the spiral staircase through a cloud of smoke into darkness. They walked in random directions as if rushing to catch trains or get to work. ‘That echoes the collection – opposites: day and night,’ Ossendrijver said backstage of the frenzied choreography. There was a fury – an aggression. The models walked with a sense of unknown purpose, striding – zig-zagging – between us. Just getting on with it.

Mood board: ‘I was thinking about the friends of Madame Lanvin,’ explained Olivier Lapidus at a preview of his second collection for the French maison. ‘I asked myself who are the friends of the house today?’ Lapidus was thinking about creative and technologically savvy women, and arrived at the work of New York-based artist Krista Kim, who uses light photography in her abstract works. The bold colours in her pieces acted as the starting point of the collection, and featured on dégradé plastic blazers, silk satin gowns, and tuxedo trousers. Lapidus was fascinated by technological details, referencing statistical diagrams of Twitter activity and aerial views of landscapes as inspiration, translated into long draped gowns or dresses with undulating ruffles. ‘It was about taking details from the past and twisting them’ he added, of a collection modern in its approach — like a peplum hem dress paired with trousers and a polo neck, a tuxedo jacket with an integrated silk collar, or a bell sleeve dress in satin silk, designed to resemble neoprene.

Best in show: Fashion’s penchant for the logo is showing no signs of decreasing in popularity, and for A/W 2018 Lapidus recreated the Lanvin name using the dots and dashes of Morse code. ‘We created a stripe pattern,’ he explained of the pattern amalgamated into beadwork details and translated into the brand’s catwalk jewellery. The house collaborated with Elie Top on a series of chunky metal torques, cuffs and rings, punctured with the graphic lines of Morse code.

Finishing touches: Lapidus used sportswear codes in his interpretation of today’s Lanvin woman — seen in dégradé shoulder bags with iPhone pockets or leather biker jackets with an insert on the back the size of an iPad. The Lanvin logo was printed on leather, and stitched as a sporty panel onto the sleeve of a gown, and more delicate pieces, like gauzy pleated skirts, were paired with ribbed knit sweaters, scuba divers hoods (an accessories signature of A/W 2018) and bold bum bags.

Mood board: Lucas Ossendrijver has been in charge of menswear since 2006 and his confidence is palpable. It is there in his clothes. He consistently applies a technical lens to tailoring; his propositions err on the right side of wild. Autumn/winter 2018 felt directional but realistic – new and old in the same breath.

Best in show: What is the fate of suiting if the generation queuing up outside Supreme on a Thursday lusts after elasticated waist joggers and statement hoodies? Tailoring needs a tweak. Prada showed suits pressed with dye to create a graphic trompe l’œil effect; Thom Browne added down linings to classic grey marl blazers. At Dior Homme, the iconic Bar Jacket was nipped into nineties sportswear proportions. Ossendrjiver spent the season thinking about the legacy of archetypal men’s dress. For A/W18, the suit was front and centre. The most classic English textiles were thrown into a new conversation; suits had narrow waists and strict ironed in pleats. Stripes and checks clashed and matched.

Sound bite: Classic lines from bespoke tailoring were reconfigured. A pinstripe suit jacket had pockets peeled from a classic duffle coat. Trousers were in smart wool with a combat pant attitude with cotton inlay, gusseted pocket and velcro. Giant ski jackets had their sleeves hacked off – jumpers were draped and worn with wide sleeve-shaped scarves. ‘What is a suit? Two pieces, a jacket and trousers, cut from the same fabric. I wanted to deconstruct this idea, using layering,’ Ossendrjiver said. ‘For me, these combinations make a modern suit. I wanted to create a smokescreen.’

Left, Lemaire

A jolt of colour contributed to Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran’s ode to German aesthetics of the 1970s and 1980s.

Shirt, £270; trousers, £395; shoes, £340, all by Lemaire


Right, Christopher Kane

The designer’s saccharine yet sensual domestic goddess favoured frothy ruffled details and scarlet shades.

Coat, £3,995, by Christopher Kane. Earrings, £225, by Fay Andrada

As originally featured in the February 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*227)

Far left, Céline

Powerful proportions informed Phoebe Philo’s collection, like this draped dress with an accentuating leather waistline.

Dress, €4,500, by Céline. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. Tights, £35, by Wolford


Left, Lanvin

In a collection inspired by our fragmented digital age, different looks were spliced together, such as this utility-focused boiler suit and jacket.

Coat, £2,250; jumpsuit, £2,650; collar, £280, all by Lanvin


Right, Jil Sander

As part of their debut for the German house, Luke and Lucie Meier offset monastic shapes against skin-baring chequered fabrics.

Dress, £2,220; culottes, £560, both by Jil Sander. Earrings, £240, by Ambush. ‘Stromboli’ table, €5,800, by India Mahdavi

Left, Dior Homme

Sharp tailoring was offset by a soft nostalgia, evoked by ribbon scarves bearing the Rue de Marignan address of the Dior men’s studio in Paris.

Jacket, £1,600; trousers, £590; scarf, £230, all by Dior Homme. Shoes, £387, by Pierre Hardy


Right, Dior

Maria Grazia Chiuri paid homage to Niki de Saint Phalle, this trench coat nodding to the French-American sculptor’s bold use of colour.

Coat, £4,700; boots, £1,150, both by Dior

Left, Raf Simons

There were Japanese elements to the Belgian designer’s offering, which featured oversized blazers buttoned across the chest in homage to the cut of a kimono.

Blazer, €1,239, by Raf Simons


Right, Hermès

Workwear stitching and movement-friendly shapes did the heavy lifting in Véronique Nichanian’s relaxed offering.

Shirt, £590; trousers, £540, both by Hermès. Scarf, vintage, from Kiliwatch Paris. ‘CH23’ dining chair, £569, by Hans J Wegner, for Carl Hansen & Søn

Left, Saint Laurent

Anthony Vaccarello continued his love affair with the 1980s with voluminous puffball silhouettes inspired by vintage haute couture.

Dress, £12,855, by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler


Right, Louis Vuitton

For his Hawaii-inspired collection, menswear director Kim Jones juxtaposed monogrammed surfer tops with oversized Wall Street suiting.

Jacket, £1,950; shirt, £600; top, £440; trousers, £650, all by Louis Vuitton. ‘D.156.3’ armchair, €4,524, by Gio Ponti, for Molteni & C


Far right, Louis Vuitton

Meanwhile, head of womenswear Nicolas Ghesquière used leather to add a modern edge to the high necks and wide collars of regimental frock coats.

Coat, £7,500, by Louis Vuitton. Earrings, £225, by Fay Andrada

Left, Gucci

Part of a catwalk collection that blended gender, genre and decade, Alessandro Michele’s gently flaring suit has real retro flair.

Jacket, £1,310; shirt, £355; trousers, £435; shoes, £2,070, all by Gucci


Right, Loewe

The Madrid-based house celebrates contemporary craft in this reinterpretation of the trench coat, shredded into curling streams of fabric.

Coat, £4,890; boots, £725, both by Loewe. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. ‘Henri’ bench, €4,860, by India Mahdavi

Far left, Prada

The women’s collection sported polka dots, plastics and fake folds, emphasising Miuccia Prada’s fascination with punk, 1950s fashion and trompe-l’oeil. 

Coat, £1,810, by Prada. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler


Left, Prada

For menswear, her triple-layered silhouettes looked to comic strips, retro spacesuits and colour-blocked bowling shirts.

Coat, £3,005; shirt (tan), £435; boiler suit (red), £1,030, all by Prada


Right, Ermenegildo Zegna

Alessandro Sartori matched sports-luxe silhouettes with organic shades, as seen in this combo of caramel overcoat and trousers with jogging bottom detail.

Coat, £2,860; trousers, £800, both by Ermenegildo Zegna Couture. Shoes, £340, by Lemaire. Scarf, vintage, from Kiliwatch Paris. ‘Henri’ table, €11,880, by India Mahdavi

Left, Proenza Schouler

With this corset-detail overcoat, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez gave outerwear silhouettes an eveningwear vibe.

Coat, €3,170, by Proenza Schouler. ‘D.156.3’ armchair, as before


Right, Chanel

Karl Lagerfeld took on the elements with plastic fantastic double-breasted coats, rain hats and gloves.

Coat, £11,740, by Chanel. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. Tights, £35, by Wolford. ‘Henri’ bench, as before

Poster art: Loewe loves a poster-themed invitation, so for its S/S 2018 men’s presentation, the Madrid-based label opted for a fold-out of a model lounging by a pool at Salvador Dalí’s house in Cadaqués, Catalonia. The poster, part of the brand’s spring lookbook, was created in collaboration with graphic design studio and regular collaborators M/M Paris. Just like the windows of a home, it featured sleek rectangular cutouts. 

Home comforts: Designers were keeping house for S/S 2018, with a series of invitations revelling in domestic bliss. Anya Hindmarch’s came complete with a branded bar of soap, while Miu Miu’s was lined with a layer of sponge – what chicer tools for kitchen chores? More study-focused, Chalayan’s women’s invitation came complete with a pink Post-it note and JuunJ’s with a white collar. Dries Van Noten’s menswear invitation was printed with a retro office interior, boasting an old IBM computer.

True romance: In London, a host of show invitations nodded to nostalgia. Burberry’s featured an image by Dafydd Jones, of two students at the Magdalen Commemoration Ball at Oxford University in 1988, lying in formal clothing on the grass. Simone Rocha’s fold-out included two machine stitched-red figures with gothic trailing threads. Also otherworldly, the invitation to Thom Browne’s women’s show in Paris featured a card with a hand written poem speculating on the possibilities of dreams.

Feeling blue: The hue du jour during Paris men’s, blue accents were seen across the city’s invitations. At Louis Vuitton, an inky stripe completed the brand’s luggage-tag-inspired offering. At Yohji Yamamoto, a transparent black envelope encased a paper concertina printed with various global typescripts, which folded from a piece of sky blue card.

Box of tricks: Gucci presented its show attendees with a metal tin inspired by old pharmacy boxes. Its lid featured a mythical illustration taken from a German alchemical manuscript from the early 1700s, and opened to reveal a sheet of branded, chemist-inspired wrapping paper. Concealed inside? A thread holder, aromatic paper, five candles and a packet of matches. Talk about a hot ticket!

Bookworms: During the Paris womens’ shows, designers encouraged front rowers to engage in a spot of light reading or doodling. At Yohji Yamamoto, a yellow paged notepad was bound in plastic; at Hermès, guests were treated to a booklet listing the components of the brand’s 46 catwalk looks and a poem penned by Jarvis Cocker called ‘Hermès Colours’.

Orient express: Designers looked to Japan for their menswear show invitation inspirations. Take Paul Smith, which mailed guests a scaly plastic fish inscribed with Japanese typography. Or Emporio Armani, who printed an inky Oriental floral pattern onto its fabric-covered invitation. At Lanvin, guests kept themselves cool with a polka dot fan.

Band aid: Brands bought the entrance cues of music venues to the catwalk. From lanyards at Fendi and Versus, and barcoded tickets at Vetements, to sticky yellow wristbands at Marques’Almeida, we’d never felt more like we were with the band.

Hole in one: Designers brought cutouts to their catwalk invitations. Take the circular punches in Craig Green’s offering, evoking the hole motifs in his menswear designs, or the undulating curves in the Akris invitation, which nodded to a plywood sculpture by Alexander Girard (an inspiration behind the brand’s women’s collection). Or the circle cutout of a surreal horizon at Dirk Bikkembergs, and a viewfinder-like chink in the invitation for Natacha Ramsay-Levi’s debut for Chloé. Talk about making the cut!

Material world: Folds of fabrics acted as keepsake invitations. For Dries Van Noten’s women’s show and Luke and Lucie Meier’s debut at Jil Sander, the designers opted for subtle cream shades of fabric, printed with bold black typography. Marni’s women’s invitation featured a fold-out handkerchief finished with messy loops of thread, while Carven’s came with a pouting beaded fish. At Rick Owens’ women’s show, a scarf was printed with an illustration of a futurist sculpture by Thayaht, while at Tsatsas, the German accessories brand created a fabric invitation printed with an image of a rusty shipping liner.

Touch points: Textures were of top importance for S/S 2018, with Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani opting for invitations in sumptuous leather – a white calfskin envelope for the former’s women’s show, and a tan leather invitation for the latter’s men’s offering. At Marni’s menswear show, creative director Francesco Risso favoured a tactile invitation printed on corrugated cardboard.

Clear view: Brands both emerging and established opted for invitations encased in cellophane. Kiko Kostadinov used a press stud to fasten a white strip of paper inside a glossy sheer plastic envelope. For Prada’s men’s show, the brand enclosed a white cardboard sleeve for a ‘Draft Novel’ inside a clear tearable pouch.

Mood board: The transition from Bouchra Jarrar to Olivier Lapidus as art director of the famed French maison was made in July, which means the French designer has barely had two months to turn in his first collection for the maison. That’s virtually no time, even by today’s frenzied fashion standards. Still Lapidus managed to whip a collection together, one that had more than a wink to the nineties – the elevated catwalk, the basic black dresse, often with asymetrical cuts, the newfound logomania – giving it a genuinely Parisian twist during the show through a soundtrack full of Arletty and Barbara songs. It will be intriguing to see where Lapidus takes the brand in the future. Time will tell.

Scene setting: A minimal black and white catwalk was set up in the Grand Palais’ Salon d’Honneur, with a set of lights illuminating each model from up high. One thing was noteworthy: in the aftermath of the casting scandals which last season splashed over more than one brand, the model selection in yesterday's show was one of the most diverse we have yet seen in Paris: white models’ presence was sparing, most of them being Asian (will most of Lapidus’ Lanvin clients be Asian? That’s an interesting question). Interesting trivia, the show also marked the return of Sasha Pivovarova to the runway.

Finishing touches: Not only has the house’s pret-à-porter has taken a surprising new direction; so have the accessories. Prominently featured were Lanvin’s new bags, logoed to the max and very on-trend; even if the logo, sometimes spelled in studs, was not immediately recognisable. It will be interesting to see the development of the accessories in the next few seasons – for a house like Lanvin, they could have an enormous potential.

Alber Elbaz must be the cuddliest man to have cut it in the world of couture. It’s not just his teddy-bear physique, but also his endearing ‘let’s take everything back to a human level’ approach to his work. His sensitivity means he cried real tears when his 14-year tenure as creative director of Lanvin ended abruptly and acrimoniously in 2015. And he is that rare fashion behemoth – one who frets over a decision that might upset someone.

So it can’t have been easy choosing between the perfume samples created in his name by two of the world’s most esteemed noses, Carlos Benaïm and Dominique Ropion. As soon as Elbaz picked Ropion’s sample he was on the phone to Frédéric Malle, who was directing the project, to ask how Benaïm would take it. (On the chin, it seems: Benaïm’s offering is likely to be developed for a future project.) ‘I was amazed that two competitors, two geniuses, were sitting in the same room and, when we chose, I had the chills,’ Elbaz says. ‘The fact that they were working together and there was no competition, just understanding – this is what happens when there is love.’

After years working to the relentless pace of the fashion calendar, Elbaz spent his post-Lanvin time recalibrating. The hiatus gave him the opportunity to meet Malle, the straight-talking perfume entrepreneur, who has worked with the world’s top noses to curate many modern classics. Their meeting has produced one of the most exciting perfume collaborations of recent years, and nurtured a new friendship. They talk together with ease, crediting the quick bond they established to a shared approach to creation in a commercial world and an aversion to pretension.

Malle has built his career working with friends, but Elbaz’s number wasn’t in his contacts book. They had a friend in common, however: Elie Top, Lanvin’s former jewellery designer. ‘I’ve long admired Alber’s work,’ says Malle. ‘But I’m a bit shy. I didn’t want to bother him. Then there was this moment when it seemed obvious, and I called Elie and said, “Do you think Alber would talk to me?”’

The fragrance was conceived over restaurant tables on Paris’ Left Bank, with just one impromptu trip to the lab so that Elbaz could meet the two prospective noses. And Elbaz and Malle are back on the Left Bank for our meeting, at Café de Flore. ‘Most perfume launches have to be in big, minimal rooms and it’s all very clean-cut and about power and technology, and there’s no human touch. Here we are on the second floor of Flore with everybody else – there is something very human about it,’ Elbaz muses. ‘Everything has been done during our two-hour lunches – I think we had five or six. But what we had was a story.’

At the heart of that story is the bottling of a dress. Talk between Malle and Elbaz quickly turned to flowers and femininity. And, early on, the word ‘superstitious’ was thrown up. The designer doodled an eye on the corner of a napkin to symbolise the word – and the branding for the venture was born. The sketch appears on the bottle, with the name ‘Superstitious’ written in Elbaz’s hand. ‘Everybody I know is superstitious,’ he says. ‘Frédéric is, I am, every woman I know is superstitious. I think we are in a time when we know everything, and when you know everything there is one thing that is magic – and that’s the thing you don’t know. It’s leaving knowledge behind and going back to feelings. That was the story.’

When it came to stitching together a scent that was the olfactory equivalent of a frock, Malle’s expertise kicked in. Already working on an overtly feminine fragrance with his old friend Ropion, he spotted a possible match. Along with Benaïm’s creation, Ropion’s work in progress was presented to Elbaz, and was ultimately chosen to be developed. ‘Dominique works like an architect,’ says Malle. ‘His work is seamless to the wearer, a bit like Alber’s dresses. Women wearing his dresses are more beautiful – the architecture is forgotten, but it’s there holding them together.’

Though he dislikes defining a fragrance by the sum of its parts, Malle is aware that, commercially, some communication of ingredients helps. Superstitious is a punchy floral aldehydic scent – a combination he claims people shy away from these days as it smacks too much of the quintessential Chanel No 5. But in the hands of Ropion, the treatment of this olfactory family is brought bang up-to-date. ‘It’s like a flower garden with a huge Mies van der Rohe building in the middle,’ says Malle, describing the effect of the aldehyde’s metallic fizz interacting with the rose and jasmine. When the day has worn away the floral notes, what is left is a deeply sensual trail of labdanum, patchouli and frankincense. The magic is that the fragrance is both nostalgic and modern.

The final act of generosity in the collaboration came from Malle. The day before we meet, Elbaz was awarded the Légion d’Honneur. He drew the best front row of Paris fashion week – without sewing a single stitch. But four weeks earlier the fragrance had still been very much a work in progress. Elbaz called Malle, explaining that all these big fashion names would be coming to celebrate his achievement, yet he had nothing to show the fashion-hungry crowd. Could the fragrance be accelerated to present to them? Malle agreed to pull out the stops.

‘It was the most emotional present,’ says Elbaz. ‘I was inviting everybody during fashion week and had no dress to show. But we had the perfume of a dress, and you know the perfume of a dress is even stronger than a dress, because smell is something that you take so much deeper.’

As originally featured in the March 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*216)

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Frédéric Malle website

There’s renewed verve in catwalk jewellery. Giant diamanté earrings, with all the glisten and gleam of a mirrorball, are the showstoppers this season. Scale is key – the performance aspect of the catwalk requires some theatricality in the jewellery. Lanvin’s over-long strands of diamanté tumbled from the ear like a waterfall, cascading in a fringe, from a bar that reached all the way across the lobe. At Saint Laurent, traditional cuts – round, emerald, baguette – were blown way out of proportion in off-kilter danglers, referencing the glamour of the 1980s. Marni altered the tone with a figurative take: mixed gold and blackened metal gave an antique chandelier effect when clashed with voluminous white paste floral motifs. Chanel, riffing on its classic Maltese cross designs in sizeable white metal pavé frames, displayed a lighter touch but that didn’t make its earrings any less bold and brilliantly playful, as the best catwalk jewellery design should be.

As originally featured in the April 2017 issue of Wallpaper (W*217)

Scene setting: The Parisian Hotel de Ville (the Mayor's headquarters) has been home to many a fashion show, but as one editor said today when stepping inside, ‘this place never gets old’. A mammoth of a building in the heart of the city, it never fails to surprise its visitors with its enormous salons filled with paintings, mirrors and crystal chandeliers. You could hardly get any more French... But then again, we are at Bouchra Jarrar's Lanvin, the Frenchest of the French.

Moodboard: Jarrar's work has always been about the poetry of simplicity. It's all about clean lines and rational pattern cutting. You won't find unnecessary ornament or gimmicks in her collections, and this one was no exception. The designer used her go-to staples, from the sleeveless leather perfectos lined in shearling to the velvet bias-cut dresses (red carpet, anyone?). Hers is a classic sensibility that appeals to women looking for impeccably-made clothes and no nonsense. Proof? The powder pink ballerina dresses in shiny organza mile-feuille and the satin tuxedoes. The French have an expression for those kinds of pieces: ‘valeurs sûres.’

Finishing touches: We’re seeing a lot of mini bags this season (bonus points if there is more than one on sight in a single look). Lanvin hopped in on the trend with little ones in pistachio, black and pale pink that the models wore as satchels or clutching on their hands. This show was also the confirmation of something we’ve been suspecting for a few months now: fishnet stockings are back, either worn with dresses or - even better - under trousers.

Mood board: Lucas Ossendrijver’s latest collection for Lanvin felt less fussy than previous seasons – the trinkets, ropes and buckles that the designer has favoured in the past have gone, making room for a new, bracing clarity. The season had no elaborate concept and concentrated more on the very essence of design. Construction and proportion were the focus. Check shirts, parka, duffle-coat or chino pants were each reworked to become something luxurious in its primary form.

Finishing touches: Leather was dyed in bright colours and sewn into a patchwork on jackets, or laminated onto wool and cotton coats. Knit trainers and patent leather mountain boots were made for motion, as Lanvin Homme heads towards a clearer, less quixotic future. ‘I wanted this season to be a punch rather than a caress,’ Ossendrijver said. The audience felt it.

Best in show: There was real gusto to some of the more exaggerated volumes of trekking jackets and t-shirts cut on the bias worn with shrunken knits. Matched with slim pants, a close fitting suit with narrowed shoulders pressed to form pleats along the sleeves and back also stood-out. Ossendrijver’s message for the season came printed on the skinny scarves worn by the models; ‘nothing’ they read. But this collection is everything.

Scene setting: Doing away with the usual evening atmosphere at Lanvin, Bouchra Jarrar moved the house’s show to mid-day and to a formal, authoritative government building: the Hôtel de Ville de Paris.

Mood board: Bouchra Jarrar’s vision for Lanvin is lighter, more crisp and with a dark side that is perhaps more mature and womanly rather than youthful and flirty. A kind of sérieux made an entrance at the house, via striped trouser suits and black-and-white trouser and shirt combos.

Finishing touches: The new Lanvin woman, however, still knows how to be playful, and the flower brooches, enlarged floral prints, asymmetrical décolletés and sequins on dresses kept the lighthearted side, that is synonymous with the house, alive.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Lanvin: There was plenty of late Eighties shimmer sprinkled over Lanvin's first show after Alber Elbaz's exit, now overseen by Chloé alumna Chemena Kamali, but when the gold dust settled, there was no denying that the magic was somewhat missing. Sure, the ruffles were there, but they'd lost their architectural flourish, the lace came over more period than posh and the tweeds a little dusty. Of course, it's very early days for Kamali, and one man's 13-year legacy takes time to reshape, even if the fashion world loves a fast turnaround.

Best in show: A rich midnight blue cocktail dress with frills that circled the body in a familiar asymmetric fashion and a black patent mac brought a good dose of drama to this show.

Finishing touches: Elaborate chandelier earrings (some of which reached the collarbone) and jewelled chokers finished the collection's Dynasty dalliance. Their presence was reassuring, given that Elie Top's costume jewellery tenure at Lanvin has been so closely linked to Elbaz.

Mood board: Lucas Ossendrijver’s Lanvin Homme show was a survey of the meticulous codes he has penned for the line since arriving at the house ten years ago. The focus was on the the craft of making. The designer has spoken before about the challenge in presenting artisanal know-how to a digital audience; the collection’s exposed basting stitches, faux patchwork overdyes and inside-out jacket sleeves were absolutely high in their resolution. 

Finishing touches: A plaited leather net shopper in black was standout and referenced in a series of vests worn over shirts and under jackets. The knotting was there too in a series of embroidered boxy shirts.  As an ode to the label’s focus on the artisanal, the label’s iconic leather sneaker reappeared for the season in a range of colours, each totally unique and spray-painted by hand. 

Best in show: Good luxury menswear often has a kind of nonchalant elegance; here the clothes with roomy volumes such as the wide, long crotch trousers and wool cardigans lined with printed silk were lavish and loose. A waist length shearling jacket with wool fringing at the shoulder seams was crafty, sexy, cool.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Unveiled this weekend, the Dutch Design Awards celebrate a wide spectrum of design disciplines and their most talented local players. 

Winning both the award for the best communication project and the Future Award – the most prestigious accolade which recognises the project with the widest impact amongst all the victors – was Refugee Republic, an interactive online documentary by Submarine Channel mapping the lives within a Syrian refugee camps with both humour and clarity. The piece employed different narrative techniques (from film to illustration, music and interviews) to highlight the very serious issues affecting the inhabitants of the camp with a light, non-judgmental tone. ‘A project like this,’ said judge and South Africa-based global conference Design Indaba founder Ravi Naidoo, ‘demonstrates that empathy is your best design tool.’

Selected by a jury led by KLM Global Brand Director Frank Houben, director of architectural institute Bureau Europa Saskia van Stein and design consultant Joost Alferink, the judges awarded Teresa Van Dongen with the Young Designer prize. Her work merges aesthetics, scientific research and techniques (like bioluminescence) to produce beautifully crafted lamps. ‘It opens up a new poetic domain for design,’ said van Stein, noting how the young Dutch designer's relatively small portfolio (Van Dongen graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven just a year ago) holds incredible potential.

The Design Research category was won by Arna Mackic, whose Mortal Cities & Forgotten Monuments project was formed as a proposal for the Bosnian city of Mostar’s cultural heritage. Mackic developed the idea of monuments built not for religious purposes, but that refer to sentiments more commonly shared within a population; social or historical motifs that don’t suggest potential conflicts but a more neutral, common ground.

SchilderScholte architects’s Pani Community Centre, built last year in Rajarhat, Bangladesh, was awarded the Habitat Prize, celebrating a building that improved the quality of life in the area it was erected. The Rotterdam-based practice built a vocational school and community centre which also acts as a gathering area for women and children of the local town. The building was more than an aesthetic exercise and included important details such a yellow paint to repel mosquitoes and clever cross ventilation techniques.

Presented with the Fashion Award was Lanvin’s creative director for menswear, Lucas Ossendrijver, for his ability to translate a haute couture quality into pret a porter label. Ossendrijver infused new life into the brand through collections that feature classic shapes with eclectic mixes of fabric and textures.

A multimedia tour created by Fabrique for Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum was awarded the Services & Systems accolade, while the Best Product award was won by Flex, a Dutch innovation lab working on a variety of everyday objects and identities for their Post Sorting Aid.

The panel of judges was as varied as the winners, with an international arm of note-worthy ambassadors including Matilda McQuaid, Deputy Director of Curatorial and Head of Textiles at Cooper Hewitt Museum and JoAnn Edward, Director of the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco.

Mood board: Girls who would be boys was the opening theme at Lanvin, as mannish white shirting and deconstructed tailoring set the scene for a somewhat austere first sequence. Tailor’s stitches were the early stars of the show, with the palette strictly monotone until later in the night when jewel-hued silk and raw mounted sequin dresses arrived at the party.

Best in show: It’s hard to go past Alber Elbaz’s undone suiting, however, this season there was a surprise to come later in the show. Lanvin isn’t known for its prints, outside of the big cat realm, but this season Elbaz went to town on Pop-ish souvenir motifs from stiletto heels to handbag stamps.

Finishing touches: Elbaz’s Lanvin ballerina slippers became V-dip ballerina pumps for spring – in line with the current sock pump trend – which were cut high, forsaking the sight of any toe cleavage. Some had a two-tone cap, while others were gathered at the toe.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Mood board: Lucas Ossendrijver's brave new spin on 1980s New Wave included paper-bag waist pants, cross-body suit jackets, car coats in supple leather, flashes of animal print and spread collar knits. A fine wool suit stood out as much for its summer weight ease as its sporty zip front and slim leg - which is to say, the collection leaned largely dark and generously proportioned.

Best in show: For a collection that eschewed ornamentation, the jackets and shirts featuring exposed seams and wayward threads (or more precisely, fringes) felt like welcome deviations. This season's sneakers were similarly scaled back - although arguably edgier thanks to an all-black boot silhouette. If you were tiring of the futuristic robo styles, now's the time to revisit the range.

Finishing touches: Bags, by and large, were supple with multi-purpose appeal. A half-moon shaped canvas carryall was scaled up so that it appeared rugged, even military-inspired. By comparison, a satchel in grey leather would accommodate day-to-day city needs. With canvas handles and an adjustable strap, the matte grey snakeskin scrunched tote seemed versatile and distinctive in equal measure.

Lanvin is among the select group of venerable fashion houses whereby mere mention of its name elicits praise. But the person behind the name, founder Jeanne Lanvin, has never been cast in quite the same legendary light as Coco Chanel or even Elsa Schiaparelli.

A new exhibition at the Palais Galliera paints a stunning portrait of the designer, framing her creations - upwards of 100 examples - in the context of her life (1867-1946). Olivier Saillard, the museum's general curator worked closely with Alber Elbaz, Lanvin's director par excellence since 2001. Together, they steer visitors through a beautiful narrative that beings with a photograph of the designer at age 70, shielding her face with her hands, and ends with a sculpted evening coat in deep blue taffeta that dates back to the immediate aftermath of WWII.

To see the maison's codes take shape - the inclusion, for instance, of the gilded dolls depicting Lanvin with her daughter Marguerite that would become the house logo in 1924 - is to realise how the brand is the sum total of personal stories. Even the signature blue, which became the official company colour in 1921, comes with a story. Saillard, in a text found in the catalogue, notes Lanvin's point of differentiation from her female contemporaries: 'Lanvin was the first to give overall thought to lifestyle.'

The show, simply titled 'Jeanne Lanvin' as if underscoring the focus, is the first of its kind in Paris - which seems even more surprising when you consider that the French fashion house holds the distinction of being oldest still in operation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is little mention of the present years.

Instead, visitors peer into chic mirrored vitrines outlined in black; deliberate or not, they evoke the grosgrain that is now inextricably linked to the Lanvin aesthetic. Dresses from 80 years back appear remarkably contemporary, with ornamentation expressed judiciously and feminine silhouettes redefined with soigné ease. But Lanvin was also highly influenced by graphic impact and travel and her prime years coincided with a high period in Art Deco (in fact, her dresses often debuted at the international exhibitions in Paris - arguably a far more impressive platform than a salon presentation).

Saillard, for his part, does acknowledge the through-line between both talents, pointing out that they share a 'taste for discretion'. Similarly, Albaz has referred to the retrospective as a 'whispering exhibition'. And as you observe the subtlety of such impressive detailing evolve over several decades, you understand precisely what he means.

ADDRESS

Palais Galliera
10, Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie
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Mood board: On the eve of the opening of the house’s 126th anniversary Jeanne Lanvin exhibition, Alber Elbaz had been thinking about his own roots for A/W, revisiting his Moroccan heritage in a printed postcard of tiled colour and texture blocking. Alternate hues sectioned off geometric panels within woollen sheaths, as leather harnesses drew in sack dresses and fringe decorated blanket coats and wrap skirts.

Best in show: The almost monastic midnight-hued velvet pieces that offered a regal transition to the show’s heavily encrusted swan song.

Finishing touches: Habit-like rope curtain tassels were tied around waists and also adorned asymmetric felted hats as the season’s new pom-pom.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

The term 'iconic' is a tag recycled by the fashion industry with great gusto and little thought. Handbags, shoes, skirts and coats are labeled as such but quickly forgotten, along with the women who are paid to wear them. So what makes a model an icon? Immortalised by Helmut Newton, adored by Yves Saint Laurent and cloned as a mannequin by Adel Rootstein, the Spanish-born, Parisian-bred Violeta Sanchez is the genuine article and also the subject of our March Style Issue's  (W* 192) 'Family Ties' story with her daughter Luz.

Sanchez first met Newton and Saint Laurent at the premiere of her first play Succès in 1979. Photographer and designer - both having established the Le Smoking style in 1966 - were immediately drawn to Sanchez, who was wearing a mannish three-piece suit ordered from a men's tailor. She went on to captivate Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, the illustrator Tony Viramontes, contemporary artist Guy De Cointet and most recently Alber Elbaz.

After 30 years in the business, Sanchez opened Lanvin's 125th anniversary show and now stars alongside her 15-year old offspring in the label's spring/summer 2015 campaign. For the March Style Issue they appear in a performative fashion shoot, lensed by Brigitte Niedermair.

The organic, anamorphic nature of the pictures evokes the great tension between a mother and daughter. 'We are in that conflictive adolescent phase. Very irritating but highly formative for both of us…' says Sanchez whose other daughter Una is studying at the Sorbonne. 'I have been used to modeling with great input, photographically or in other ways. The experience here was challenging and rewarding. Brigitte, as I have often encountered with talented photographers, was relentless in her demands, which were often physically difficult.'

Of the challenging poses Niedermair explains, 'For me when we started talking, we thought it would be interesting to physically show a psychological problem between a mother and a daughter. The idea came from when you have a couple so close to each other; on one side you have a nice loving feeling, and other side you have problems. So we tried to show these problems in a funny way through abstract poses with the chairs. These tensions are between a mother and daughter but could be with tensions with anybody.' With the help of a third party contortionist to aid the story's composition and assist with plausible positions, the photographer adds, 'the challenge was to find interesting ways to be on a chair.'

Not that Sanchez is unfamiliar with performance art. Last year she collaborated with Musée Galliera's Olivier Saillard on the theatrical production Models Never Talk presented at New York Fashion Week. The costume curator invited seven models to re-enact their experiences of working with legendary designers. 'Today there is this overwhelming plethora of styles. If the models had to interpret that, it would be manic,' she reflects. Rather than icons, models have become blank canvases. 'For my generation 'brand' was not yet a concept per se, clothes were naturally and foremost, totally inhabited, incarnated and worn by a performer.' Just as they are here.

Fashion week, these days, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses.

This season there were live performances by Clare Maguire at Burberry Prorsum, Mary J Blige to celebrate the Caten brothers' 20th anniversary at Dsquared2 and Snoop Dogg at Philipp Plein, while Dior Homme enlisted the Paris Scouring Orchestra, set back with electronic beats. Here, we bring you our ultimate catwalk compilation of the men's A/W 2015 show season...

Burberry Prorsum
'Cosmic Dancer', 'Whenever You Want It', 'Shadows' and 'House of the Rising Sun' performed live by Clare Maguire

Dsquared2
'Whole Lotta Love - Dubstep Edit' by Led Zeppelin; 'Back in Black' by AC/DC; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'We Will Rock You' by Queen; 'Weather With You' by Crowded House; 'A Place To Stand' - Ontario Canada's theme song; 'Take Off' by Bob and Doug McKenzie; 'Pass That Dutch' by Missy Elliot; 'Ehi Oh!' by Biancaneve e i sette nani; 'Wild Thing' by Devil Doll; 'The Immigrant Song' - (Streetlab mix) by Led Zeppelin; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana vs Adam Freeland; 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' by (Butch vig-mix) Nirvana; 'Black Dog' by Led Zeppelin; 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush; 'Are You Gonna Go My Way' by Lenny Kravitz; 'Rebel Rebel' by David Bowie; 'Hot Child In The City' by Nick Gilder and a live performance of 'One' and 'Family Affair' by Mary J Blige

Roberto Cavalli
'Every Other Freckle' by alt-J; 'Cupid Carries a Gun' by Marilyn Manson; 'God's Whisper' by Raury; 'Cleaver Lever' by The Growl; 'Come Easy' by Sunset Sons; 'Track 20 Symphony 2808' by Nero

Giorgio Armani
'Downton Abbey theme song' by The Chamber Orchestra Of London; 'Johnny and Mary' by Todd Terje feat Bryan Ferry

Canali
'Opal' by Byetone; 'Etude N°6' by Philip Glass; 'EXhale' by Plastikman; 'Back 2 Black' by Herman Schwartz; 'Gimme some' by Weval
Music production: Matteo Ceccarini

Gucci
'Clock Tick' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Daydreams' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Carlos' by Shigeru Umebayashi; 'Stillness Of The Mind' by Abel Korzeniowski; 'Going Somewhere' by Abel Korzeniowski
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Philipp Plein
'Jump Around' by House of Pain; 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC; Magnum PI main theme; 'What's My Name' and 'Drop it Like it's Hot' performed live by Snoop Dogg; 'Requiem' and 'Jungle Jazz performed live by Les Tambours du Bronx; 'The Blue Danube' by Strauss; 'The Thieving Magpie' by Rossini

Cerruti 1881
'Whisper' by David Byrne; 'Cooper Union' Dialogue by Joseph Beuys; 'Come Out' by Steve Reich; 'Straum' by Nils Okland

Valentino
'Valley of the Birds' by Emerald Web; 'The Imitation' by Alexandre Desplat; 'Hip Hop Spa' by Fatima Al Qadiri; 'Up and Down' by Koreless

Lanvin
'Science and Industry' by Andy Stott;  'Happy House' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Maison Margiela
'Cancer For The Cure' by Eels; 'Twilight's Last Gleamings' by  William S Burroughs; 'The Night' by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons; 'Stripes' by Bell Orchestre; 'Loaded' by Primal Scream; 'Water / Light / Shifts' by Bell Orchestre; 'Shake  the  Disease' (remastered)  by Depeche Mode; 'Let's  Wade  In  the  Water' by Marlena Shaw; 'Eight  Sum' by Amon Tobin; 'Paul's  Nightmare' by DJ Paul Elstak; 'One  Minute To Midnight' by Justice

Kris Van Assche
'Negative Creep' and 'The Magnificent Bukkake' by Koudlam
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Kenzo
'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Saint Etienne

Dior Homme
'Landsc Apes' by Koudlam, arrangement by Thomas Roussel and performed by Paris Scoring Orchestra

Junya Watanabe
'Oh Honey' (Original 12'' Version) by The Delegation; 'Say That You Will' by George Duke S; 'Float On' by The Floaters; 'Unicorn' by Dizzy Gillespie & Lalo Schifrin; 'Safari Vibes' by Daniele Baldelli; 'Cosmic Funk' by Lonnie Liston Smith; 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' by John Lloyd Young

Dries Van Noten
'Be My Baby' performed by DM Stith, written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector

3.1 Phillip Lim
'When I Put My Hands On You' by The New Basement Tapes; 'Reduct Live' by Skee Mask; 'Cylo' by Skee Mask; 'Security Of The First World' by Public Enemy

Paul Smith
'Snare Liftoff' by Justin Hurwitz & Tim Simonec; '54-46 Was My Number' by Toots & The Maytals; 'Witness Dub' by Roots Manuva; 'Mirror In The Bathroom' by The Beat; 'Just Can't Stop The Dub' by The Beat; 'North Of The River Thames' by Doctor Pablo and The Dub Syndicate

Comme des Garçons
Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack mixed with Alessandro Cortini electronica
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Saint Laurent
'Me Suive' by Mystere collective, written and composed by Marlon Magnée, Sacha Got and Sam Lefèvre in Brittany for Saint Laurent 'Paris Sessions'

Mood board: Creative director Alber Elbaz may have joined the finale bow, but it’s the sharp and conscientious design vocabulary of Lucas Ossendrijver that has transformed Lanvin’s menswear into an innovative signifier of introverted luxury. The urban dandyism that marked this collection was stirred with undertones of punk bohemia, as blousons and coats were artfully layered (suede on houndstooth, python on Prince of Wales) and long fringed scarves streamed out below greatcoats in stiff wool or tufted fur. 

Best in show: Ossendrijver has been exploring ways of masculine embellishment of late that have broken the flat polish of his outerwear with a pleasing 'glitch' effect. The season’s silk and leather lacing technique gave short blousons, a bomber and wool scarf all a hand-touched, authentic effect.  

Team work: The urgent beats of Science & Industry, a new track by Manchester dubstep artist Andy Stott, echoed through the ornate Beaux Arts atrium bouncing off its elegant statues and our Sunday morning eardrums for an ominous second wakeup call.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

'All or nothing' was Alber Elbaz's approach for spring, launching into the house's 125th anniversary celebrations with a series of pared-back, long sheaths that served to highlight his ageless casting that linked-in familiar faces Violetta Sanchez, Amber Valletta and Kirsten Owen. Real boobs were embraced, if not shown off, thanks to his metallic net tanks worn under timeless tailoring. However, rather than a collective trend message, Elbaz sent out a wardrobe made up of great individual looks. Sure, many seemingly had little to do with the next, but each was effortlessly beautiful in their own right - just as we have come to expect from Elbaz. Entering the 'all' phase he then draped dresses spliced with panels of monochrome French lace followed by a moody flora-fauna print (taken from a screen by Armand-Albert Rateau, who designed Jeanne Lanvin's original quarters) that decorated jacquard pants and diaphanous dresses. Overall, the season served to reinforce Elbaz's design belief that his role is to craft clothes for real women, rather than outfits to be paraded. Although in spite of this, many of his metal accented mini shifts and fluid gowns are sure to make a red carpet entry at Lanvin's upcoming retrospective at the Palais Galleria next March.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

This was a season that Lanvin explored extremes. From volume, fringing, feathers, fur to unfinished tweed, all were approached with equal measures of flamboyance and freedom on designer Alber Elbaz's part. Raw edges completed shaggy tweed coats, just as the designer's signature ruffles layered up three-quarter length skirts, and fringing danced off his cocktail dresses. Further upping the drama were the season's marabou plumage-laden hats, which possessed both the Edwardian era's elegance and stature - veiling models' eyes like Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady - even down to the show's semi-transparent opera gloves. Where Elbaz did hold back was on a draped strapless leather dress and a supple trench coat, followed by his procession of film noir bias-cut silk sheaths. Although it wasn't long before their edges were similarly finished with bugle beads as well as futuristic rounded-shoulder shapes that received the same jewelled treatment. But that's not to say there wasn't restraint for every flourish, most overtly seen in Elbaz's 1960s-style skirt-suiting, which was almost clean if you simply slipped off a fur shrug.

Dior Homme: Kris Van Assche's latest collection for Dior Homme merged the businessman with the bohemian artist. To that end, Anthony Turner kept hair groomed, and softly set in place, whilst working with the natural texture of each boy's mop. Lucia Pica kept faces clean with a defined cheekbone and perfectly matte skin

Acne Studios: Three words inspired Acne's menswear collection: awkward, askew and askance. These were also reflected in the hair direction with models' fringes gelled or tucked to one side to create a more graphic shape around the face. To contrast, skin was kept bare, with a luminous glow

Paul Smith: Sir Smith brought the outside in for S/S 2015 with green foliage replacing last season's oriental carpets, and with it came an inherent calmness. This ease was also echoed in the grooming, which saw Matt Mulhall create an artfully messy style that looked as though the boys had fallen asleep in a park on a warm summer afternoon. As sunglasses shielded eyes, make-up artist Lynsey Alexander added in a little bronzer to warm the skin

Hermès: Designer Véronique Nichanian has mastered the art of casual, but extremely luxurious summer dressing. To co-ordinate, Vi Sapyyapy created a hair look that was perfectly in sync, read: cool, relaxed and softly textured. Alexandra Schiavi's make-up was similarly dewy and fresh, delivered with a rested, just-returned-from-holiday ease

Valentino: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli's S/S 2015 collection may have taken inspiration from fantastical birds, beasts and butterflies, but their grooming took a more pared-back turn. Classic, but not overly tidy, side partings were paired with clean, matt skin

Kenzo: Carol Lim and Humberto Leon's passion for colour was repeated in this season's make-up with Aaron de Mey painting bold blocks of colour on select models' cheekbones or foreheads. To counterbalance, Anthony Turner left the hair natural, using just a little gel to add texture

Haider Ackermann: Hair was gently slicked back, or carefully ruffled to match Ackermann's languid silks and relaxed tailoring for S/S 2015, while skin was left dewy to reflect the show venue's early evening sun

Dries Van Noten: The Belgian designer envisaged a more 'sensual' Van Noten man for S/S 2015, his inspiration drawn from Soviet-born ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. As a result, the season's grooming look resembled a man who had just finished rehearsal. Cue softly flushed pink cheeks giving the impression of exertion, and gently tousled hair suggesting movement

Cerruti 1881: Inspired by a recent trip to California, Aldo Maria Camillo took a more relaxed approach to dressing for S/S 2015. This was similarly reflected in the grooming that saw Matt Mulhall offering up wet-look hair, as Karim Rahman prepped the skin to be neither too tanned, nor pale, instead alluding to the light touch of the West Coast sun

Raf Simons: In a show that was a tender revisiting of some of Simons' most valued memories, the season's youthful casting left little work for Peter Phillips when it came to the models' fresh, clear skin. Hair on the other hand was greased, and left long, with delicate extensions falling casually over the face. The effect recalled Simons' own long hair era, documented by a teenage passport photo of the designer that was pinned to the back of one of his jackets

Kris Van Assche: Reaching ten years of his eponymous label, Kris Van Assche's S/S 2015 collection was both a celebration of the past and a glimpse into his future. The show's grooming, however, was entirely dedicated to youth. Gina Van Den Bergh left a heavy shine on the high points of the face, whilst Anthony Turner pulled the models' straightened hair forward as fringes, adding some texture in the back, to reduce any heaviness as hair fell over their eyes

Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci showed both men's and women's looks on the runway this season, leaving stylist Luigi Murenu to bring coherence to the hair line-up by utilising sheer, black unisex skullcaps. Pat McGrath left the models' skin clear, merely adding a light sheen, while brushing brows upwards to keep the look strong

Louis Vuitton: Kim Jones journeyed to India, his exotic travels also inspiring make-up maestro Peter Phillips' approach. As a result, the artist brought a warmth to the skin, leaving it sun-kissed with a gentle glow. Guido Palau in turn smoothed hair into neat side-partings that weren't heavy on product or fuss

Rick Owens: The American designer's collection was inspired by a mischievous faun. To reflect the mythology theme, hair was artfully slicked back and held in place with plenty of gel - the shape's pointed sweep almost mimicking the ears of a mystical animal. Skin was left mostly bare, save for a few looks, which saw Lucia Pieroni use full body make-up to paint models in Owens' new pastel palette

Lanvin: The S/S 2015 Lanvin man is on the move with designer Lucas Ossendrijver contemplating how men travel around a city. For Guido Palau and Houda Remita this meant a grooming look that was quick and fuss free. Hair was not overly styled, looking freshly washed with a little product to hold it in place, while skin was moisturised and powdered

Glazed pink donuts were laid out on breakfast trolleys at Lanvin's Sunday morning show, in an unusual choice for morning tea under the Palais des Études atrium of the Beaux Arts university. They didn't make sense until halfway through the show, when the bare-chested boys in cashmere coats made way for lolly-coloured skinny suits and an explosion of geometric broderie anglaise (giant chocolate sprinkles?). The designers Lucas Ossendrijver and Alber Elbaz called out 'digital' as the season's keyword, which could explain the innovative way the pair dealt with clashing 1980s club kid colour and texture - as swatches of electric-blue or fuschia antelope popped against leopard and pinstripe. A series of naïve graphics featured fists and faces, picked out on lustrous sweaters, tees and a raglan-sleeved bomber, inspired by the Greek statues that line the venue's classical archways.

Photography: Anna Stokland/Jason Lloyd-Evans

Alber Elbaz has a saying: 'After fame, perfection is the most dangerous thing. There is nothing after perfection'. Yet it's this knife-edge that lends the designer's work its allure. And the new book, 'Alber Elbaz, Lanvin' - impeccably timed to coincide with the end of his first decade at the French fashion house - is yet another example of his pursuit of perfection.

Elbaz has been the sole capitulator of Lanvin’s stellar revitalisation since grabbing the reins in March 2002. Through his tenureship at Paris' oldest label, he's upped its reputation from faded heritage brand to glistening modern must-have for every closet worth its fashion salt.

The designer is undoubtedly visionary in his creative direction, and a self-deprecatingly nice guy to boot - earning him an unwaning league of adoring fashion press and buyers. With longevity in the face of a fickle industry firmly under his belt, a book is the natural next step.

Going beneath the surface, past the signature one-shouldered cocktail dresses and the chunky jewel-embellished creations that never fail to put a smile on the Paris show-goers' faces each season, 'Alber Elbaz: Lanvin' boldly steers into the depths of the atelier. Edited by Pascal Dangin, the 704-page practically wordless tome reveals the gruelling details of couture fabrication in pictures – from the raw materials to the process of it all.

Photographed by But Sou Lai, the voyeuristic journey races from start to finish through a single collection (Autum/Winter 2011), from its conception to its visual climax on the runway. It's crammed with candid snapshots, like a pair of leopard print-manicured hands cutting a pattern, a relaxed-looking Elbaz in the throes of a pre-show briefing with with his team, and a grainy shot of a huge pile of torn up sheets of paper (possibly fabric detail shots) lying by a bin next to the photocopier.

Needless to say, the handmade Lanvin-cloth-bound book, complete with gilded edging, isn’t your standard fashion book. It begins its story with a startling number of blank pages, which are not a catostrophic printing error, as they may seem on first inspection. 'I start each collection with a blank page which is the scariest part of the work,' reveals Elbaz. 'I need a story; I need to dream to start filling the white pages with women I know and women I want to know.'