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

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

Stella McCartney launched her first skincare line in 2022 with three items: a gentle cleanser, a regenerative serum, and a restorative cream. The heart of McCartney’s work as a fashion designer has always centred on responsible production methods, using ethically sourced and recycled materials, without compromising on luxury. The same, then, remains true for her beauty offering, which is billed as ‘an alternative to luxury skincare’ (and is called Alter-Care to indicate as much). And this month (January 2024), joining the roster of Stella by Stella McCartney products is an edible skincare supplement that works in tandem.

‘I wanted to create a supplement that focuses on the importance of nourishing your skin from within,’ McCartney tells Wallpaper*. (Taking a holistic ‘inside out’ approach is also central to McCartney’s philosophy when it comes to beauty.) ‘My edible supplements are packed with a patented active called Ceramosides, which prevent collagen destruction,’ she continues. ‘They help to prevent premature ageing. This was blended with natural-origin antioxidant Vitamin E, Omega 3 derived from micro-algae alongside Omega 6 and 9 from evening primrose oil to provide the skin with essential fatty acids.’ All of these ingredients are 100 per cent natural-origin, gluten- and GMO-free, and vegan. ‘It really is nature at its best,‘ says McCartney.

Stella McCartney on her new Alter-Care supplement

Whilst technically nothing new (we all know that what we eat and drink affects how we look and feel), in the past few years, a focus on gut health and ‘edible skincare’ has come to the fore. It follows a trend for stripping back skincare routines (sometimes referred to as ‘skinimalism’) in a backlash to overconsumption in the beauty industry. So it makes total sense that McCartney would tap into this. ‘The core values I maintain, not only for my beauty business but for all my endeavours, were rooted in and inspired by my upbringing,’ says McCartney. ‘I spent a lot of time in Scotland, roaming around the highlands and swimming in the natural lakes. This is where I realised that nature has all we need and that we need to live in harmony with Mother Earth. My mother [Linda McCartney] was a vegetarian way before it was a mainstream way of life, so that really made me reconsider my relationship with animals and food – it’s where I realised that true beauty starts from within… How you care for yourself, nourish yourself, and in the nutrients you feed your body.’

But science also backs philosophy here, and the brand worked closely with Louvagny Lab, a pioneer of nutricosmetics based in France, to create the unique formula for the Alter-Care Supplement. ‘They are amazing and have more than 15 years of experience within the nutricosmetics industry,’ says McCartney. ‘My team and I worked with them to identify the best selection of ingredients. Then, we created a formula which was clinically tested to prove visible results and benefits for your skin,’ she says. 

These results include increased elasticity, a reduction in the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and increased hydration. And, they should be seen within as little as 30 days of taking the supplement (directions are to swallow two with a glass of water, ideally at night).

Taking the Alter-Care supplement alongside a topical application of the Alter-Care Serum, which contains ingredients such as olive squalane, wild harvested dulse algae extract (this contains polysaccharides, a biomolecule that has antioxidant properties when used in skincare), marine spring water and hyaluronic acid, can further boost these results. ‘I’m proud of what we have achieved,’ says McCartney. ‘My edibles work from the inside to support plumper, smoother and more radiant skin. The perfect complementary product, our serum works from the outside on the upper layers of your complexion to improve tone and texture. When both the serum and supplements are used together, results are intensified – I couldn’t have asked for more!’ And, neither could we.

The Stella by Stella McCartney Alter-Care Supplement is available now on stellamccartneybeauty.com and at Space NK (£60 for 1 month’s supply of 60 capsules).

Stella McCartney’s iconic S-Wave monogram has become synonymous with her sustainability-forward brand. Implemented as a patterned fabric, the design reflects soundwaves, sacred geometries, the golden ratio and the concept of living in harmony with nature. The British talent has long been a pioneer of circularity and material innovation. It's no wonder that her take on B&B Italia’s quintessential ‘Camaleonda’ sofa system – the original having been designed by Italian master Mario Bellini in 1970 – should be upholstered in responsibly sourced fabric but also adorned in the distinct motif. 

B&B Italia and Stella McCartney in Miami

Launched during Miami Art Week 2023 and the opening of B&B Italia’s new 1,950 sq m Design Studio Miami, the reissue is cast in trend-conscious salmon pink and earth-tone beige colourways, with the printed line pattern rendered in a contrasting black. The collection is also McCartney’s homage to Bellini and his game-changing design –a low-lying settee that uses hooks and cables to combine different modular configurations.

‘I have loved Mario Bellini’s designs for years, and I cannot put into words how thrilled I am to see my prints on his pieces once again,' says McCartney. The deep-tufted ‘Camaleonda’ is generously plush – organic yet rectilinear – perfectly suited to anchor the unmistakably modified textile. 

'The S-Wave is a symbol of our commitments to conscious luxury, which are so perfectly embodied in this design, constructed from pioneering materials kinder to Mother Earth. This collaboration truly is a harmony of our shared passions for next-generation sustainability and timeless craftsmanship.' Though durable and conducive to everyday use, the OceanSafe naNea yarn implemented in the S-Wave upholstery is biodegradable, Cradle to Cradle Certified Gold, and doesn’t shed persistent microplastics into the environment.

Meticulously outfitted by heavyweight Italian architect Piero Lissoni, B&B Italia’s refreshed and expanded Miami flagship covers two open-plan floors with various staged vignettes – including one dedicated to McCartney’s ‘Camaleonda’ reissue. 

Catering to retail and project planning needs in equal measure, the sprawling storefront also plays host to displays by other Design Holding brands, such as Maxalto, Arclinea, Louis Poulsen, and Flos. Top-quality products by established design studios such as Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby carry across the diverse offering of kitchen cabinetry, lighting, indoor and outdoor furnishings. Enclosed entirely through curtain-wall exposures, the glass-box space comes together as a contextualised domestic space.

B&B Italia Design Studio Miami
4141 NE 2nd Ave
Suite 115 / 114
Miami

bebitalia.com

The upper floor of the Centre Pompidou in Paris provided the setting for Stella McCartney’s A/W 2022 collection. The location was chosen not simply for its majestic views of the city beyond, but for its collection of artworks by American painter and sculptor Frank Stella, which McCartney notes is the most comprehensive in Europe. 

The collaboration between the pair is titled ‘Stella by Stella’, seeing one Stella (McCartney) interpret the work of another (Frank) in a fashion-art crossover which informs the entire A/W 2022 collection. Such a catchy refrain makes their partnership seem written in fate; indeed, McCartney notes post-show that she had been a fan and acquaintance of Stella for some time, seeing the movement across his career from minimalist to maximalist abstraction as similar to the juxtapositions in her own clothing. 

His vivid works illuminate a collection in which McCartney evokes her woman for the season as both creator and collector, transforming clothing into ‘pragmatic works of art’. Spanning the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, the various artworks by Stella – including Swan Engraving III (1982), Ahab (1988), Spectralia (1994) and V Series (1968) – are either printed verbatim onto the clothing or otherwise used as a starting point for McCartney’s own linear motifs, which zig-zag across tailoring and knitwear, the latter sliced-away at the sleeves. 

The designer has also drawn on Stella’s own life, looking towards his time spent embedded in the New York art scene in the 1980s, when he would work during the day and party with the city’s burgeoning creative community at night. Strong shoulders are a distinct reference to that era – notably across McCartney’s now signature fur-free coats, here nipped at the waist with a tie fastening – while looped and ruched viscose dresses arrive in a vibrant palette, primed for the dance floor. As ever, sustainable innovation is present throughout, from grape-leather sneakers to recycled nylon, polyester and regenerative wool.

McCartney notes that Stella had final approval on each of the garments, a process she admits was ‘terrifying’ due to what she deemed the artist’s own great taste and encyclopaedic knowledge of art and design. On his part, Stella had an unexpected link to fashion in his mother, who initially studied fashion design before retiring to become a housewife. ‘When she dressed up, she was glamorous,’ he remembers. 

At heart, though, it is the artist’s rule-breaking approach – rarely sticking to a defined style for long and having a reputation for a feisty reproach – which provides the energy behind Stella by Stella. It’s a spirit of rebellion long evoked by McCartney in her own collections, which confound expectations of sustainable design.

INFORMATION

A version of this article appears in the November 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today!

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‘Sustainable fashion': a phrase common in today's luxury parlance. But the popularity of a term doesn't make it any easier to unpack. In fact, it makes it even more difficult to understand if a brand or retailer is operating from an environmentally-aware manufacturing perspective, or is greenwashing its production practices.

For today's conscious consumer, the buzzwords around sustainability are becoming increasingly impenetrable, from circular economy to supply chains, traceability to carbon footprint, mycelium to micro plastics, regenerated to recycled. Not forgetting the host of conscious certifications used to to label garments (BCI, GOTS, Oekeo-Tex, Cradle to Cradle to name just a few).

Here we present a checklist of how to approach shopping for clothing with a more environmentally friendly mindset, alongside the sustainable fashion brands to focus on.

Sustainable fashion: shop second-hand

Garment production is predicted to grow by 81 per cent by 2030, and as more virgin clothing is produced around the world, so more natural resources are destroyed, from over farmed landscapes caused by cotton, wool and viscose production, to the chemicals from denim manufacturing polluting water supplies. A simple way to spend more consciously? Shop second-hand, and purchase pre-loved designs which are already part of fashion's manufacturing eco-system. Think marketplaces and peer-to-peer reselling plaftorms like Gen Z favourite (90 per cent of users are under age 26) Depop, luxury menswear and sneakerhead favourite Grailed, and for men and women shopping for burgeoning and classic brands alike, France's Vestiaire Collective (whose financing round in March received a €178 million investment, backed by French luxury group Kering) and the United States' The RealReal. 

A benefit of shopping second-hand, is that brands that may appear out of reach are in fact, affordable. ‘Buying timeless luxury, especially on the secondary market, is one of the smartest things you can do because the quality and craftsmanship behind the pieces mean they can have many lives,' says Sasha Skoda, head of women's, The RealReal. ‘In the past year, the website saw a 36 per cent increase in first-time buyers purchasing high-value pieces and saw like handbags, jewellery, watches, and sneakers.' The luxury consigment retailer has also just launched ReCollection 01, a series of upycled pieces, from blazers to shirts, crafted from materials donated by brands including Balenciaga, Dries Van Noten and A-Cold-Wall*, and reworked with an Americana-inspired spin by Atelier & Repairs.

Check your carbon footprint

A considered way to shop is to consider an environmental metric, and work to reduce it. McKinsey's ‘Fashion on climate' report published in August 2020, concluded that in 2018, the sector was responsible for some 2.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, which is about 4 per cent of the global total and the same per year as the entire economies of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined.

San Francisco brand Allbirds, most famous for its streamlined merino wool trainers, works to reduce the carbon footprint of its manufacturing processes, and alerts consumers to the carbon number of its products. Take its Dasher performance shoe, formed from sugarcane and tree fibres, which encompasses 9 kg of carbon dioxide per pair, estimated by the brand to be nearly 30 per cent lower than the average trainer. Or its t-shirt, made from waste fibres from the shells of Canadian snow crabs, which has a footprint approximately 20 per cent lower than a standard polyester design.

Allbirds is intent on sharing its findings and innovations with the wider retail and apparel industry. Its sugarcane EVA material, used to make its SweetFoam™ soles, is used by Reebok, Timberland and Ugg and in May 2020, the label announced a revolutionary brand partnership with Adidas, to create sustainable fashion with the lowest possible carbon footprint. In celebration of Earth Day 2021, Allbirds released an open-source version of its carbon footprint calculator at FreeTheFootprint.com, to allow other labels to use its technology. Its also called on brands to be more transparent about the carbon footprint they generate during manufacturing. At the G7 summit in Cornwall in 2021, the brand also etched a pair of giant footsteps in the sand of the beach opposite its coastal location, to urge world leaders in attendance to ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to sustainability.
 
Merino wool specialist Sheep Inc., which creates unisex jumpers, cardigans, lightweight hoodies and beanies, operates from a ‘carbon negative, future positive' standpoint. The label's biodegradable and ultra-fine merino wool pieces are knitted using solar-powered, zero-waste machines, using raw fibres sourced from New Zealand sheep farms, which use regenerative farming methods. Each Sheep Inc piece features a tag that scan be scanned to reveal the provenance and carbon footprint of the design. The label also invests 5 per cent of its revenue into biodiversity projects, projects which mitigate, at minimum, ten times the CO2 impact of each sweater’s full lifecycle. 

Shop local

Another sure fire way to reduce your carbon footprint – reducing the distance that manufacturing components and finished pieces travel around the world – is to shop from brands that produce in studios and ateliers local to you.

For Spanish footwear and bags, look to Hereu, which works with artisans to create moccasins, shoulder bags and sizeable totes in natural fabrics, including Spanish full-grain calf leather. In the United Kingdom, knitwear label Hades work with a family-run wool mill Yorkshire Pennines in England, and knit their designs in Hawick Scotland, while JW Anderson's ‘Made in Britain' capsule collection features shirting and trenchcoats, created in UK-based factories. In France, mother-and-daughter brand MaisonCléo creates hand knitted designs in Lille, using deadstock threads and fabrics, while in the United States, New York brand Peter Do manufactures its designs, in the label's founding city.

Watch your water intake

According to the WWF, it takes more than 20,000 liters of water to produce just one kilogram of cotton, which roughly amounts to a single t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Dyeing, bleaching, washing: there are many manufacturing processes in denim production that require water, but a number of brands are using pioneering technology to reduce their water footprint.

At Levi's, the label's pioneering Levi’s Water Less project has seen it incorporate 20 water-saving initiatives, including using 96 per cent less water in its denim finishing process. The label also uses recycled water in its factories, including 100 per cent recycled water in its Epping plant in South Africa, and between 2017 and 2020, the cumulative amount of water its suppliers recycled grew by 40 times, for a total of more than 9 billion liters of water. Currently, Levi's produces 80 per cent of all its products using Levi’s Water Less techniques. Other brands, including Frame and Reformation, have joined with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's The Jeans Redesign initiative, adopting its guidelines and recommendations. Frame’s Ellen MacArthur Foundation Jeans Redesign capsule collection features jeans and a jacket which are produced with water waste-reducing processes, without harmful chemicals, while Reformation's jeans offering is made from with cotto from Good Earth, the first Australia-based carbon positive cotton farm.

For other planet protecting options, look to pieces that are crafted using Econyl or regenerated nylon, a nylon substituted made using wasted ocean plastics, like fishing nets and drinking bottles. Evarae, Away That Day and Ohoy Swim all provide chic swimwear options, while Prada's Re-Nylon pieces use Econyl to update its signature sporty nylon silhouettes, from backpacks to bucket hats. The brand plans to be free of all virgin nylon in its supply chain by the end of 2021. Environmental organisation Parley for the Oceans also creates fashion pieces using ocean plastic-derived waste, including a series of woven textile pieces, due for release in autumn, designed in collaboration with innovative Dutch knitwear specialists Byborre.

Embrace environmentally-friendly fabrics

A host of incubators, brands and luxury groups are innovating around novel materials, that can be used as substitutes to materials formed from animal products and non-renewable oil-based polyesters. You may not expect your local green grocer to be a leading contender in the world of environmentally friendly fabrics, but alternatives to leather and silk, are being crafted from oranges, pineapples and apples. The mushroom is also a fungal force, and in March 2021, Stella Mccartney launched two garments, a bustier and a pair of tracksuit bottoms, using Mylo, an alternative to leather crafted using mycelium (sourced from the root system of fungi), developed by Silicon Valley materiality start-up Bolt Threads. In October 2020, Stella McCartney, luxury group Kering, Adidas and Lululemon all teamed up to make investment in the innovative company.

Luxury maison Hermès is also a fan of fungi. In March, the house released a prototype version of its classic Victoria travel bag, created using Sylvania, a lab-grown mycelium leather, created in collaboration with MycoWorks, which had been tanned in its specialist leather workshops. 

In June 2021, Gucci announced the launch of Demetra, a non-petroleum or animal-derived alernative to leather, which its team of scientists and artisans have spent two years formulating. Demetra has been used in the launch of three sneaker styles, the ‘Basket’, ‘New Ace’ and ‘Rhyton’, and Gucci plan to expand the use of Demetra within footwear and wider product categories over the coming months.

Elsewhere, other incubators are offering leather alternatives that will soon be industrialised. Natural Fiber Welding Inc, has created a substitute formed from vegetable oil, that has 40 times less carbon impact than traditional leather and 17 times less carbon impact than synthetic leather, made from plastic. All Birds is an investor. Biotech company Modern Meadow is also producing a leather alternative in its New Jersey lab, using a fermentation process involving yeast and collagen.

Pay attention to by-products

Leather is a conflicting material for many, especially those who are vegetarian. However, many ‘vegan' leathers also pose environmental problems, as they are produced using plastics. For fans of the durable and long-lasting fabrication a host of brands use leather that is ethically or organically certified, and is not used specifically for fashion production, but as a by-product of the meat industry. Leather specalist Skiim works with companies including The Sustainable Angle and the Leather Working Group to source and accredit its materials, which are used to craft timeless pieces like trenchcoats, ruffled skirts and shirts. These initiatives were implemented after model and eco-advocate Arizona Muse joined the brand as a sustainability consultant.

Opt for upcycled materials

‘For those of you who are not familiar with the production process of a garment, you have your flat fabric laid out on the table, you have your pattern pieces—your sleeve piece, your front piece and your back piece—you lay them on the fabric, you cut around your pattern piece, you get your garment pieces and you put them together, but you are left with waste fabric,' London-based designer Phoebe English explained in ‘Fixing fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability', an environmental report submitted to the UK government in February 2019. The designer is a leading pioneer in sustainability. In August 2020, she was shortlisted for the Design Museum annual Beazley ‘Designs of the Year’ exhibition, with the ‘Nothing New’ collection, which featued a quilted jacket, produced from waste from a previous fashion collection, in itself non virgin material sourced in the label's home city of London.

In the UK, consumption of new clothing is estimated to be higher than any other European country at 26.7kg per capita. However, according to the Textile Recycling Association, it has one of the highest collection rates of used clothes in the world, thanks in part to charity shop networks. Look out for a host of burgeoning brands that incorporate deadstock, waste or upcycled fabrics into their designs, from Paris' Marine Serre, whose brand is made up of 50% upcycled fabrics, London and Devon's Wright Le Chapelain, who create timeless tailoring using denim and shirting sourced through homeless charity Crisis, Dutch Duran Lantink, who works with brands and retaliers like Ellery and Browns, to splice and dice surplus stock and materials into new silhouettes. For A/W 2021, Lantink's collection film was visualised as a satirical salon show, with models sporting DIY deconstructed designs, which were auctioned off on the brand's website after it was streamed. Also slook to London's Ahluwalia and Copenhagen's Ganni, who have launched a patchwork capsule collection created from deadstock leopard print fabrics and leathers.

Analyse your ethics

Sustainable fashion isn't just about the environment, it's about shopping from an ethical perspective too, asking not just where our clothing comes from, but who it is made by. From 19-25 April, non-profit global organisation Fashion Revolution, is launching its latest campaign, #whomademyfabric, one calling upon the public to question more than 60 major brands and retailers, asking ask them to publicly disclose the processing facilities and textile mills in their global supply chains.

Fashion Revolution Week is focused around the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which saw 1,138 people and scores injured. Worldwide, the charity works to make the fashion industry and governments recognise the interconnection between human rights and rights of nature. Human rights abuses are notable in textile mills, informal workshops, tanneries, dyehouses, plantations and farms, that provide fabrics and materials for clothing. In August 2020, fast fashion retailer Boohoo, which sells dresses for as little as £4, faced a modern slavery probe, after it was revealed that workers in its Leicester garment factories in the UK, were being paid less than half the legal minimum wage.

Up the rent

Lured by a one-wear only occasion piece, bought for a wedding or black tie event, and never to be flaunted again? We suggest renting your out out ensemble instead. Clothing rental platform Rotaro, which has party dresses aplenty, plants a tree for each rental it provides and a thicket of bushes for each new brand in partners with. It also uses recycled packaging and Ozone cleaning, which has minimal environmental impact. Peer-to-peer lending service Hurr, which features a range of products from clothing to shoes, also allows customers to work out the quantatitive enviromental saving of renting an item instead of buying it. The platform has just launched a host of eye-catching jewellery pieces, from London based brand Alighieri. This includes a selection of bridal rental pieces, including embellished dresses, head pieces and veils. Elsewhere, bag rental service Cocoon, which received investment from luxury group Kering in June 2021, allows you to borrow bags from brands including Bottega Veneta, Gucci and Chanel, swapping your choice several times a month, depending on your subscription service.

Care for your clothes

Adopting eco-friendly practices at home is a simple way to operate more environmentally. Wash clothing using natural detergents in the washing machine at  30° instead of 40° and place synthetic items (think sportswear and thermal wear and pieces made from regenerated nylon) in a Guppyfriend Bag, a washing machine pouch that catches microplastics from clothing and prevents them from polluting water systems. 

For products to extend the lifetime of clothing, look to Swedish garment care company Steamery, which produces eco detergents produced in a carbon-neutral factory, alongside other tools for pepping up your clothing, from steamers to fabric shavers, clothes brushes to clothing and shoe mist. A host of repair services also ensure you can keep your favourite pieces for a lifetime, from luxury goods recovery service The Restory, to Toast, which offers repair workshops in person and online, using Sashiko, a specialist way of mending and patching clothing. 

Move towards made-to-order

According to Greenpeace, 300,000 tonnes of used clothes are burned or buried in landfill each year in the United Kingdom, and the average life span of a garment is only just over two years. One logical solution to reduce garment waste is simply to create less clothing. In a bid to prevent overproduction and create sustainable fashion, a host of innovative brands and retailers are adopting a made-to-order buying model. Traditionally associated with the world of haute couture, this means that garments are only produced after they have been ordered by a customer. 

A host of brands and retailers are excelling as made-to-order mavericks. Look to APOC Store, an innovative e-commerce marketplace to emerging artists and fashion designers, which sells according to small production runs or bespoke orders. Check out high street retailer Toast, which has introduced a made-to-order offering of craft-celebrating artisanal designs, from Ikat dresses to leather tote bags. And look to smaller labels like London-based Cawley, which specialises in easy, fabric-focused creations, from gingham dresses to upcycled patchwork jackets, and fellow Londoner Helen Kirkum, who creates spliced and diced sneakers crafted from upcycled footwear and has worked with brands including Reebok, Adidas and Casely-Hayford. 

Mushrooms are currently enjoying a cultural renaissance beyond the kitchen. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic ‘shrooms’, is being touted for use in the treatment of anxiety and depression, while Japanese snow fungus and fungi-derived kojic acid are believed to encourage a dewy, blemish-free complexion. Meanwhile, in science labs across the globe, start-ups are cultivating fungal innovations not only for the wellness and beauty industries, but for the fashion and sportswear sectors, too.

Mycelium, the thread-like root structures of fungi, has the ability to be transformed into sheets of biomaterial, remarkably similar in composition to durable, strong and softly patinated leather, piquing the interest of the fashion world. A kilogram of leather requires 17,000 litres of water to produce, farming livestock makes up approximately 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and around 70 per cent of the Amazon’s deforested area is now used for cattle pastures, so the quest for more eco-friendly fabrics has fostered an increasing number of collaborations between luxury groups, labels and scientific start-ups.

In October last year, Adidas, Stella McCartney, Lululemon and Kering (which owns the likes of Saint Laurent, Gucci and Balenciaga) announced they had teamed up to form the Mylo consortium, a partnership with Silicon Valley material solutions firm Bolt Threads, aimed at commercialising Mylo, a supple, mycelium-derived alternative to leather. Meanwhile, in March this year, Hermès unveiled its partnership with MycoWorks, reimagining the fashion house’s classic ‘Victoria’ travel bag in sylvania, a mushroom leather created using the Californian biotechnology company’s patented Fine Mycelium technology. 

The magical materiality of mushrooms

One benefit of mycelium is its ability to be cultivated with less of an environmental impact than petroleum- or animal-derived products. Bolt Threads’ Mylo is cultivated in indoor vertical farming facilities, where mycelial cells are fed sawdust and organic matter in climatic conditions similar to the forest floor. Mycelium is grown into a foamy mushroom-like layer, which is harvested, processed and dyed into sheets. At MycoWorks’ California facilities, the Fine Mycelium is grown in proprietary trays, designed to induce optimal conditions. ‘We capture data at every stage of growth, which is then used to refine each sheet’s strength, flexibility and thickness, according to our partners’ specifications,’ says Matt Scullin, MycoWorks’ CEO.

It’s prescient that Hermès, famed for its leather making, is making moves towards mycelium. ‘Since its earliest days, the maison has created new materials that respond to the needs and uses of our time,’ says Hermès’ artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas of the three-year development of sylvania, which has been crafted to ‘complement, not replace’ its current offering. Dumas praises the material for being ‘surprisingly plump, springy and incredibly soft’. 

ReCollection 01, by The RealReal

To create Mylo, rigorous R&D and testing processes are carried out by Bolt Threads’ team of scientists. ‘We try many different avenues at once of any material,’ says the company’s VP of product development, Jamie Bainbridge, who is thrilled by the breadth of the brands that Bolt Threads is collaborating with. ‘They all have different market constraints and product creation cycles,’ she says. ‘But they’re all invested long term in our journey.’ 

Stella McCartney, who has never used leather, feathers, fur or skin in her designs, first began working with Bolt Threads back in 2016, later unveiling a Mylo prototype of the brand’s signature ‘Falabella’ handbag. In March this year, McCartney debuted the second design in her Mylo mission, a black bustier top and trousers in recycled neoprene with mycelium leather panels. ‘I chose to create ready-to-wear pieces to show the true breadth of what this material can do, which, in turn, is a world first,’ she explains. A month later, Adidas debuted its first Mylo design, a version of its signature Stan Smith trainers, with a mycelium leather upper, marking the first time Mylo has been used in footwear. ‘It has become the brand’s franchise shoe for innovation,’ says Bainbridge about the Stan Smith. In November 2019, the German sportswear behemoth teamed up with McCartney on a vegan iteration while, in March this year, it unveiled a version crafted from Primegreen, a performance fabric that contains no virgin plastic.

In July, Lululemon also showcased its debut Mylo designs, two yoga bags that will go on sale in early 2022, alongside a conceptual mat made entirely from mycelium leather. ‘Leveraging a material like Mylo demonstrates our commitment to creating a healthier environment through lower-impact products,’ explains Lululemon’s chief product officer Sun Choe. ‘The feel and performance of our fabrics and materials is key to product experience.’

There has been a clear shift in the fashion industry’s mindset towards learning from the natural world rather than plundering it. ‘We’re harnessing whatever nature has designed to make materials for our use,’ says Bainbridge. McCartney adds, ‘It’s so encouraging to see this shift. We need more designers helping to implement this, taking responsibility, making changes and not being afraid.’

INFORMATION

This article appears in the August 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*268), now on newsstands and available for free download

Fruit and vegetables are good for us. We all know that. But what if our clothes counted towards our five a day? Would that make the planet healthier, too? We are told the one thing we can do to reduce our carbon emissions is to eat less beef, so the next step would be to wear less leather. We also know that cotton production is water-intensive and polluting. So the next generation of textiles made from apple peel, grape pulp, oranges and pineapples is here not a moment too soon. Never mind eat more greens. What we really need is to wear them.

First, though, designers need to know where to find these healthy new fibres and, in January, the Future Fabrics Expo in London showcased the best of them. The exhibition was the brainchild of Nina Marenzi, who in 2010 founded The Sustainable Angle, a not- for-profit organisation that aims to help reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry, and Amanda Johnston, a curator and consultant.

Part of their mission is to showcase alternatives to non-renewable, oil-based polyesters and cotton. ‘In their place, we are seeing an increase in recycled synthetics and regenerated cellulosic materials from varied plant-based sources,’ said Marenzi. At the expo, there was a veritable cocktail of fruit-based fabrics on show, including Vegea, made from grape waste from the wine industry, Orange Fiber, from the Italian citrus industry and producing a textile so soft and luxurious it has already been used by Salvatore Ferragamo; Frumat, a leather alternative from apple waste; and MycoTex, a mushroom-based textile that can be modelled into clothes without the need to cut and sew.

Agricultural waste is becoming a serious business. Jayesh Vir, co-founder and president of banana fibre start-up Green Whisper, says ‘the eco- bre market is expected to reach $74bn by 2020’. His banana fibre uses a process free from chemicals and the resulting textiles are lightweight, high strength, super absorbent, stain proof and fire retardant. Already Vir is in talks with various brands in the US, Asia and France – about shoes and clothing – as well as hotels and an airline.

Similarly ambitious is Agraloop, a new system that transforms waste and residue from pineapple, banana and sugar cane into yarn. Dubbed ‘Crop-A-Porter’, it will reward farmers for doing something productive with their leftovers (which are otherwise burnt or left to rot, producing CO2 along the way), as well as making a low-carbon, smart resource for creating biodegradable textiles. Agraloop won the 2018 Global Change Awards – an event created by the H&M Foundation in an effort to find future solutions for our fashion and textile industry.

For brands such as H&M, as well as luxury giants such as Kering, there is a race to close the loop on non-sustainable virgin materials. The brands that invest in sustainable new materials will be the ones we’ll still be talking about, and wearing, in 20 years. H&M has a goal of using 100 per cent ‘recycled or other sustainably sourced materials’ by 2030. ‘We have supported the production of materials derived from citrus peel, grape skins and stalks, and pineapple skin,’ says Giorgina Waltier, sustainability manager for H&M UK and Ireland. ‘In the future, we hope to incorporate as many of these new materials into our collections as possible.’

Petit Pli – Clothes that Grow

Stella McCartney has led the way as a luxury vegetarian brand and now she is increasingly looking to carbon-free alternatives for her sought-after, cruelty-free ‘Falabella’ tote bags and vegan Adidas Stan Smith trainers. McCartney has partnered with Bolt Threads, an American start-up that is developing Mylo, a lab-grown leather made from mycelium, the underground root structure of mushrooms. Their first Mylo ‘Falabella’ bag was exhibited as part of the V&A’s ‘Fashioned From Nature’ exhibition last year.

And now a new generation of designers is picking up the torch. One such is Paolo Carzana, currently on a Kering sustainability scholarship at London’s Central Saint Martins. He graduated from the University of Westminster in 2018 with an extraordinary collection made exclusively from reclaimed fabrics and Piñatex, an alternative to leather made from pineapple leaves.

Piñatex founder Carmen Hijosa has been working on creating an alternative to leather since the 1990s, when she was consulting for the Philippine leather export industry. Shocked by the level of pollution she saw from traditional leather production, she set out to find a non-petroleum, plant-based, low-carbon leather alternative. She went to London’s Royal College of Art to research her idea to turn pineapple leaves into a hard-wearing material and Piñatex is one of the biotech fabrics already available on the market – it is used by shoe brands Artesano and Nae Vegan, as well as in trainers by Boss, and biker jackets by Altir.

In 2019, the company plans to scale up sales and production, with its sights set on interiors and car interiors, as well as fashion and accessories. And there is no shortage of raw material – pineapples are the second biggest tropical fruit crop in the world (mangoes are number one). They come wrapped in 20-25 fibrous leaves that all go to waste when they are picked; this by-product, which previously had no value, can now provide rural communities with additional income.

For designers like Carzana, the plant-based provenance and environmental footprint of new materials like these is everything. ‘We need to work intensively with these materials, showing that hand-crafted, thoughtful garments can be made with these textiles and be more interesting than animal-based products,’ he says. ‘It is working with nature rather than against it.’ And when the result is clothes that look good enough to eat, that makes perfect sense. 

As originally featured in the March 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*240)

Stella McCartney has long operated from a sustainable standpoint – pioneering eco-initiatives long before they became luxury's trendiest topic – but as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the brand has taken further stock of its environmentally-aware ethics, mapping out a business-focused blue print for the future, released to align with its prismatic S/S 2021 lookbook.

The visually striking result is the Stella McCartney A-Z, an alphabetised manifesto, revealing the most important words that make up the McCartney mindset for 2020 and beyond. The letter line up includes C for ‘Conscious', T for ‘Timeless' and R for ‘Repurpose'. To bring some artistic oomph to McCartney’s manifesto, the designer has called on an impressive roster of creatives, including Chantal Joffe, Rashid Johnson, Jeff Koons, and Cindy Sherman, to illustrate her alphabet. ‘I wanted the artists to have full creative license, and really take the word they chose and run wild with how they wanted to depict it,’ she explains of the multicoloured, mixed media result, which amalgamates typography, collage and photography. ‘You could look at it as the visual equivalents of all the personal, political, spiritual, global, funny, touching, lovely, profound conversations of 2020.’

McCartney has also enlisted Wallpaper* Design Awards Judge Alex Israel to create the artwork for ‘H’: Humour. ‘We speak about serious things here when we talk about the environment and animal welfare, so it’s important to lighten the tone and use a humorous approach,’ she says of the brand relevance of the term. ‘Alex and I see eye to eye on the absolute necessity of having a laugh in life. His practice never shies away from humour, for example, I love the distinctive series of self-portraits he did, painted on fibreglass panels shaped like his own head’.

Long-inspired by the cinematic mythology of his hometown of Los Angeles, Israel conceived his ‘H’ artwork while exploring the hills in Bronson Canyon, near Los Feliz. The H of the famed Hollywood sign appears to have strolled from its hilltop location down to a residential roadside below. ‘“H” also stands for home, Hollywood, hiking, and heist,’ Israel explains. ‘I had a vision of the H from the Hollywood sign hitch-hiking through the hills…or maybe it was hijacked?’

‘I have always adored the energy of Alex’s work and how he depicts the culture of his hometown with colour, optimism and nostalgia,’ McCartney adds. ‘I knew he would have a lot of fun with this project so we absolutely had to have him!'

INFORMATION
stellamccartney.com

London Design Museum's weekly #DesignDispatches series sees the museum's chief executive and director Tim Marlow in discussion with leading lights from the intersecting worlds of fashion, design and architecture. In this special edition, which you are able to watch on the museum's Instagram at 2pm on Saturday 16 May, Marlow moderates the conversation between architect Sir David Adjaye and fashion designer Stella McCartney.

Alongside inspiring insights into the two creative giant's careers, they discuss the similarities between their respective industries, how sustainability plays a central part in their ethos', and how technology is influencing both worlds. They also speak to the very prescient matter of how the architecture and fashion communities will respond to the Covid-19 world.

‘It's the first time in history that we're going be able to have geography lessons on this impact. And understand what the true impact is of the human on the planet and its resources,' says McCartney during the discussion, of the pandemic.

The pairing of the two speakers is a clever one; it speaks to the intersection of their respective industries. ‘Exploring the interconnected nature of various areas of design as well as their differences is something that fascinates me, explains Marlow. ‘So the chance to bring Stella and David together and listen to their ensuing conversation was inspiring and revelatory. It reinforces the idea that design in its broadest and richest sense holds the key to so much of our collective future.'

The talk forms part of a lively digital programme from the Design Museum, which also features a design-minded home schooling course. Stella McCartney, too, is presenting collaborative work on its Instagram, where creatives from across the ‘StellaVision' network come together to share the ways to thrive and survive in this new reality.

INFORMATION

designmuseum.org

Mood board: In November 2017, sustainability crusader Stella McCartney and Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched the Circular Fibres Initiative, which included a report encouraging the luxury industry to adopt a reusable circular economy. The circle formed a motif in the designer’s S/S 2020 collection – the first with LVMH – encompassed in delicate cape detail shirts with petal shape edging, balloon sleeve dresses and sporty cut-outs on striped knitwear.  Here the masculine and feminine was juxtaposed, with relaxed suiting (a nod to McCartney’s Savile Row training), presented against robe tie coats, lace slips and asymmetric dresses in wildflower photographic prints. Greenwashing is an industry issue, with brands using gimmicks or single collections to push their apparently environmentally-aware message, instead of confronting the many manufacturing stages in their supply chain. Not so for Stella. This was the brand’s most sustainable collection yet featuring recycled polyester, organic cotton, sustainable viscose, Econyl, hemp, bio acetate and sustainable raffia.

Finishing touches: McCartney is a long time pioneer of creating accessories from eco fabrics, from her long time use of vegan leather to the prototype the brand made of its Falabella bag using Bolt Threads’ Mylo™, a material made from mushroom mycelium. For spring, its half circular logo bag was wrapped by hand around a metal frame, using Eco Alter Nappa.

Team work: The night before McCartney’s show on the marble steps of her brand’s Opera Garnier location, the designer held a round table focused on sustainability, with speakers including author Dana Thomas, Claire Bergkamp, the brand’s sustainability director and David Breslauer, the founder of Bolt Threads. With deepening conversation and innovation, not just the brand, but the industry as a whole can take steps towards a more sustainable future.

Moodboard: A lot has been said and written about sustainable fashion lately. Mostly, the questions surrounding the subject have no easy answers: is ethical, sustainable fashion really possible in a capitalist world? What is worst, the use of animals for fabric or synthetic, polluting vegan materials? Where do real ethics end and where does greenwashing begin? Stella McCartney has clearly pondered on all of these and more during her career, and adapted her answers to the evolution of the times. In her latest collection, that answer had a lot to do with upcycling. The British designer has salvaged batches of old, discarded fabric (her own, from previous collections, in several cases) to make something new out of them.

Best in show: Something new, yes, but not ragingly trendy. McCartney is well aware of the way disposable trends contribute to fashion wastefulness, and so this season she decided to go with classics, the kind of clothes you could buy so that, one day, your grandchildren might wear them. There were the trademark Stella slouchy suits, this time in checkered prints and paired with Hunter boots (again, sustainably made out of natural rubber) that couldn't help but make you think of those early 1980's pictures of Paul McCartney frolicking with baby sheep in his countryside home. The 1980's were also present in the power shoulders and graphic dresses in pops of colour including yellow, pink and blue. Some of them almost looking like the kind of tunics religious leaders wore in the 1980's. It was somewhere between the realism of practicality and the fantasy of an imagined future – more optimistic than current times, clearly – that made the collection's charm. Among the accessories, it was a new kind of cylindrical bag that stood out the most, both in oversized and mini shapes.

Team work: Before the show, as guests were arriving at the Opéra Garnier, a recording played, explaining McCartney's latest charity venture. Titled ‘There she grows', the campaign aims to help the endangered Leuser Ecosystem thrive by encouraging people to make donations to plant trees in the Sumatra region. The project hopes to drive donations to the nonprofit organisation Canopy, which protects endangered forests. It was not, though, the only collaborative project of the day. For the collection, the designer partnered with artist Sheila Hicks to create wrapped adornments using traditional weaving techniques. Worn by the models like badges of honour, they acted as wearable works of art.

Mood board: The last few months have been a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions drama for the fashion industry. More than ever in a competitive and commercial landscape, independent brands are looking to selling part of their stock in order to gain long-term stability and financial security. But Stella McCartney has always gone against the grain, and that goes for her business acumen too. The designer has freshly regained independent status after buying back her business from Kering. And although that puts her in a much freer creative position, it also comes with new responsibilities. For S/S 2019, this was no time for shock and surprise, but one for reasserting the brand’s easy, relaxed and versatile philosophy.

Best in show: It was all about classic McCartney here, the kind of easy, super wearable pieces we can all do with: tie dye mini dresses and t-shirts, utilitarian bleached denim, unstructured dresses and silk-and-lace slips, and some winks to British textile tradition in the form of flower-printed tops and neoprene onesies. But the real showstopper was the slouchy suit, which, this season, has gotten even slouchier, acquiring a genderless feeling made out of linen and sustainable viscose in faded pastel tones. It is this suit alone which embodies the unique charm – simultaneously nonchalantly chic and endlessly comfortable – of Stella McCartney.

Team work: It’s always a pleasure to receive McCartney’s playful novelty show invitations in the post. This season – after having scored keyrings, socks, board games and water pistols in the past – we were offered a comic book made in, unlikely, collaboration with… Minnie the Minx. In it, the 1950’s-created British comic strip character travels to Paris on a sustainability assignment to assist the designer. Mischief ensues… but in the process we get to understand a bit more about the brand's sustainable footprint.

When Stella McCartney began design work on her eponymous label’s vast new flagship store at 23 Old Bond Street, it was clear from the outset that this store’s interpretation of luxury would be a little different to its neighbours. Where other fashion behemoths have used showy swathes of rare stone or glossy metals to clad walls, McCartney’s outpost is lined with humble but elegant pebble-dash, pleasingly squeezable recycled foam and textured card made using waste paper taken from McCartney’s London offices.

The interior is an embodiment of the label’s sustainable ethos; from the moss-covered rocks that greet customers on the ground floor, to the air conditioning system by Copenhagen and London-based company Airlabs that cleans the air using nano carbon technology.

The new store, spread over four floors covering women’s and menswear ready-to-wear, accessories, lingerie, swimwear, kids, eyewear, fragrance and Adidas by Stella McCartney, replaces McCartney's previous Bruton Street location, which initially opened 15 years ago.

Playful features are interwoven across the store layout. Custom speakers built into the ceiling fill the store's huge curving steel staircase with the sound of unreleased music by McCartney’s rockstar father Paul, while BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ plays out in the changing rooms.

In the basement kids can enjoy a ball pit and climbing wall, and curious adult customers can book an appointment to visit the ‘members and non members only’ club space on the top floor. Here they will be treated to various events, exhibitions and activations starting with a capsule collection of 46 dresses – each one a black or white replica of the Duchess of Sussex’s sustainable viscose wedding reception dress. Displayed alongside mood boards, rolls of fabric and a cutting table, the exhibition provides customers with a peek inside McCartney’s London atelier.

‘Old Bond street, it’s probably one of the most prestigious retail locations in the world,’ said McCartney, who was deeply involved in the design of the store alongside her in-house team.

‘And for me being born and bred in London and having our business headquarters there and design studio, it’s an incredible honour for us. This store really tells the story of the world of Stella McCartney; seamlessly incorporating sustainability, fashion and luxury.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Stella McCartney website

ADDRESS

Stella McCartney
23 Old Bond Street
Mayfair
London
W1S 4PZ

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Mood Board: These are busy days for Stella McCartney. The designer is currently in the midst of a much-talked about process to buy 50% of her company back from Kering, a bold move that proves how confident she is in her own brand. And why shouldn’t she be? Not only is her womenswear a strong commercial success, barely a year after debuting, her menswear line has also come together at an impressive rate. So much so, in fact, that this season she decided to show them both simultaneously. The show took place at the Opéra de Paris, on a mirrored catwalk which rendered the neo baroque decorations of Charles Garnier even more sumptuous.

Best in show: 'All is not as it seems', read the show notes. Indeed, it wasn’t. This was a collection about classics, basics and trompe-l'œil, in which corsets made their appearance (reminding us the glorious time when, in the late 90s, Stella was the queen of the corset), but this time attached to minimal sleeveless dresses. The same went for slips and sweaters and, for the boys, hoodies and coats turned out to be one and the same. Comfort was on the menu as well, mainly expressed through a vast array of sneakers, worn with everything and this time handcrafted without stitches or hooks to avoid the usage of toxic glues.

Team work: The real star of the show, though, were the final few dresses, featuring mosaic-line printings of the works of Joseph Henry Lynch. The British artist, who died in 1989, was known the 60s for his mass produced paintings of sultry women…and for the way Stanley Kubrick used them in A Clockwork Orange. It’s touches of British eccentricity like that one, paired with a realistic approach, that keep Stella McCartney’s clients coming back to her stores again and again.

Scene setting: It was back to the opera house Palais Garnier for showgoers yesterday morning. We had already been there once this week for Balmain. Truth be told, the beyond gilded, over-the-top walls and ceilings of the building, completed in 1875 by Charles Garnier (who won a contest barely out of college) go hand in hand with creative director Olivier Rousteing’s unabashed love of bling. It's a whole different story for Stella McCartney. The British designer used the surroundings of the Palais as a curious counterpoint to a collection that was tasteful, yet touched on streetwear silhouettes. Playing with the idea of taste, the show’s invitations were imagined as a heavy roll of - eco-friendly, we take it - ‘trashion bags’. Whether that was a nod to the current state of fashion or simply just good fun we don't know. In any case, it was a taste of the collection to come. And a damn good way of starting a Monday morning.

Moodboard: Sustainability has always been at the core of Stella McCartney's work. For S/S 2018, the designer upped the ante. Barely a couple of hours after the show, the brand announced its partnership with The Real Real, a luxury resale e-tailer, to promote circular economy, and re-sales of her past products. On the runway, McCartney's ‘skin-free skin’ was present not only in shoes and bags, but also in surprisingly real looking trousers, tops and overalls. It all shaped a collection full of eighties references, a youthful spirit and a bit of a Harlem style thrown in for good measure.

Best in show: The show opened with a look that was 100% Stella: navy blue trousers worn with a short-sleeved black blazer and a faux-leather bag with a macramé strap. All incredibly simple. In contrast, an off-the shoulder banana yellow onesie with a 'skin-free skin' leopard pattern followed. Same thing with an eighties knotted top, and denim, which came stone washed in all kinds of acid colours, from lime green to electric blue to dayglo pink. In their oversized proportions, they were sure to look as good on a 16 year-old girl as on a fifty-something fashionista. Some people critique McCartney for being unanbashedly commercial in her shows... But we can only wish commerciality looked always as good as it does on the Stella McCartney runway.

Mood board: Like the hits her models sang karaoke-style at the show’s end, Stella McCartney has an amazing ability craft a diverse range of inimitable show-stoppers season after season. For A/W 2017, McCartney combined equestrian influences, from plaid tailoring to a horse print motif by the painter George Stubbs, with embroidered sheer dresses paired insouciantly with checked trousers or a green roll-neck, to-the-manor-born quilted coats, high-shine mackintoshes and corset detail mini-dresses.

Best in show: McCartney has always been a master when it comes to tailoring, and for A/W 2017, the designer imagined a checked blazer-style mini-dress featuring not one but two lapels, which poked cheekily from under each other.

Finishing touches: Sporty popper details featured as buttons on shirts and trousers, and these metal finishes were also echoed in the toe-caps of boots, crafted in white, tan and patent burgundy. Athletic details consistently bring an effortless energy to McCartney’s collections, and this was emphasised for A/W 2017 in high-performance trainers with colourful panels and speckled soles.

When it came to launching her first menswear collection, Stella McCartney did more than dip her toe in. Rather than a unisex extension or a concise capsule, the British designer has invested in 37 full looks, including accessories, which will drop into department stores and key boutiques globally this November. You could say it’s almost like the line always existed, which was exactly the plan.

‘I wanted to create a collection where every type of man can come and find something,’ McCartney explains of the S/S17 debut that’s an inter-decade mélange of artistic sub-cultures. ‘The starting point is men that I find incredibly inspiring, and the kind of men I want to help dress. That’s the same thing I try to do with the womenswear,’ she adds. ‘I make women feel like they can be fashionable, and yet themselves. And I want to do the same for men.’

She blurs the boundaries between formal dress (courtesy of pushed proportions) and traditional sportswear (see sassy slogan tees), while also experimenting with new sustainable and recycled man-made materials. That said, her bonded cotton macs, handmade in the UK, are surefire winners.

As originally featured in the December 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*213)

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Stella McCartney website

Mood board: Stella McCartney knows how to dress her girl in insouciant, confident outfits that are sporty, yet thanks to their sculpted shoulders and body-conscious cuts are also sexy and feminine. Towards the end of the show, that girl turned ebullient, parading down the runway with playful slogans embroidered on lace and jersey.

Best in show: Loose-fitting trousers ruched and paneled on the inner leg or with the waist draped at asymmetric angles created a refreshing silhouette. A double-denim look, with off-centre buttoning and a billowy trouser leg struck an especially laid-back chord.

Finishing touches: The organic jute, cotton and linen fringed shawls unaffectedly thrown over shoulders had a luxurious feel. Feathery frayed detailing reoccurred as a circular pattern on a draped white dress with cape sleeves.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Loyd-Evans

With Rio 2016 just 100 days away, Team GB’s wardrobe was finally revealed this morning at an event hosted in London by its creators, Adidas and longtime Adidas collaborator Stella McCartney. The brief – to create a kit that could unify two teams, multiple sports and over 600 athletes in Rio – was answered by McCartney with a collection that married British tradition with a modern attitude. 

Bringing back the union jack motif from the 2012 kit, (which was also designed by the British designer), McCartney has layered the flag with iconography pulled from a new specially commissioned coat of arms that is loaded with symbolism. Created by the College of Arms, the new unifying design features a shield decorated with the floral emblems of the four Home Nations – a leek, a rose, a thistle and flax. Flanked by two lions brandishing torches and crowned with laurel wreaths, the shield is topped with a lion in a crown composed of medals and relay batons – a symbol of continuity, teamwork and shared responsibility. Underneath, the latin words ‘Ivncti in vno’ translate as ‘Conjoined in one’. 

Core elements from the coat of arms are reinterpreted in the kit through embroideries and prints, while the GB logo has been scaled up and printed over different textures. 'It’s something that will live on well beyond the 2016 games,’ says McCartney of the coat of arms. ‘That was my intention, to create something that moves well beyond the now.'

Crucially, three smart materials developed by Adidas make this the teams’ most lightweight and efficient kit to date. Promising to keep athletes cool and dry, Adidas’ breathable Climachill technology incorporates fabrics woven with titanium fibres and aluminium cooling spheres that draw heat away from the body, while Climacool makes use of ventilation channels and open meshes that keep cool air flowing in and heat flowing out – ‘like air conditioning’ for the athletes, says Adidas product manager John Stewart.

In addition, the new kit is on average 10 percent lighter than 2012’s outfits thanks to the lightweight Adizero fabric which, used across both clothing and footwear, is 'so important when just fractions of a second and fractions of a centimetre can be the difference between winning and coming second,’ according to Stewart. Finally, made of thousands of unique energy capsules, Adidas’ Boost performance material will deliver high energy return cushioning across all the teams’ footwear.

'I’ve been working with Adidas on sports performance for over ten years so I’m quite used to the limitations and also the freedoms that affords me as a designer. For me the limitations are actually quite exciting,‘ says McCartney, who works closely with the athletes throughout the design process. ‘Then there are those elements that I bring in on a fashion level like a perforated nylon, I’ll embroider things and I’ll try and bring an edge to the technical side of things.’

Fiercely proud to be the only fashion designer ever to have been invited to create an Olympic and Paralympic kit, McCartney tells us, ‘I find that challenge very attractive. I’m there fighting for the athletes, all those little tiny details like the rib on the neck or even the zip on the pocket – that’s an extra cost, that’s an extra headache but I am fighting their corner, because those little details make a difference.'

'It’s wise to practice in the stuff that you’re going to be competing in so you can get used to it,’ says Olympic diver Tom Daley, who will pick up his own kit on 21 June. ‘It’s exciting because as soon as you start wearing it, that’s when you feel part of the team. You’ll never feel more British.'

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Adidas website

Photography courtesy Adidas and Stella McCartney

Mood board: Stella McCartney has become an icon for wearable, clean and cool clothes, a distinction that will only crystallise more fully with her new winter collection that played beautifully with pleating, voluminous puffer jackets and oversized wool pants that had drawstring ankles. Everything was yanked, and pulled in just the right direction, giving the clothes a speedy new tug without sacrificing their good looks.

Best in show: The puffer jacket took on a whole new original meaning in this show, morphing from a classic ski jacket to outsized vests, and cropped jackets to huge parkas worn with elegant languid pleated skirts. There were even flared puffer shorts that looked surprisingly convincing.

Finishing touches: McCartney's no-leather rule luckily has no impact on the force of her footwear. This season she cut cool cone shaped heels on low pumps and paired most of her looks with a slip-on pointed toe, rubber sole shoe that created a sporty edge.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Mood board: Despite the grand, gilded interiors of the glorious Paris opera house where she always shows, the mood at Stella McCartney always manages to be a rap-blasting downtown-fuelled scenario. This season McCartney played with razor sharp pleats, ribbons that created stencil effects and stiffened dark denim, all of which she cut with uneven hems and a speedy-sort of hand.

Best in show: The highlight of this show occurred at the very beginning when McCartney played with graphic tartans, plaids and stripes in punchy primary colours mixed with white. But rather than classic boyish silhouettes, she cut these bold patterns into cool polo-necked knit tops and clinging skirts or 3/4 length dresses that grazed every inch of the models’ curves.

Finishing touches: Not touching leather seems to have no creative concession for this vegan designer. Her best shoes this season were cherry tinted sustainable wood clogs and new-age Tevas-like sandals that had gleaming white soles and beige bodies.

INFORMATION
Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Rick Owens: Everyone at fashion week has seen a fringe or two in their time, whether it's sported by a catwalk model, famous face or even a handbag. But an invitation? That's novel, even to us. Rick Owens is to thank for this one, sending a suede-covered, embossed board coated in deep tan and mouse grey suede, fringed by - you guessed it - a trim of luscious locks. Bonkers and brilliant in equal measure

Anya Hindmarch: The doyenne of tongue-in-cheek, Hindmarch sent a miniature textured leather road sign attached to a spot-varnished card, warning us of the dressed-up diversions that lay ahead. It seems she may have tempted fate; the show indeed held London's fashion crowd up, though the eventual M25-inspired runway-meets-motorway (and Little Chef breakfast) more than made up for it

Mood board: Stella McCartney was in a mixed bag sort of mood for autumn, pulling out high-cuffed suiting, patchworked brocade and black wool dresses, frill-edged pants, granny-style crocheted dresses and plenty of novelty knits such as shawl-collared dresses and split capes that covered only half a woman's body. The variety in this show was vast, but the clothes were kept together in McCartney's classic formula of cool meets wearable.

Best in show: McCartney is a staunch vegan, which is why we love to see her naughty dabbling in fake fur. This season's creations were white wooly mammoth coats including hoods that left the models' covered in shaggy tufts.

Finishing touches: Not touching leather had no negative impact on this collection's covetable accessories such as the rust or olive coloured three-quarter boots with sensible block heels or the leather-esque flat bags with long gold chains that were folded over and worn like clutches.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

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. Here, we bring you Paris Fashion Week's catwalk mega mix from the S/S 2015 womenwear collections.

WEDNESDAY 24/09

Dries Van Noten
'Strange Entity' by Max Colombie AKA Oscar And The Wolf, in collaboration with Sem Jan

THURSDAY 25/09

Roland Mouret
'Don't Go' by Izzy Lindqwister; 'Memorabilia' by Soft Cell; 'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig); 'La Poupee Qui Fait' by Serge Gainsbourg
Music production: Nano de Clausel

Rick Owens
'Piano Concerto 1, Preludium' by Wojciech Kilar
Music production: Jeff Judd

FRIDAY 26/09

Loewe
'Imagin' by Dark Sky; 'Music for 18 Musicians Section 4' by Steve Reich; 'Piano Phase' by Steve Reich; 'Music for 18 Musicians Section 5' by Steve Reich
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Dior
'Ouverture' by Koudlam; 'Loss (Regis Version)' by Ike Yard; 'The Magnificent Bukkake (1756-1785)' by Koudlam; 'Shake' by Cowboy Rhythmbox
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Isabel Marant
'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig); 'Pump Me Up' by Trouble Funk; 'Electrodub' by Daniele Baldelli; 'Feel Up' by Grace Jones; 'New Dorp. New York' by SBTRKT (feat Ezra Koenig)

Maison Martin Margiela
'Assassin de la Police' by Cut Killer; 'Sweet Harmony' by The Beloved

SATURDAY 27/09

Haider Ackermann
'One Space' by Senjan Jansen

SUNDAY 28/09

Kenzo
Exclusive mix by Disclosure

Céline
'This Woman's Work' by Kate Bush; 'Mishima / Closing' by Philip Glass; 'Need This (Radio Mix)' by Bok Bok & Tom Trago; 'In The Upper Room Dance No. 1' by Philip Glass; 'Vector' by Bok Bok & Tom Trago

Chloé 
'Strangers'; 'Numb'; 'Sour Times' all by Portishead

Akris
'Says' Composed and performed by Nils Frahm

Givenchy
'Radioactivity' by Kraftwerk; 'Just A Clutch' by The Martinez Brothers; 'Blondee' by The Martinez Brothers

MONDAY 29/09

Stella McCartney
'Imprint' by Must Die feat. Tkay Maidza; 'Bugatti' by Tiga; 'Kero Kero Bonito' by Kero Kero Bonito; 'Jane' by Girlpool; 'The Rain That Never Came' by Apache Sun
Music production: Tony Farsides

Wunderkind
'Drown (Bonus Track)' by EMA; 'Rollin' & Tumblin'' by Kyoka; 'Ring Of Fire' by Wall Of Voodoo; 'Shanghai Freeway' by Fatima Al Qadiri; 'Locust' by &ME; 'In A Landscape (Solo Piano)' by John Cage & Sylvano Bussotti
Music production: Javier Peral

Saint Laurent
'1,2,3' by Aleide
Original song written and recorded by Aleide

TUESDAY 30/09

Chanel
'I'm Not Scared' by The Pet Shop Boys; 'Transperu' by Koudlam; 'Khan' by E-Versions
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Valentino
'Body Double' by Pino Donaggio; 'Metti Una Sera A Cena' by Ennio Morricone & Edda Dell'Orso; 'Outside Looking' by Michael Nyman; 'Metti Una Sera A Cena' by Ennio Morricone and Edda Dell'Orso

Alexander McQueen
'Kodama' by Haruomi Hosono (from the O.S.T. Tales of Genji); 'Red Sex' by Vessel; 'Fairy Link' by Susumu Yokota; 'Drowned In Water And Light' by Vessel; 'Shambala Tsushin' by Haruomi Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band; 'Soul Love' by David Bowie
Music production: John Gosling

WEDNESDAY 01/10

Louis Vuitton
'The Sound Of Silence' by Simon and Garfunkel
Music production: Leopold Ross and Michel Gaubert

Moncler Gamme Rouge
'Auto Music 2' by Brian Reitzell; 'Home: "Ruitor"' by Richard Pinhas; 'Il Sogno Di Una Cosa' by Kreidler; 'Prismatic Reflections' by Bitchin Bajas
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Miu Miu
'Female Trouble' by Melvin & Redd Kross; 'Past, Present and Future' by the Shangri-Las; 'Past, Present and Future' by Giddle & Boyd; 'Piano Sonata no 2: Moonlight' by Beethoven; '----S' by Moon Relay; '///////L' by Moon Relay; 'Female Trouble' by Divine

Stella McCartney's infectiously warm, laid-back vibe is hard to miss at her fashion shows. It starts with her quirky, clever invitations (this season an oversized neon orange Plexi key chain scribbled with 'Stella' was affixed to her hard card), then moves to the big baskets of warm cookies she serves pre-show and then comes to a toe-tapping conclusion with Cara Delevingne and Joan Smalls running and laughing down the runway as if it were the hall of a sorority house. All of this to say that Stella's world is an increasingly optimistic place to be. The clothes, of course, fit right into this upbeat, cool mood. This season McCartney married her signature men's tailoring - strict black suiting - with the happy chaos of a squiggles pattern. Using curvy gold zippers or colourful thread embroidery, the designer spiced up the fronts of her boxy black coats, curvy coat dresses and wool felt shirts. The motif was also played out more mellowly in quilted nylon coats and hooded parkas - a Stella signature. This is a huge knit season and this designer never missed a trick when it comes to a trend. She cut speckled knits into layered full looks of pantsuits or dresses attached with sweaters and matching handbags. The look maintained Stella's signature cool with lace-up shoes of multi-coloured platforms that layered pops of turquoise or coral with camel and organic wood. They looked terrific with her new pant of the season - a tapered stretch trouser with stirrups that mimicked a 1930s ski pant. It was, like the rest of the morning's proceedings, a welcome addition to the cosy Stella world.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Taking the legwork out of sportswear shopping, luxury e-tailer Net-A-Porter will launch its sportif sidekick Net-A-Sporter on 9 July - entirely dedicated to high-style performance attire.

Servicing some 170 countries with 37 fashion-forward brands linked to eleven sporting disciplines, Net-A-Sporter no doubt plans to give early e-sport adoptors a run for their money.

'Activewear has long been a part of our offering,' explains Alison Loehnis, president of Net-A-Porter, which is based in the UK but with offices across the world. 'We know that fitness is an increasingly integral part of our customers lives across all markets.'

Thanks to the runway's recent flourish of sports-inspired ready-to-wear - from neoprene scuba dresses and silk tracksuit pants to embellished sweatshirts and couture trainers - high fashion activewear has become de rigueur for brands ranging from Kenzo to Chanel.

Since the success of the London Olympics, sportswear has increasingly stepped off the playing field and onto the pavement in Britain. It is, after all, ten years since Stella McCartney designed her first collection with Adidas - a partnership that's seen the Brit found a new lifestyle category of functional fashion - paving the way for London-based active and après labels like Monreal London and Lucas Hugh.

Not that Net-A-Sporter is first to cross the line of the e-commerce sportswear race track. Australian twins Julie and Sali Stevanja set up Stylerunner in October 2012, and have since seen exponential growth with sales increases of up 700 percent on the same period in 2013 - receiving traffic from over 150 countries since launch.

'Sali and I were living in Sydney and London respectively when we came up with the idea,' says Stevanga of the site's inception. 'We immediately realised the gap for this market was global. Even living in some of the largest cities in the world, the offering of curated sportswear for women that love fashion, just didn't exist.' Two years on and they say that there's still a huge amount of growth in their domestic market, with the US and Asia also showing strong projections for 2014.

Meanwhile, in the US, Carbon38 entered the market in January 2013, conceived by former ballet dancers Katie Warner Johnson and Caroline Gogolak, and founded on a 'work to workout to night out' mantra. Practicing what they preach, Johnson remains a celebrity personal trainer and teacher at Physique 57 in LA, while Gogolak started out at Intermix Corporate and Saint Laurent, before moving to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

What's crystal clear is that competition is heating up in the online sportswear market. And Net-A-Sporter will no doubt change the game.