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The scent of cleaning fluid and revolution Forget Versailles. Forget silk panniers and powdered wigs. While Marie Antoinette is being resurrected all over fashion’s glossy stages, Miuccia Prada decided to turn left, way left into the world of factory canteens and fluorescent lighting. The Miu Miu show opened with the scent of cleaning fluid still hanging in the air, red rubberized flooring underfoot, and melamine-topped tables standing in for the front row seats. One could al

The enfant terrible gets a worthy heir As the Paris fashion crowd descended into the shadowy depths of the Musée du Quai Branly, the energy in the air was… unstable. After a season full of safe debuts, whispers spread that fashion’s long-awaited disruption might finally arrive. Enter Duran Lantink, the Dutch provocateur whose debut as Jean Paul Gaultier’s new creative director was anything but timid. Gaultier, once crowned the industry’s enfant terrible  for daring to put men

An unexpected orchestra Imagine sitting in the front row as Glenn Martens presents his ready-to-wear debut for Maison Margiela, only to discover an orchestra of sixty-one children performing Mozart, Bizet, Strauss, Beethoven, and Prokofiev in adult-size tuxedos. From the tiny pianist duo to the minuscule percussionists who pounded the giant kettle drum with precision, the children were a delightful, exuberant surprise. Their unselfconscious joy was infectious, a stark contras

A Return to the Intercontinental Ballroom Fourteen years after nervously stepping onto the stage as Balmain’s newly appointed creative director, Olivier Rousteing returned to the same opulent ballroom of the Intercontinental Hotel. The space, steeped in history and grandeur, has long been outgrown by the scale of Rousteing’s ambitions. Yet tonight, it served as the perfect backdrop to make a point: evolution is not about abandoning the past, but about embracing it while pushi

A Parisian debut charged with New York energy This wasn’t Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s first time showing in Paris. Before the pandemic, the Proenza Schouler duo had already spent two seasons in the city, testing the waters of the French fashion scene. Back then, their move aimed to expand sales and global recognition, but behind the scenes, there was a bigger dream : joining a French heritage house. Now, that dream has become reality. Appointed as the new creative

Laughter, not tears Save your tears. There was no melancholy at Isabel Marant tonight, only laughter, hugs, and champagne-fueled joy. Backstage felt like a family reunion at sunset:warm, radiant, a little chaotic. After thirty years, Isabel Marant is stepping down from designing her own label, the one that exported the very concept of the Cool French Girl  (and, frankly, the Cool French Boy) to the rest of the world. That nonchalant Parisian swagger, the tousled hair, the slo

A last dance at the Pompidou It could be five years before we take the escalators to the top of the Pompidou Centre again. The museum is closing for a massive renovation, and Schiaparelli’s show last night was one of the final events before work begins. It was here, a year and a half ago, that Daniel Roseberry discovered a Brancusi exhibit, the spark that ignited his new collection. And if the set was as dark as night, the crowd’s devotion was impossible to miss. House loyali

Water, black eyes, and eerie grace This women’s show in early October saw models descending metal bleachers and wading through knee-high water at the Palais de Tokyo. The leaves were turning golden along the Seine, Grace Slick wailing about love on the soundtrack, “Don’t you want somebody…don’t you need somebody…”, and black contacts covering not just iris and pupil but the whites of the eyes added an almost alien intensity. What could have been a casual walk through water be

A sunny disposition amidst fashion’s chaos While some creative directors seem to be having collective existential crises, Julien Dossena has chosen the simplest yet bravest route for his latest Rabanne collection: to stay true to himself. In a season where the industry appears torn between nostalgia and algorithmic anxiety, Dossena’s sun-drenched world feels like a much-needed vitamin D shot. “In a time that’s really complicated, you can’t avoid the tension. But at the same t

A brutalist rebirth in Paris For Mugler’s new creative director Miguel Castro Freitas, the dream of the brand is, and will always be, Paris. Yet, somewhere in his imagination, Antwerp is never too far away. His debut collection took place in a shadowy brutalist underground car park in the edgy 11th arrondissement, the kind of venue that instantly evoked the conceptual underground shows of the late 1990s. Think of those raw, uncompromising moments when Belgian designers storme

A cinematic return to sensuality Haider Ackermann has found his place at Tom Ford. There will only ever be one Tom, but Ackermann has clearly inherited the founder’s flair for the cinematic : that intoxicating blend of power, polish, and provocation. For Spring Summer 2026, he did not simply present a show; he directed one. “I told them I want them to seduce,” he said backstage. “They’re aware they’re seducing, but they act as if they’re not aware of it : it’s all this kind o

A tale of contradictions Once again, Acne Studios proves that it does not just follow the zeitgeist, it toys with it, smirks at it, and then casually reinvents it. For Spring Summer 2026, creative director Jonny Johansson stages a collection that dances shamelessly between masculinity and femininity, never settling for either. Beneath the vaulted ceilings of the Collège des Bernardins, transformed into a smoky, wood-panelled cigar lounge because why not lean all the way into

A debut wrapped in fear and fascination You dare enter the House of Dior?” The question sounded like a warning. It opened the short film by Adam Curtis, commissioned by Jonathan Anderson for his first Dior womenswear show. At 40, the designer was about to cross one of fashion’s most intimidating thresholds: a French institution so charged with history it feels almost alive. Anderson dared, of course. After the success of his menswear debut, his arrival at Dior is one of the s

A boarding pass to nowhere Belgian designer Marie Adam-Leenaerdt decided that the world hadn’t seen enough airport chaos, so she brought it straight to the runway. Her Spring collection transformed the dreaded passport-control maze into a fashion show, complete with the energy of missed flights and overpriced sandwiches. The concept? “Affirming the freedom of clothing” through deconstruction and practicality or at least the illusion of it. Adam-Leenaerdt’s mission was to make

The Courrèges show opened with an arresting image : five models walked out with their faces veiled. But these weren’t religious symbols : they were functional UV shields, reimagined by Nicolas Di Felice. Inspired by protective accessories he encountered during a trip to Thailand, he transformed them into futuristic statements : attached to peaked caps, draped across the face, and tucked into the waistband of a matching A-line miniskirt. A voice began reciting the rising tempe

Surfing without the surfboard What Klausner wanted this season was joy, ease, optimism. His unlikely muse? Surfing. Never mind that he’s not actually a surfer, and probably couldn’t tell the difference between Malibu and Montauk. For him, it’s about the vibe: the sunburnt camaraderie, the sand-stuck laughter, the fluorescent boards lined up like sculptures. “Being around surfers is always a good time,” he said, almost wistfully. The irony? His show took place miles away from

The ghost of jeanne lanvin Some silhouettes never leave the runway, they just haunt it in new guises. For Lanvin, it’s the robe de style : drop-waisted, wide-panniered, and forever linked to Jeanne Lanvin’s legacy. Alongside it, that signature dusty blue hue, faded elegance bottled into a color. Both were born in the 1920s frenzy for Art Deco modernity, a century ago in Paris. Now, Peter Copping, in his second outing for the house, has pulled them back into the light. His rob

When home is a palace There is staying home, and then there is staying home like Anne of Austria. Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2026 show unfolded in the very summer apartment once claimed by the Queen of France, mother of Louis XIV, tucked inside the Louvre and currently closed to the public for renovations. Decadent hardly begins to describe it. And what better setting to explore the newly fashionable ROMO relief of missing out than in a gilded room where anyone would glad

Still clinging to chaos A decade into Vaquera, and the duo insists they are still doing it for the same reasons: to create, to disrupt, to, in Taubensee’s words, “fuck with things a bit.” A noble mission in a fashion world that has largely traded its anarchic edge for corporate gloss. “We looked to our past and what we started it for,” DiCaprio explained. It’s that refusal to behave, that alternative streak, that keeps their work from becoming just another Parisian assimilati

A garden that spelled it all out From ground level, it looked like an innocent Parisian garden party. White hydrangeas in full bloom, their lush banks catching the night lights as the Eiffel Tower twinkled on cue to the left. But from the sky? Drone footage revealed what the flowers had really been up to: spelling out those three sacred letters, YSL. Of course. While our phones buzzed with the aerial revelation, Hailey Bieber, Zoë Kravitz, Central Cee, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Mad