Highlights from Paris Fashion Week autumn/winter 26: part 2

Celine
Now in his third season at Celine, Michael Rider has established himself as a creative who quietly sets the tone of fashion in a very real way. Those details of how clothes change – when your trousers suddenly, seemingly overnight, become the wrong length or the fit of your jacket is off – they start here. (Sidenote: the oversized fit is on the way out.). “Sharpening the pencil,” as Rider referred to it in his notes. After the show he elaborated further backstage, describing the look as “zippy,” explaining he wanted more “bite”, and that it’s about “controlling the fabric and letting the person come through”. The result was a freshness that moved away from preppy with a collection that included 50% all-black looks (the headline trend next season). Elsewhere, pops of bold colour came in a purple leather trench, a faux-fur leopard-print coat and bright red pants styled with a hot pink shirt over a form-fitting roll neck.
The American designer – who previously spent nine years at Celine under Phoebe Philo before heading up Polo Ralph Lauren womenswear – said he wants Celine collections “to feel transmutable and workable”. Details like coats and jackets worn fastened only at the neck, belted silhouettes, and a sweater with leather elbow-patches worn as a scarf felt easy to replicate, and the latter very Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in Love Story. In reference to the hallowed halls of the Institut de France where the show took place, Rider said he found “taking something old that has deep roots and using it to talk about the future, is really exciting and really Celine.”

Jean Paul Gaultier
If Duran Lantink divided the critics after his Jean Paul Gaultier debut last season, he silenced them with AW26. While there weren't pistols at dawn there were cowboys in hats that curved seamlessly into waistcoats, and a smoking-gun dress. Backstage, Lantink said the collection was about his personal relationship with Mr Gaultier – “I started digging into his tailoring and researching it” – and the results were an impressive take on JPG’s gender-fluid codes. Another inspiration was a cherished T-shirt of Lantink's featuring an image of Marlene Dietrich, reprised as a jersey body-con dress modelled by Alex Consani. Dietrich’s influence appeared throughout in the strict tailoring.
Last season’s divisive naked bodysuits had a wooden puppet counterpart for AW26 inspired by AW04’s Les Marionnettes collection. Fair Isle knits originally seen in AW90 reappeared as body-tight base layers. Elsewhere, rubber car tyres are morphed into accessories. Pleated jersey gowns almost bounced down the runway and looked Oscars red-carpet ready. Lantink raised his own bar this season, capturing the fun, energy and skill of Gaultier. The man himself agreed, congratulating his successor with a warm hug post-show.

Chanel
Matthieu Blazy’s second ready-to-wear collection for Chanel picked up his imaginary conversation with founder Gabrielle Chanel as he continued to carefully build the new era of the house. To symbolise the work in progress the set consists of giant Lego-hued cranes stretching up to the glass-dome ceiling of the Grand Palais. As Chanel famously said: “Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly… we need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly.” Blazy delivered a 78-piece collection that fulfilled the brief. Opening and closing with simple black looks he took us from a comfortable ribbed-knit version of the classic Chanel skirt-suit to an elegant LBD with a surprise camilia suspended in the open cowl back.
In between he served up more iterations of the skirt-suit in exquisitely light fabric combinations, including punk style with dégrade tweeds and chain details, and a series of overshirts and dropped-waist 20s-inspired looks. The butterfly motif came through in knitted and sequin-embellished dresses that mimicked the patterns on wings. The finale section featured a series of metallic pastel looks in super lightweight chainmail, printed with a tweed check effect. Everything radiated pure joy, from the clothes to the audience – which included Oprah and Olivia Dean, bopping to Lady Gaga’s Just Dance on the soundtrack.

Miu Miu
Chloe Sevigny first walked for Miu Miu 30 years ago and a buzz of excitement spread throughout the audience as she strutted past on the AW26 runway. Many new fans of the brand won’t have been around in 1996 but Sevigny’s style legacy has kept her on moodboards constantly – she’s That Girl and Miu Miu is a brand for everyone who aspires to be That Girl, no matter their age. Titled “Mindful Intimacy”, the collection focused on the smallness of our human bodies in the vastness of the world. There was a distinct shrunkenness to the silhouettes. “A focus on our bodies, our minds, ourselves,” Mrs Prada explained. Intentionally crumpled and washed finishes with underwear bows poking out added a realness. Seventies narrow suits with bracelet-length sleeves and trailing trouser hems dragged across the moss-covered catwalk. Mini dresses were worn under shearling-lined jackets. Cropped nylon anoraks worn with low-slung trousers, the midriff gap bridged with a tucked-in camisole. Looks were finished with deer-stalker furry hats and crystal embellished trainers. Another star turn came from Gillian Anderson who closed the show – and the Fashion Week season – wearing an embellished nude flapper-style slip dress.

Lacoste
Inspired by Rene Lacoste’s washed-out Davis Cup match in Deauville in 1923, creative director Pelagia Kolotouros showed her AW26 collection for Lacoste on a tarpaulin-covered Philippe Chatrier court at Roland Garros stadium. Rain and functionally were at the forefront of the design process, backstage Kolotouros said “function informs elegance”. A 9-piece collaboration with Mackintosh was a natural progression to the rain-stopped-play story. Renowned for its rubberised fabric, the Scottish outerwear specialist worked on pieces including trench coats, a poncho polo and a pleated trench skirt all impeccably practical and ultra chic. Elsewhere cable-knit sweaters in red and pink were styled with high-performance second-skin base-layer tops. Padded and voluminous pieces in transparent nylon, or with wet or reflective finishes, layered under the soft tailoring of the emblematic René blazer. A retro tennis-club logo gave weatherproof cagoules a cool spin for rain or shine, and Grand Slam merch sweatshirts and T-shirts had both tennis and fashion fan appeal.

Louis Vuitton
The set at Louis Vuitton was an angular green “neo-landscape” created by Emmy award-winning production designer Jeremy Hindle, known for his work on Apple TV’s Severance. In his show notes creative director Nicolas Ghesquière stated, “Clothes evolve in response to our climate and surroundings – for endurance and protection.” The French designer described the collection as “a new folklore, for the future.” Opening silhouettes of hemp-based faux-fur capes with exaggerated shoulders and extreme volumes took inspiration from shepherds and nomadic dress. Artworks of pastoral scenes by Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko were seen as patches on jackets and skirts.
Ghesquière is afforded the freedom of experimentation in ready-to-wear. “Unlike Dior, Vuitton is not a fashion business, but a leather-goods and trunk maker; that’s where the focus is,” Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO LVMH, told Vogue Business. The bags are the main business, and the AW26 offer included: a knotted-handle bag swinging from a wooden staff that riffed on a knapsack; a novelty wooden box-bag in the shape of a log cabin; and the Noé bucket bag, originally designed in the 1930s to carry champagne – Ghesquiere’s mountain wanderers carried them like backpacks.

Comme Des Garçons
The one constant with a Comme Des Garçons show is that Rei Kawakubo’s show notes are always brief and often cryptic, often just one line, leaving you to ponder the meaning. The title of AW26 is “In the end, there is black. Ultimately Black”. In an unusually clear statement the designer said, “I have come to realise that, after all, black is the colour for me. It’s just the strongest, the best for creation, and the colour that embodies the rebellious spirit. And has the biggest meaning: the Universe and the Black Hole”. Kawakubo doesn’t deal in trends, however black has been a noticeable line through most collections for AW26 – a glance at Vogue’s overview of the top 15 collections shows 13 opened with a black look. As a colour it offers a wardrobe reset, quiets the noise. Except Kawakubo didn’t show an all-black collection: the abstract sculptures of ruffles and ruching, that were so voluminous models had to turn sideways to pass each other, were broken up mid-way through with six looks in a jolting pink, without explanation. Were they a palette cleanser or simply there to remind us of the impact and power of head-to-black?

Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood
Kronthaler listed his three inspirations for the AW26 Vivienne Westwood collection as Austrian actor Romy Schnieder, Danilo Donati’s costumes for Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales, and erotic underwear. Unpacking those influences on the runway we got a classic Westwood romp, opening with a series of excellent check coats with double-padded shoulders, college blazers and dinner jackets worn over stockings and suspenders. Experimental dresses with open seams that draped around the body felt very Chaucer, as did the smudged lipstick and smock dresses with ribbons. The medieval influences culminated in a raw-edge wedding suit with full-length skirt, fit for serial bride the Wife of Bath, complete with hennin hat and a bouquet of radishes. Front row guest Chappell Roan wore a headline-grabbing, rear-baring dress from the SS26 collection that wouldn’t have been out of place in The Miller’s Tale. Kronthaler always includes images of a robin in the collection to represent Westwood, and here they appeared as a pair of jewelled earrings and a coin purse on a bag. He penned a touching message to Westwood at the end of his brief show notes: “I miss you every day. I’m trying to get used to the world without you. It’s not easy but I will keep working.”

Hermes
In a show titled “A Liminal Realm”, artistic director Nadège Vanhée explored twilight as the inspiration for AW26, using a colour palette of sunset-yellows and deep reds, moving into the dark green you see before the sun fully dips below the horizon. The detail on looks requires a sharpening of focus to fully appreciate – much like how your eyes adjust as evening descends. Zips allowed dresses and coats to go from tight to revealing. One solo look of a zip-front mini dress featured a quilted print of Perspective by Cassandre, a painter and poster designer who created many of Hermès famous scarf designs and the YSL logo. The collection’s slim lines ran across skintight leather catsuits, narrow-cut coats and jodhpurs. Most looks were shown with over-the-knee leather boots. Hermès has made plans to enter haute couture by 2026-2027, as announced by CEO Axel Dumas in a statement last year. The French luxury house will show as a guest brand, before joining the official calendar of member houses of the Chambre Syndicale de Haute Couture.

Balenciaga
The frenzied scene outside the Avenue des Champs-Élysées venue for Balenciaga was akin to a pop concert – crowds of screaming fans, paparazzi and tight security. Inside the pitch-black venue, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli collaborated with Sam Levinson, creator of HBO’s Euphoria, on the digital backdrop to the show – an immersive video installation playing fragments of Euphoria’s forthcoming much-anticipated third season. The Gen-Z-coded front row included Euphoria actor Chloe Cherry and newly anointed Balenciaga ambassadors Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams and The Beatles’ actor Harris Dickinson. The darkness became clear when the title of the collection was revealed as ClairObscur; the contrast of light and dark creating tension. Piccioli has the difficult job of balancing the couture heritage of Cristòbal Balenciaga (where his own design sensibilities naturally sit) with his predecessor’s pop-culture approach. Resulting in a mixed-bag collection that had leather jackets and prints of Euphoria stills on hoodies and sweaters, alongside cutaway red-carpet gowns and cocoon-cut coats in bold block colour. Special mention to one of the more age- and size-diverse castings of Paris Fashion Week.

Main image: Gillian Anderson wears Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2026-2027 AP Photo/Tom Nicholson