In Paris, this Fashion Week took on the air of a mental journey. Three houses, three powerful imaginaries, three ways of questioning heritage, femininity and dreams: Jacquemus, Chanel and Schiaparelli each delivered a unique narrative, between homage, reinvention and aesthetic vertigo.
Chanel Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2026 Photo: Filippo Fior ©Chanel
Jacquemus, Paloma Picasso and the temptation of cinema
At Jacquemus, the past is never static: it is reactivated, displaced, almost provoked. By returning to the Picasso Museum, the very place where he presented a seminal show in 2017, Simon Porte Jacquemus closes an intimate and symbolic circle. This time, the obsession has a name: Paloma Picasso. A black and white image by Helmut Newton, a black dress, a strap slipping off the shoulder, a glass concealing the breast—the starting point for a collection that asserts a confident, cinematic, almost dangerous femininity. The silhouettes, without trousers for women this season, sculpt the body with relentless precision: pencil skirts with pronounced peplums, hourglass dresses in velvet with flowing fringes, second-skin knits. References intersect—the 50s, 90s sensuality, 80s atmosphere—in a language that has become distinctly Jacquemus. The men, for their part, play with the codes of the tuxedo, from sophisticated boxer shorts to an arty wardrobe, as if to remind us that the designer never stopped having fun. The finale, with the recreation of Paloma Picasso's iconic one-shoulder dress, acts as a manifesto-image: less an exercise in archival research than a passing of the torch to a new generation of vision.
Chanel, haute couture for real life
A change of pace at Chanel. For his very first haute couture collection as head of the house, Matthieu Blazy defies expectations of spectacle, championing couture for real life. Beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, transformed into a dreamlike setting—giant mushrooms, pink willows, a suspended atmosphere—the designer envisions everyday haute couture, true to Gabrielle Chanel's vision. The pieces, almost ethereal in their lightness, reveal their virtuosity to those who approach them. An iconic suit becomes transparent, cut from powder pink organza, embroidered with birds in flight, and punctuated with rose quartz buttons. Poetry is everywhere, but never merely decorative: it resides in customizable embroideries, in a translucent 2.55 bag transformed into a love letter, in heels sculpted like mushrooms. The recurring motif of the bird, a symbol of freedom and movement, runs throughout the collection, from embroidered pajamas to bridal silhouettes. And yet, Matthieu Blazy doesn't forget rigor: a black suit of radical simplicity, a little black dress taut thanks to an invisible construction. Leaving the Grand Palais, in the Parisian rain, one certainty is undeniable: the House of Chanel moves forward with calm, coherence, and controlled inspiration.
Schiaparelli, the vertigo of chimeras
With Schiaparelli, the dream veers into the uncanny. For Spring/Summer 2026, Daniel Roseberry draws his inspiration from an aesthetic shock: the discovery of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. A revelation that permeates the entire haute couture collection, populated by chimeras, anthropomorphic silhouettes, and hybrid creatures. On the catwalk, the models appear as if from another world: hand-cut lace worked in bas-relief, feathers painted one by one, fluorescent tulles layered to create a sfumato effect, borrowed from Renaissance painting. The garments become almost sculptures, extended by wings, beaks, and cabochon eyes. Roseberry evokes both Michelangelo and Elsa Schiaparelli, her marine and celestial obsessions, her taste for surrealism and the unsettling. Here, haute couture does not seek to reassure: it fascinates, disturbs, hypnotizes. By symbolically opening the famous “keyhole” so dear to the house, the designer seems to invite us to enter a world where fashion becomes a living myth.
Three visions, three narratives, but one shared ambition: to make fashion a language capable of transcending time, of evoking history, poetry, or fantasy, while remaining deeply rooted in the present. This Fashion Week in Paris brilliantly reminded us that when creation is imbued with feeling, it becomes unforgettable.
