Paris Couture S/S´26

 For all the commentary that continues to question the relevance of haute couture in the present day, it remains one of fashion’s most exacting and closely guarded disciplines. Defined by centuries-old traditions and strict criteria overseen by La Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, couture is distinguished above all by its devotion to handwork. Every garment must be sewn entirely by hand, often requiring hundreds of hours, and created for an exceptionally small circle of clients, estimated at around 5,000 globally. At his couture debut for Dior this week, Jonathan Anderson described the practice as “nearly extinct”, noting that only a handful of houses still truly commit to it. That sense of fragility underpinned his insistence on opening Grammar of Forms, an exhibition staged in the show space after the runway, placing his work in dialogue with original Christian Dior designs. His intention, he said, was to open couture up rather than seal it off, and to spark curiosity among future generations.

“Fashion Week is no longer just a showcase of garments; it has become a cultural barometer, revealing how the industry negotiates identity, ethics, and responsibility in real time. As designers respond to environmental pressure, shifting values, and social awareness, the runway increasingly reflects not only what we wear, but how we choose to engage with the world around us.” - Charles Daniel McDonald

Rarely, however, has Haute Couture Week commanded quite so much collective focus. Concluding today in Paris on 29 January, the week was shaped by the arrival of two new creative leads at its most influential maisons. Anderson at Dior and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel both presented their first couture collections, an occasion freighted with expectation given the historic role both houses have played in shaping the language of haute couture across ready-to-wear, beauty and fragrance. Yet rather than retreat into reverence, both designers proposed contemporary visions rooted in curiosity and lightness. Blazy transformed everyday clothing into weightless illusions through extraordinary technique, including hand-painted silk mousseline rendered to resemble denim. Anderson, meanwhile, assembled a cabinet of curiosities, mixing sculptural forms with unexpected ornamentation, from cyclamen pom-pom earrings to vast coloured stoles.

Elsewhere, Daniel Roseberry delivered another exuberant outing for Schiaparelli, Alessandro Michele staged an intimate and theatrical presentation for Valentino, and Armani Privé entered a new chapter following the death of Giorgio Armani. Together, the collections offered a compelling portrait of couture not as a static relic, but as a living, evolving practice.

VALENTINO

Alessandro Michele opened his latest haute couture collection for Valentino with a written tribute to the house’s founder, Valentino Garavani, who died aged 91 just days before the show. Distributed to guests, the letter reflected on inheritance, stewardship and responsibility, acknowledging not only Garavani but also Michele’s immediate predecessors, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli. To create within such a lineage, he wrote, is to accept both its weight and its generosity, and to recognise that making is inseparable from care.

Although the collection had been completed prior to Garavani’s death, its spirit resonated deeply with his legacy. Michele embraced theatricality and romance, hallmarks of the Roman couturier’s work, through ruffles, feathers and sensuous silhouettes. The opening look appeared in Valentino’s signature red; a colour so closely associated with the house that it has long carried its own name. The staging was deliberately voyeuristic: models moved through a sequence of circular rooms, while guests observed through peepholes opened ceremonially by a butler, a reference to the 18th-century Kaiser panorama explored by philosopher Walter Benjamin. The format stripped away distraction, focusing attention on the clothes and the labour behind them. Michele framed the collection as a shared act between designer and atelier, reaffirming couture as a moral as well as aesthetic undertaking.

SCHIAPARELLI

Haute Couture Week traditionally begins with Schiaparelli, whose Monday morning slot at the Petit Palais sets a tone of exuberance and spectacle. Under the direction of Daniel Roseberry, the house has become known for runway presentations that combine theatrical excess with a palpable sense of enjoyment. Models move with ease and humour, underscored by carefully chosen soundtracks, this season accompanied by a euphoric Jamie xx remix of Robyn’s Dopamine.

The clothes themselves leaned into fantasy and drama. Sculpted bodices erupted with horns or extended into oversized scorpion tails, while sharply cut jackets with exaggerated shoulders were softened by cascades of feathers recalling wings in motion. Elsewhere, lace florals floated just off the body, creating the illusion of garments suspended in air. Among the more delicate moments were a tiered tulle dress that appeared carved away in layers, and translucent panels of ombré organza stained with inky gradations of colour.

Roseberry cited a recent visit to the Sistine Chapel as a catalyst, particularly the emotional intensity of Michelangelo’s ceiling. Rather than literal interpretation, he sought to capture the sensation of creative abandon, imagining the artist’s exhilaration and vulnerability. The resulting eclecticism reflected a shift away from predetermined outcomes, focusing instead on emotional truth. For Roseberry, the collection became a meditation on the joy of making itself.

ARMANI PRIVÈ

This season marked a poignant transition for Armani Privé, presenting its first haute couture collection since the death of Giorgio Armani in September. Rather than signalling rupture, the show affirmed continuity. Longstanding house signatures were carefully preserved, from fluid, crystal-encrusted gowns to a nuanced dialogue between Eastern and Western influences, particularly Japan, which has long informed Armani’s design philosophy.

At the helm was Silvana Armani, the designer’s niece, who has worked alongside him for more than forty years. Her debut collection, titled Jade, drew inspiration from the precious stone, reflected in a predominantly green palette. Classic tailoring was reinterpreted through couture techniques, including sheer organza ties, while eveningwear bloomed into petal-like pleats that flared gently below the waist. The restraint and refinement of the collection suggested confidence rather than nostalgia, with gowns seemingly destined for future red carpet moments.

DIOR

Anticipation reached its peak at Dior, where Jonathan Anderson unveiled his first haute couture collection for the house. The atmosphere was charged, heightened further by Rihanna’s late arrival. The set featured an inverted meadow of cyclamen, inspired by a bouquet given to Anderson by John Galliano, under which a collection unfolded that treated couture as a space of exploration.

The opening looks drew on the ceramic forms of Magdalene Odundo, whose sculptural vessels inspired gowns that curved and ballooned away from the body, constructed from silk so light it appeared to hover. Throughout the collection, Anderson incorporated objects imbued with personal or historical meaning. Antique cameo brooches, fragments of meteorites and fossils were repurposed as embellishment, while cyclamen reappeared as oversized pom-pom earrings.

Reinvention was central to Anderson’s approach. Bias-cut gowns recalled Galliano’s tenure at Dior, while a sharply sculpted black coat nodded to Raf Simons’ debut. Yet many pieces felt distinctly new. Skirts erupted with satin volumes, bodices were assembled from iridescent shards of mother-of-pearl, and bell-shaped tops enveloped the body in unfamiliar proportions. Anderson described couture as the house’s laboratory, a place where ideas could be tested without knowing the outcome in advance. For him, the value lay not in anticipating desire, but in creating it.

CHANEL

Since his arrival at Chanel, Matthieu Blazy has approached the house’s legacy with a sense of play, favouring pleasure and immediacy over reverence. His debut ready-to-wear show last October set the tone, culminating in a joyful runway twirl that quickly became a defining image of the season. For his first couture collection, Blazy extended that sensibility into a dreamlike setting filled with oversized mushrooms, toadstools and soft pink trees.

The defining quality of the collection was lightness, both visual and physical. Chanel’s iconic suit appeared in silk mousseline instead of tweed, while trousers and accessories were painted to resemble denim. These trompe l’oeil effects showcased technical virtuosity while maintaining an air of ease. Although the collection largely avoided overt spectacle, moments of craft elevated familiar forms. Tweeds blossomed with feathers, hems were animated by rippling streamers of fabric, and the final bridal look paired a crisp shirt and skirt with hundreds of mother-of-pearl paillettes shaped like petals.

Blazy described the collection as a pause, a quiet interlude grounded in intimacy. Each model contributed a personal detail sewn discreetly into their look, reinforcing the connection between maker and wearer. For him, couture was less about grandeur than about tenderness, a poetic space akin to a slow Sunday morning.

¨Taken together, the collections of this Haute Couture Week suggested not a discipline in decline, but one in the midst of careful renewal. While the fragility of couture is undeniable, its future appears increasingly tied to openness rather than preservation alone. Across Paris, designers approached heritage not as a constraint but as material to be reworked, questioned and, at times, joyfully dismantled.¨ - Charles Daniel McDonald

Whether through Anderson’s experimental reassembly at Dior, Blazy’s featherweight pragmatism at Chanel, Roseberry’s exuberant emotionalism at Schiaparelli, Michele’s ethical reverence at Valentino or Silvana Armani’s assured continuity at Privé, couture emerged as a site of dialogue rather than dogma. What united these collections was a shared belief in making as an act of care, imagination and responsibility.

In an industry often driven by speed and scale, haute couture remains defiantly slow, singular and human. Its relevance today lies not in exclusivity alone, but in its capacity to model another way of working, one where time, attention and emotion are treated as essential materials. This season, couture did not merely look backward or inward. It looked ahead, offering a persuasive argument for why this most exacting form of fashion still matters.

Pieter Mulier Has Parted Ways With Alaïa

“We sincerely thank Pieter for his vision and commitment, writing an important chapter in the ongoing evolution of the Maison. Over the past five years, Pieter and the exceptional team he led have shaped Alaïa’s creative renewal, honouring its heritage and strengthening the Maison’s relevance, confidence, and global recognition,” Alaïa CEO Myriam Serrano said in a statement released today.

Mulier has been creative director of the house since 2021. Before Alaïa, he dedicated a significant portion of his career to working alongside Raf Simons, first at Simons’s eponymous label in Antwerp, then at Jil Sander and Christian Dior, where he also earned his couture stripes. In 2016, he was appointed creative director at Calvin Klein, after Simons was named chief creative officer of the American brand.

At Richemont-owned Alaïa, Mulier impressed the fashion world with his technical and creative mastery, architectural dresses and bestselling pieces such as the ballet flats and the Le Teckel shoulder bag.

His exit comes less than two months after the sudden departure of Dario Vitale from the creative helm of Versace, and speculation grows about who could succeed him. Mulier was also among the names that surfaced during 2025’s creative reset, notably for the creative director position at Balenciaga, which ultimately went to Pierpaolo Piccioli.

Paris Men´s A/W 2026

Paris brings menswear month to its crescendo. Over six dense days, the city offers not a summary but a statement: this is where the A/W 2026 season is tested, refined, and ultimately defined. The schedule balances heritage and provocation, spectacle and restraint. From the grand houses shaping global taste to independent designers pushing form and meaning, Paris once again proves itself as menswear’s most exacting stage.

“This season in Paris, menswear moved beyond surface statements. Designers looked inward, revisiting craft, identity and purpose, and asked what it means to dress with intention in an unsettled world. The result was a week defined not by excess, but by clarity, conviction, and quiet confidence.” - Charles Daniel McDonald

Blockbuster shows from Dior, Louis Vuitton and Hermès sit alongside some of the most challenging work in contemporary fashion. There is a sense this season of reassessment: of legacy, masculinity, craft, and what it means to dress with intention in an uncertain world. Across runways, salons, museums and unexpected spaces, designers explored warmth, identity, freedom, and contradiction. What follows are the collections that most clearly captured the mood and momentum of Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2026.

HERMÈS

Véronique Nichanian’s final menswear collection for Hermès unfolded with quiet authority at the Palais Brongniart. After nearly four decades at the house, her departure was marked not by nostalgia or spectacle, but by the same clarity and restraint that have defined her tenure.

The collection reaffirmed her belief in longevity over trend, with garments designed to endure both materially and aesthetically. Familiar menswear forms were revisited with microscopic precision: duffel coats, rain jackets, tuxedo elements and tailored separates refined through subtle shifts in proportion, texture and tone. Nichanian has long spoken about the sensual intelligence of fabric, and here that philosophy remained central. Innovation revealed itself through touch and movement rather than visual excess. It was a measured, dignified farewell that reinforced her lasting influence on modern menswear.

WILLY CHAVARRIA

Willy Chavarria staged one of the week’s most emotionally charged presentations, transforming a judo dojo on the outskirts of Paris into a theatrical setting for a fashion narrative shaped by music, performance and raw feeling. The show unfolded like a cinematic production, complete with live performances and a cast that blurred the boundaries between fashion, culture and celebrity.

Chavarria’s clothing carried his familiar signatures: oversized tailoring, reworked uniforms and references to working-class dress. This season, however, those elements were softened by a romantic undercurrent, with silhouettes recalling mid-century elegance and moments of tenderness. The designer described the collection as an exploration of connection, echoing everyday encounters and shared vulnerability. It was a reminder that menswear can be political, poetic and profoundly human.

AURALEE

Opening the week, Auralee set a contemplative tone with a collection rooted in comfort, warmth and emotional resonance. Designer Ryota Iwai posed a simple question: what makes winter feel joyful? His answer came through a nuanced interplay of texture, colour and familiarity.

Presented at the Musée de l’Homme, the collection featured coats with plush linings, translucent shirts of remarkable lightness, and supple leather that caught the light softly. Many pieces carried a sense of intimacy, evoking garments worn, lived in and cherished. Colour played a crucial role, with muted neutrals offset by unexpected bursts of yellow, red and deep violet. Rather than offering escapism, the collection suggested quiet optimism, finding beauty in warmth, tactility and restraint.

RICK OWENS

Rick Owens once again transformed the Palais de Tokyo into a space of confrontation and spectacle, this time presenting a collection titled Tower. Shown indoors amid heavy fog and industrial lighting, the atmosphere felt enclosed and urgent.

The garments drew from militaristic and authoritative archetypes, distorted through Owens’ signature lens. Heavy boots, protective bodysuits and rigid outerwear were constructed from technical materials such as kevlar and waxed leather, creating silhouettes that appeared both armoured and vulnerable. In his characteristically stark show notes, Owens framed the collection as a response to global instability, using exaggeration and parody as tools for reflection. Despite its severity, the collection carried a thread of hope, positioning fashion as an act of resistance and care.

ACNE STUDIOS

At its Paris headquarters, Acne Studios presented a collection that reflected on legacy without becoming retrospective. Founder Jonny Johansson looked back on the brand’s origins in denim while questioning how younger generations engage with clothing today.

Straight-leg jeans reappeared as a foundation, reworked through distressing, taping and surface interventions that suggested both rebellion and continuity. Alongside denim, the collection featured sharp tailoring and elegant wool outerwear, reaffirming the brand’s ability to balance youth culture with refinement. Rather than fixating on the past, Johansson framed heritage as something fluid: shaped by wear, experience and reinvention. The result was a collection that felt confident, relevant and quietly self-aware.

SACAI

Chitose Abe approached A/W 2026 through the lens of destruction as a creative act. The show environment itself reflected this idea, with fractured architectural elements suggesting force and rupture. Inspiration came from Muhammad Ali, whose image symbolised freedom through resistance and reinvention.

The garments embodied this tension. Tailoring appeared deliberately undone, with loosened ties and disrupted structures, while Sacai’s hallmark hybrid silhouettes combined contrasting materials and functions. Shearling was spliced, surfaces were punctured with hardware, and garments seemed caught mid-transformation. The soundtrack reinforced the theme of liberation, underscoring Abe’s belief that dismantling convention is essential to creative progress.

DRIES VAN NOTEN

Julian Klausner’s latest menswear collection for Dries Van Noten explored transition and inheritance. Described as a quiet coming-of-age, the collection imagined a character leaving home with garments imbued with memory: heirlooms, childhood knits and pieces shaped by time.

This narrative translated into richly layered looks that combined archival motifs with bold patterning. Stripes, chevrons and fairisles were often merged within a single garment, creating visual complexity without chaos. Strong tailoring and sculptural outerwear grounded the collection, while accessories introduced playful proportion shifts. The overall effect was expressive yet composed, celebrating renewal without severing ties to the past.

KIKO KOSTADINOV

Kiko Kostadinov’s presentation signalled a deliberate return to fundamentals. Shown in a light-filled space in Paris’ 5th arrondissement, the collection focused on construction, material and form as primary drivers of design.

Early looks conveyed near-uniform precision, with tailored pieces marked by strict lines and controlled volumes. As the collection progressed, colour and movement entered more fully, with knitwear and nylon garments designed to shift and adapt on the body. Sculptural installations in the space echoed the collection’s architectural clarity. Kostadinov described the work as intentionally challenging, driven by a commitment to pushing wardrobes forward rather than refining what already exists.

WOOYOUNGMI

Madame Woo drew on personal memory for Wooyoungmi’s A/W 2026 collection, reflecting on winters in South Korea and beyond. The show space was transformed with a faux-fur runway resembling fresh snow, immediately grounding the collection in seasonal reality.

Historic references, including Edwardian tailoring, appeared alongside contemporary cold-weather staples. Faux-fur trims, padded outerwear and elongated silhouettes created a dialogue between tradition and modernity. Accessories added moments of levity, from oversized hats to exaggerated gloves, while clashing knit patterns injected colour and humour. The collection balanced seriousness with play, demonstrating Woo’s ongoing ability to reinterpret menswear through a deeply personal lens.

SOLID HOMME

Staged at the Maison des Métallos, Solid Homme’s latest collection examined the layered identities of contemporary life. Designer Madame Woo presented characters who shift roles daily, moving between professions, passions and responsibilities.

This multiplicity was reflected in styling that combined formal and casual elements with apparent spontaneity. Bright primary colours, pastels and deep neutrals appeared across relaxed tailoring and utilitarian pieces, creating a wardrobe designed to adapt rather than define. The collection positioned menswear as a flexible tool for modern living, shaped by lived experience rather than fixed archetypes.

DIOR

For his second menswear outing at Dior, Jonathan Anderson proposed a cast of privileged young characters, dressing them in a wardrobe that toyed with lineage, wealth and performance in his characteristically off-centre manner. Rather than offering a straightforward revival of house codes, he treated tradition as something to be remixed, placing historical references beside contemporary irreverence.

The starting point was the world of Paul Poiret, and the spirit of his extravagant costume soirées. That influence surfaced in fluid, lightly decadent pieces such as sequinned silk waistcoats, contrasted with deliberately disrupted takes on the Bar jacket rendered in denim. Styling sharpened the sense of theatricality, not least through flashes of surreal colour like luminous yellow wigs. Opulence was amplified through exaggerated furry cuffs and cape-like silhouettes that moved with dramatic sweep, creating a collection that folded past and present together with ease, and with a wink.

Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2026 revealed a season shaped less by uniform trends than by thoughtful divergence. Across the week, designers grappled with questions of identity, continuity and responsibility, often favouring substance over spectacle. Whether through quiet craftsmanship, emotional storytelling or deliberate disruption, the strongest collections shared a commitment to meaning.

As menswear continues to evolve, Paris remains its most rigorous testing ground. This season affirmed that innovation does not always arrive loudly, but often through nuance, conviction and a willingness to engage deeply with the world as it is.

This British Heritage Brand Just Dropped A Collaboration With Kate Middleton

Yesterday afternoon, the Prince and Princess of Wales were dispatched to Stirling, Scotland, beginning with a visit to the National Curling Academy to meet Team GB ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Milan, and ending with a pint (when in Rome, etc) at The Gothenburg pub in the former mining village of Fallin. The highlight of the engagement, though – at least for readers of this magazine – will have been the royal couple’s stop at Radical Weavers, a volunteer-run textile studio, founded in 2019 with the aim of building social cohesion through traditional tartan-weaving workshops, with finished pieces donated to food banks, as well as homeless and refugee shelters.

The Waleses – who, as one volunteer joked, already have more than enough tartans to their name – were invited to create a new pattern on a traditional loom, with William immediately reaching for yarns of blue, teal, red, green and hot pink. “It’s going to be interesting to see how they all mix,” he said, to which Catherine politely demurred, “That’s quite punchy.” Take heed: the Princess has form here, having arrived in Scotland wearing a longline, double-breasted Chris Kerr coat – styled with Gianvito Rossi boots and a Le Kilt skirt – made from a Johnstons of Elgin wool in a Caledonian-inspired palette of navy and ice-blue plaid that she helped design. (It is perhaps the first time she has publicly been credited as a collaborator.)

While Catherine is known for taking a hands-on approach to curating her wardrobe – often working closely with a handful of trusted British designers on bespoke pieces intended for repeat wear, such as her many (many) custom Catherine Walker coat dresses – that level of involvement appears only to have grown since her personal assistant-turned-stylist, Natasha Archer, was reported to have stepped down in 2025. Long an ambassador for made in Britain, it is not beyond imagining that Kate might follow the Duchy Originals model – established by King Charles to champion sustainable, organic British farming – and apply it instead to clothes.

Valentino Garavani, Couturier To The Stars, Has Died At 93

Valentino Garavani, the Roman couturier who launched his label in 1960 and found worldwide fame dressing European royals, American first ladies, and stars of the day, has died at his home in Rome. He was 93.

With his exacting pattern-making, signature hue of poppy red, and eye for feminine details like bows, ruffles, lace and embroideries, Valentino was one of the key architects of late 20th century glamour. Val’s Gals, as his coterie was often called, included Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Sophia Loren. Jackie Kennedy wore a white gown of Valentino’s creation for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis, and decades later the designer interpreted a mint green gown he had made for the former first lady in 1967 for Jennifer Lopez’s appearance at the 2003 Oscars. In 2001 Julia Roberts accepted her Best Actress award for Erin Brokovich in a vintage black and white Valentino gown.

In 2009, the designer was the subject of the Matt Tyrnauer-directed documentary, Valentino: The Last Emperor, which followed the designer, his career-long business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, and his entourage in the two years leading up to his retirement. In the film, Valentino tells a reporter: “I know what women want, they want to be beautiful,” a 10-word summation of the aesthetic that had turned him into a multimillionaire.

In the years after his retirement in 2008, which was feted with a three-day extravaganza in Rome, Valentino hardly faded from public view. He could be found many seasons sitting in the front row of Paris’s Hotel de Rothschild, taking in the latest collection from creative directors Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, the latter of whom decamped for Christian Dior in 2016. Valentino was so moved by Piccioli’s haute couture collection for autumn/winter 2018 that he stood for an ovation, tears rolling down his tanned cheeks.

When he wasn’t cheering on the designers who inherited his label, Garavani could often be seen on Instagram, hosting glamorous parties at his French estate Wideville or on his yacht TM Blue One, rarely without his brood of pugs in tow.

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani was born in Voghera, Italy, on 11 May, 1932. He decided on design as his métier early on and enrolled at the Accademia dell’Arte in Milan where he studied fashion and French. Pursuing his ambition, at 17 Garavani moved to Paris to attend the École des Beaux Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Post-studies, he assisted Jean Dessés, a Greek designer known for his pleated evening dresses, and Guy Laroche, a Frenchman with a sportier aesthetic.

After a year spent working alongside the noted beauty Princess Irene Galitzine, who popularised elegant evening pyjamas, Garavani set out on his own with the backing of his father and a family friend, establishing his maison, circa 1959, on Rome’s Via Condotti. “It was une maison de couture,” explained Giammetti – who met Garavani soon after – in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I say it in French because it was very much on the line of what he had seen in Paris… Everything was very grand already. Models flew from Paris for his first show. Italian fashion was very limited at the time. There were a few good designers, but just a few.”

With Giammetti at his side, Valentino became one of the very best, despite the fact that within a year he was facing bankruptcy. He blamed his “champagne tastes,” and the pair soon vacated Via Condotti and moved to a smaller space in a 16th-century palazzo on the Via Gregoriana.

The press, initially interested in Valentino as a budding talent and handsome new face, soon had more incentive to pay attention to this young designer: his celebrity pull. In 1961, the violet-eyed Elizabeth Taylor, in town to shoot Cleopatra, chose a white haute couture column by Valentino to wear to the premiere of Spartacus.

The designer’s All White couture collection of 1968 is the one that set him solidly in the firmature of Italian design. Vogue declared it “the talk of Europe,” and waxed lyrical about “the cleanliness and distinction of his crisp whites, his lacy whites, his soft and creamy whites, all shown together white on white. And all triumphs for the thirty-five-year-old designer who, pouring out all this beauty, romance, and perfection, has become the idol of the young, a new symbol of modern luxury.” Some of these marvels were photographed by the magazine in Cy Twombly’s Roman apartment on Marisa Berenson, who, as a granddaughter of Elsa Schiaparelli, qualified as fashion royalty.

Despite the white collection’s historical importance, the designer will forever be associated with the colour red, and not just any shade, but a sparkling crisp Valentino red that speaks of Italy, passion, religion, lust and love.

“Everything,” he once said, “is made to attract, seduce, entrance.” As alluring a woman wearing Valentino might be, however, she was above all and unmistakably a lady.

There is a certain polish and formality to Valentino’s work that speaks to an earlier age of glamour and the beginnings of the jet set, which is now a thing of the past. The dream of the good life never gets old, however, and the lure of the brand was, in part, its link to the lives of “the rich and famous,” an A-list crowd of which Valentino was a member. It should be noted that formality is not synonymous with modesty; evening dresses with lingerie touches were a part of Garavani’s repertoire, and he appreciated a lovely decolletage. Also abs: dresses with tastefully placed cut-outs were another specialty that appealed to the fit and fabulous.

Casual was always a relative term in Valentino’s world – the designer even looked put-together in that famous paparazzi pic taken in Capri in 1970 with a barefoot Jackie O. His signature look was a perfect coif, a rich tan and a suit. Pierpaolo Piccioli, who joined the house in 2008 (and who dared to wear flip-flops to the office) remembers that the air conditioning was on full blast in the offices all summer so that the staff could wear suits. “I was happy that I arrived there when I was all grown up,” Piccioli told Vogue in 2019. “Valentino was formal – very, very formal. There was a ritual, and I liked that.”

Although Valentino was producing ready-to-wear from the category’s earliest days in the 1960s it was elevated rather than laid-back. “If anyone can approximate haute couture detailing in ready-to-wear, it is he, Vogue critic Sarah Mower noted decades on.

Though Garavani has expressed his dislike for 1980s fashions, Vogue wrote that the business soared at the time; reporting that “in 1986, Valentino was Italy’s top fashion exporter, shipping some $385 million that year.” If the Valentino aesthetic was the polar opposite of grunge that dominated so much of the ’90s, it was extremely relevant to the celebrity culture that started to take off in that decade. This shift benefited “Va-Va” greatly, and he racked up major red-carpet credits.

Like the celebrities he dressed, Garavani was himself a star. As Piccioli once put it: “Valentino was the brand himself.” And the designer lived the life he designed for. Long after his retirement, Garavani remained an arbiter of taste and decorum and a paradigm of success. He lived his life in pursuit of beauty. “I loved working with him,” Piccioli told Vogue. “I loved to hear him talking about his dreams of a dress drawn with one line.” Long may his dreams live.

Dario Vitale To Exit Versace

Prada Group officially acquired Versace on Tuesday in a $1.25 billion deal. It’s a new beginning for Versace, but curtains for creative director Dario Vitale, who made a powerful and much talked-about debut show in September – his first and last for the house. He will exit the brand on 12 December.

“We would like to sincerely thank Dario for his outstanding contribution to the development of the brand’s creative strategy during this transition period, and we wish him all the very best in his future endeavours,” the brand said in a statement.

There’s been much speculation around Vitale’s potential departure. Vitale was hired in March shortly before the Prada Group sale was announced in April, replacing Donatella Versace as the first non-family member to helm the brand. The Neapolitan designer, formerly design director at Prada Group-owned Miu Miu, left the brand after more than 14 years to take the Versace posting, placing a question mark over the designer’s future under Prada Group ownership. Even without this context, it’s commonplace for new owners to prompt a creative reshuffle at luxury brands.

Then there’s Donatella Versace, who was crucial to Versace’s sustained cultural gravitas, even as sales faltered over recent years, and remains a global ambassador for the house. When the Prada sale was announced in April, she celebrated with a post on Instagram and pledged her support. “I am honoured to have the brand in the hands of such a trusted Italian family business and I am ready to support this new era for the brand in any way that I can,” she wrote. Donatella didn’t attend Vitale’s spring/summer 2026 show, which was a late addition to the calendar.

Despite the above, many will be surprised by Prada Group’s move. Vitale’s first outing was one of the most celebrated debut shows of the SS26 season, perhaps only overshadowed on the final day of Paris Fashion Week by Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel.

The next designer to take the role will now steer the brand’s turnaround. Versace’s previous owner, Capri Holdings, had aligned the label with premium players, diluting its luxury positioning. Under Vitale’s vision, Versace was re-positioned firmly in the luxury category, which analysts had advised was the way forward for the label, with pieces ranging from €900 for belts to over €26,000 for special gowns, based on early insights from a Moda Operandi trunk show. While one collection can’t save a brand, there was momentum behind Vitale’s vision and elevated positioning.
With new ownership, new executive leadership and a yet-to-be-announced new creative director, Versace is undergoing its most significant transformation since the death of founder Gianni Versace in 1997. Versace said in its statement that the next creative director will be announced “in due course”, with the creative team operating under CEO Emmanuel Gintzburger.

Stella McCartney Just Teased Her New H&M Collaboration At The Fashion Awards

If, for whatever reason, you were hoping to visit the V&A East Storehouse to inspect a certain blue silk jumpsuit from Stella McCartney’s 2005 collaboration with H&M, you’d find it’s been reserved for an undisclosed amount of time by an undisclosed enthusiast. And if, for whatever reason, you also happened to be following the red-carpet arrivals at tonight’s Fashion Awards, the reason behind its unavailability might begin to make sense: Stella McCartney and H&M are working on a second co-designed collection, built on the British designer’s prodigious archive, and set to arrive in spring.

Though specific details remain locked behind the kind of NDA only a multi-billion-firm can commission, a glimpse of what’s to come was truffled out on the likes of Emily Ratajkowski, Bel Priestley, Amelia Gray and Anitta in the grand concord of the Royal Albert Hall. Talk about a reveal: I’m only disappointed there was no musical-chairs segment, as there was when H&M unveiled its original collection with McCartney at St Olave’s School in south London, which precipitated a rare Gwyneth Paltrow gush. “I really liked the whole collection,” she told British Vogue. “You must write that. I want Stella to read it.”

As for what can actually be revealed? “Prints, sparkles, lace,” says Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M’s head of womenswear. “The red-carpet looks are a teaser and within them are various little archive details that fashion fans will for sure spot.” Such as: the lace-trimmed camisoles of her autumn/winter 1999 collection for Chloé, vest straps interlinked with the chains of her 2009 Falabella It-bag, the sequined party numbers of her spring/summer 2005 collection, and the python prints of her Resort 2014 proposal. “We wanted to make sure we captured the Stella attitude,” Johansson continues. “The feminine strength, the insouciance. From her pioneering work at Chloé in the ’90s, when she brought a cool London energy to Paris, to her rule-breaking designs under her own label in the ’00s.”

You can trace the story even further back to McCartney’s apprenticeship with Edward Sexton, the Savile Row tailor who made her father Paul McCartney’s suits. “It was that experience which shaped my eye for cut and precision in design,” says McCartney. “Bringing that heritage into this collaboration is deeply personal. Reworking all these pieces with H&M genuinely feels like returning to my roots. It’s brought back so much energy and joy to revisit it all.” But everything, for McCartney, always comes back to “craft with conscience”. Ie, the belief that desirable fashion can still be kind to the planet. “Even the recycled rhinestones reflect the world I’m fighting for – beautiful, responsible, and forward-thinking.”

H&M is welcoming these conversations. “There are really two key aspects to explain here,” says Johansson. “One relates to the collection, which features certified, responsible materials, many of them recycled. The other, equally important, is the launch of a brand-new Insights Board, which will bring together voices from across fashion to create a space for meaningful discussion.” She explains that this new group has been designed to challenge H&M’s and the industry’s processes – from supply chain practices to material innovation – which are endemic to the industry at large. “Both Stella and all of us at H&M are aligned in the belief that true change can only happen when the industry works collectively.” McCartney hopes the initiative will serve as an inflection point in how the sector approaches sustainability. “This second partnership feels like a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come in sustainability, cruelty-free practices and conscious design – and to stay honest about how far we still have to go. Real change only happens when we push from both the outside and the inside, and I’ve always believed in infiltrating from within to move the industry forward.”