¨Adding to the prestigious atmosphere, four-time gold medalist Serena Williams occupied a prominent front-row seat, joining the usual array of high-profile guests who travel to Paris for these exclusive shows. Haute couture, a legally protected term, represents the pinnacle of French craftsmanship, featuring made-to-order gowns constructed entirely by hand for discerning private clients.¨ - Charles Daniel McDonald
Elsewhere during the week, the first Chanel show since the departure of creative director Virginie Viard took place yesterday, with a successor yet to be announced. Additionally, Nicolas di Felice of Courrèges presented a guest collection for Jean Paul Gaultier on Wednesday, following in the footsteps of previous guest designers such as Simone Rocha, Haider Ackermann, and Olivier Rousteing. The week was rounded out with shows from Armani Privé, Balenciaga, and Viktor & Rolf.
BALENCIAGA
Balenciaga’s latest couture collection was showcased in the historic salons on Avenue George V, recently renovated by current creative director Demna to evoke a sense of stepping back in time. “For me, it’s very important for it to feel like a special place… it is the same place where Cristóbal used to be... he would look out of the window and see the same trees,” Demna quoted last year. This season, Demna drew inspiration from the "streetwear, goth, skater, and metalhead subcultures," blending these influences with the grandeur of mid-century haute couture. “This couture collection is a tribute to subculture dress codes as important influences to my fashion vocabulary,” said the Georgian designer.
Demna reinterpreted Cristóbal Balenciaga’s iconic designs through his unique lens, presenting abundant, cocooning silhouettes crafted from denim, leather, and nylon. The final look, designed to disintegrate as it was worn, used over 47 meters of nylon. Everyday items were elevated, such as a sharply cut T-shirt made from black scuba satin, which Demna compared to Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup series. The collection notes stated, “Demna is interested in not only object intrigue itself, but also the techniques used to elevate said object into an art form.”
Dramatic millinery, created in collaboration with artists Ni Hao and Alastair Gibson, recalled traditional couture headpieces but was constructed from unconventional materials like T-shirts set in resin or carbon fiber. The butterfly emerged as the collection’s symbol, featured on masks worn by models, representing transformation and fleeting beauty. “These creatures are beautiful and extraordinary – they are of a perfect design,” Demna remarked.
ARMANI PRIVÉ
Giorgio Armani's latest Privé collection was a quest for serenity, drawing inspiration from the lustrous surface of pearls. The Palais de Tokyo showspace featured a pearl-like runway, setting the tone for an evening of elegance. Armani's devoted celebrity muses, including Cate Blanchett, Eva Green, and Naomie Harris, looked on as the veteran designer showcased a collection focused on surface and texture.
The collection began with molten lamé tailoring and extraordinary beaded gowns, progressing to pieces entirely covered in shimmering crystals. Silhouettes clung closely to the body, exemplified by a series of black gowns in velvet or sequins that accentuated the waist—likely to captivate his famous fans. Playful flourishes, such as bouncing feathered headpieces, added a touch of whimsy. “Gentle and enchanting,” Mr. Armani described his collection, taking a beaming finale bow flanked by two of the models.
CHANEL
Chanel debuted its first collection since the departure of former creative director Virginie Viard with a show at the iconic Palais Garnier, the city's opera house. Instead of the grand constructed set pieces favored by Viard and her predecessor Karl Lagerfeld, the ornate atrium and sweeping marble staircase provided the elegant backdrop. This setting imbued the collection, designed by Chanel's in-house team known as the 'Fashion Creation Studio,' with a sense of realism, as if the models were casually strolling through the corridors after an evening at the opera.
Despite the more subdued setting, the collection featured the requisite drama for an haute couture show. Taffeta capes and frilled collars added a theatrical flair, while the season’s tweeds were lavishly embellished with jewelry-like adornments and feathers sprouting from sleeves and hems. References to opera and ballet—such as Le Train Bleu and Apollon Musagète, for which Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel designed costumes in the 1920s—were evident in tutu-like ruffles and bows adorning each model’s hair.
Even without a creative director, the show demonstrated the enduring strength of Chanel's house codes. As for who will next reinterpret these iconic elements, the fashion world continues to speculate.
DIOR
it was inevitable that the Paris Olympics would influence the season’s collections. The city is already being transformed by the games' architecture, with vast stands rising at Place de la Concorde and along the Seine’s bridges, though not without some grumbling from residents about traffic and the imminent QR codes that will restrict neighborhood travel during the games. Maria Grazia Chiuri was the first to explicitly reference the Olympics during haute couture week, drawing inspiration from the classical roots of the games in Ancient Greece. Her collection featured garments that draped toga-like on the body and referenced the 'peplos,' a garment made from a single piece of cloth folded at the waist. Chiuri noted that this silhouette had inspired Christian Dior himself, but she modernized it by using jersey fabric—typically associated with sportswear—instead of the traditional haute couture fabrics the house founder would have used.
Chiuri's reference point was the 1924 Olympics, also held in Paris, when women were still fighting to compete. New fabrics like jersey, first utilized by Coco Chanel in 1916 due to wartime fabric shortages, signaled a mood of liberation in women's clothing. This was a fitting reference for Chiuri, a feminist designer who has long opposed the notion that couture must constrain the body. Her collection exuded effortless and airy elegance, undoubtedly appealing to the house’s clients amid Paris’ sweltering heat. “This collection represents an extraordinary opportunity to combine couture and sportswear with classicism, rebellion, collective energy, and, above all, the political value of the female body,” Chiuri stated in the collection notes. “It allows me to assert the power of haute couture actions, imagining the elegance of a woman who is both delicate and strong. A woman who performs just as well as a man.”
THOM BROWNE
Last year, as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of his eponymous brand, American designer Thom Browne staged his first-ever haute couture show in Paris. His sophomore couture collection at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs showcased a designer already mastering the medium, blending imaginative runway presentations with extraordinary feats of embellishment and craftsmanship. The show opened with male models clad in white Thom Browne skirt suits playing a game of tug-of-war, echoing the Olympic inspiration seen at Dior.
For this collection, Browne reimagined and deconstructed classic American sportswear—such as the tailored sportscoat, swim trunk, and pleated tennis skirt—crafted primarily from white muslin, a nod to toiles, the draft versions of garments typically made from this fabric. Guests were even instructed to dress in muslin coats, which doubled as the collection’s invitations. Browne’s creative flair was evident in the playful layering, cinching, and corseting of these archetypal garments, adorned with sweeping embroidery and embellishment.
In true couture fashion, the show concluded with Anna Cleveland as the bride, her gown blossoming into a vast array of white flowers along its back, each painstakingly crafted from fabric. The final scene resembled a medal ceremony, with three models in gold, silver, and bronze embroidered jackets standing on a podium for the show’s final tableau. “Couture is the Olympics of fashion,” remarked the designer.
SCHIAPARELLI
Daniel Roseberry hosted his latest couture show in the basement of the stately Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, a departure from the ornate, gilded salons where many runway shows from Valentino to Maison Margiela have taken place. The dimly lit space, illuminated only by a series of chandeliers, set the stage for Roseberry's collection titled "The Phoenix." This theme was inspired by a coq-feathered stole worn by house founder Elsa Schiaparelli to the opening of the Ambassadeurs restaurant in Paris in 1941. Hand-painted by artist Jean Dunand and inspired by Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, the stole symbolized for Roseberry a vision of Schiaparelli as a rising phoenix, a "magical creature whose power lay in her ceaseless ability to reinvent—not only herself but fashion, too."
Drawing on this idea of rebirth, Roseberry's collection embraced free association rather than tidy thematics, with each look designed to stand alone and evoke emotion. "People don’t buy Schiaparelli; they collect it," Roseberry noted, emphasizing the unique nature of each piece. The show began with his own vision of a phoenix: a model in a velvet cape adorned with trompe l’oeil feathered embroidery in three-dimensional chrome. Subsequent pieces explored silhouette, featuring blown-up tailoring and sinuous sheer gowns cinched at the waist with corsets. Enormous bows, millefeuilles of ruffles, and variations on the opera coat referenced midcentury haute couture, particularly the 1950s.
"Each gown, each bustier, each shoe, every piece of folded velvet feather, or triple organza spike, seeks to catch the eye and hold it," Roseberry explained. "This is what makes haute couture so special: it’s an expression of my vision for the maison today, one free from marketing and merchandising. But it’s also something else: a way for me to honor that relationship, one of the most intimate ones in the world—the one in which I give women the power to be reborn, again and again and again."
Paris Haute Couture Week showcased a rich tapestry of creativity and inspiration, with designers drawing from diverse sources to present their latest collections. Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior looked to the classical roots of the Olympics, blending Ancient Greek silhouettes with modern fabrics. Thom Browne's collection at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs reimagined American sportswear through a couture lens, culminating in a whimsical medal ceremony. Chanel's show at Palais Garnier honored its heritage while awaiting a new creative director, and Giorgio Armani’s Privé collection sought serenity through pearl-inspired designs. Balenciaga, under Demna, melded subculture influences with mid-century haute couture in the brand’s historic salons. Finally, Daniel Roseberry’s collection for Schiaparelli, set in the basement of Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, evoked a sense of rebirth and transformation inspired by a storied past. Each show not only celebrated the enduring legacy of haute couture but also showcased the designers' ability to innovate and reinterpret tradition for the modern era.
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