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And… we’re done. You can exhale, take some time off, sleep, sleep, sleep. The September (and October) to remember is over, with seven of its 15 debuts taking place during Paris Fashion Week. Now that we’ve had a tiny bit of time to digest everything we saw and heard during this most fabulous of trade shows, what do we think? Read on for Vogue Business’s key takeaways from Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2026.
Debuts, debuts, debuts
We hope we never have to say the word debut again. This season, the Vogue Business team spent a lot of time lingering in show spaces post-event, talking to the debutants, their CEOs and the attendees asking for their first impressions. You can find all those pieces here.
When it came to the spectacles each designer employed a different strategy, though what all shows and collections had in common was the careful treading of their new house’s history and future. “They built on what was there before, rather than ripping it up and starting again,” says Richard Johnson, chief business officer at LuxExperience. “Designers had a lot of sensitivity to the founders in most cases, as well as the legacy of the designers who followed. Design is designing for the house. Otherwise, it becomes entirely interchangeable. If you continuously change the story, customers lose track of what it is.”
At Dior, Jonathan Anderson went for emotional frankness and opened his show with a short film by Adam Curtis, which took us through the house’s history and all of its creative directors, in Curtis’s signature menacing, archival collage style. “Do you dare — enter the house of Dior,” read the screen at the very beginning, which one could read as Anderson openly admitting he was finding the new job a little daunting. It is, after all, one of the most demanding creative directorships in fashion right now, with its key annual deliverables being 10 collections across womenswear, menswear, accessories and couture.
Matthieu Blazy, who got the other most coveted and demanding job in fashion, explored a new galaxy for Chanel, both with his solar system set and his front row, which saw a lot of newcomers. Two ambassadors have been announced in Ayo Edebiri and Nicole Kidman, and there also were some new faces, including Pedro Pascal, Carrie Coon, Michaela Coel and Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who attended Blazy’s final show for Bottega Veneta. (Blazy brought Michael Giugliano with him from Bottega Veneta to be talent director at Chanel.)
“It is about every brand looking at their talent booking departments and thinking: how can we get creative?” says Vena Brykalin, editor-in-chief of Vogue Ukraine. “Regardless of the ambassadors, who is the moment and how can we capitalise on that? I would attribute that to Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe effect. He was the first to look for people who are just starting to make waves.”
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who succeeded Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, presented paper plane shoes, shrunken leather coats, razor-cut denim and strapless towel dresses that also felt like good conversation starters between the brand’s future and its past. Their front row didn’t disappoint either, featuring Pedro Almodóvar, Sarah Paulson and Parker Posey, among other fashionable New Yorkers who have followed the pair since their Proenza Schouler beginnings.
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are succeeding Jonathan Anderson at the helm of Loewe. On the eve of the announcement, the founders of Proenza Schouler spoke exclusively to Vogue Business about joining the LVMH-owned Spanish fashion house.
Other brands too used front row coups to help outline their new visions. At Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Balenciaga debut, Meghan Markle’s first-ever fashion week appearance in a draped, all-white look made headlines. At Mugler, managing director of fashion Adrian Corsin explained that actors Naomi Watts, Pamela Anderson and Elizabeth Berkley were invited to bolster the collection’s Hollywood glamour theme. “They’re part of the story that we’re telling. And so it’s almost a screen test, as if they were characters in what we’re going to present,” he said post-show.
Elsewhere, Duran Lantik took over the house of Jean Paul Gautier with what must have been the most divisive show of the week – also much like in the time of founder. The hirsute bodysuits, one with full-frontal male nudity, were a point of discussion in the days that followed.
In the midst of it all, one debut — perhaps the most under the radar — cut through the noise by being extremely low-key. Mark Thomas’s debut for Carven was held on the ground floor of the maison’s HQ, and featured just 34 looks. “The idea is that you’re coming into our home. It will be a moment of calm, of coming out of the chaos of everything else that’s happening with the big brands,” he said in an interview ahead of the show.
Cutting through the noise
With all the debuts, business as usual wasn’t an option, forcing everyone to up their game. The schedule also changed this season, meaning buyers and editors adapted their usual travel plans to make sure they could catch all of the big shows. Saint Laurent opened the week on Monday evening, as the only major runway of the day. The show, set as usual in front of the Eiffel Tower, had 1,000 hydrangeas lining the catwalk, while supermodel Bella Hadid walked for the first and only time this season.
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Saint Laurent’s new slot also meant many senior editors and buyers were in town to catch smaller shows from the likes of Belgian rising star Julie Kegels, 2024 LVMH Prize winner Hodakova, Torisheju and Dover Street Market Paris incubator brand Vaquera.
Other houses managed to cut through by eschewing the regular calendar altogether. Newly rebranded August Barron (formerly All-In) invited editors out late on Thursday, for a 10pm off-schedule show and party in cult Paris club La Station. Everyone cheered and whooped as the models stomped atop raised platforms. Across town, at the same time, Christian Louboutin also showed off-schedule, with a theatrical five-part extravaganza dubbed The Loubi Show, directed by David LaChapelle.
On the ground chatter: Online comments and bad edits
As expected, the excitement surrounding the debuts spilt over from industry insiders to fans, igniting the online discourse. Often, comments veered from negative to vitriolic, something noted by those on the ground. On Monday morning, designer and creative director and stylist Edward Buchanan posted a comment on Instagram urging online commentators to “play nice”. The post has gone viral, with many industry insiders reposting it on their Stories.
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“Until seemingly three seconds ago, I wasn’t always invited into these spaces — even considering that I’ve done this work for three decades,” said Buchanan when we reached out for further comment. “I am a designer, and I will in most cases protect the creative space that allows the designer to work. This season in particular, we were able to see many creative director debuts, and we were also able to experience the fury and the vitriol that followed those debuts online. My post on Instagram was a cautionary reminder that these designers are human and we should allow them the space to work. But it was also at the end of an exhausting month of viewing, feeling and touching garments I love. Having access gives me the possibility to talk to designers, which informs everything. I want to always encourage critique, but when it becomes an attack, it just feels useless and mean-spirited.”
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Another theme that emerged from the chatter between shows this season was that many felt the collections needed an edit. We saw on average over 60 looks parade down most runways and the reason is partly commercial: designers are perhaps being encouraged to show multiple colourways of the same look and as many styles as possible to entice buyers in a challenging retail climate.
Other, smaller brands were perhaps trying to compete with the Parisian megabrands by presenting lengthy but often either unfinished or not quite nailed on collections, resulting in their messaging getting a little lost. It can make for a less impactful viewing experience for the industry audience, who have packed schedules and become increasingly visually overstimulated as the week goes by.
Sophomore collections
Arguably, sophomore collections are much more important than debuts. You need six months to a year (some would say two) to really understand the ways of a business, listen to its teams, keep what you like and change what you don’t. As Institut Français de la Mode professor Benjamin Simmenauer says, a second show has more firepower commercially. “Typically, between the first and second show, the brand — merchandising, website, image — aligns itself with the vision of the new creative director,” he says. “So the second show is part of a global brand experience. It has more impact because everything is consistent.”
Just look at Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford and Sarah Burton’s Givenchy. Both designers debuted last season to acclaim; yet this season delivered collections that not only felt more impactful in the moment, but should also translate to real sales. “Haider’s strength lies in colour, fabric and the fluidity in the shapes, making for a beautiful statement show,” says Bosse Myhr, director of womenswear, childrenswear and menswear for Selfridges. “At Givenchy, the tailoring was particularly strong — sure to be desired by our clients.”
At Celine and Margiela, Michael Rider and Glenn Martens delivered confident collections that were warmly received and in many ways continuations of their summer debuts.
The big reshuffle is only just beginning
So, did this season deliver the saving grace everyone has been hoping for? Simon Longland, director of fashion buying at Harrods, is confident: “There was a renewed sense of creativity and purpose throughout the week, which I believe will resonate strongly in the months ahead. Nowhere was this more evident than in the accessories categories, which felt invigorated and ready to capture the imagination of clients globally.” There were plenty of new bags and shoes, indeed. Think of the new Cigale bag with a little bow at Dior, or the new crushed version of the 2.55 at Chanel.
However, in the larger picture, the industry may need to wait a little longer for its reset; the big creative director reshuffle is about to be followed by a larger reshuffle in their respective marketing, communications and creative teams. For instance, certain marketing execs were spotted at the shows of rival brands this past weekend. We will be keeping our eyes on the press releases that come in over the next four months; presumably, everyone will want to hit their second collection ground running with their very own teams.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
