Paris Fashion Week defies luxury slump with spectacle and glamour
- Last updated: October 5, 2026 | 09:30
Saint Laurent sent out a river of gold, as giant chandeliers bathed a glossy black outdoor runway in golden light and the Eiffel Tower shimmered in the background. The extravagant show was attended by Catherine Deneuve, Kate Moss, Hailey Bieber and Rami Malek, while elsewhere at Paris Fashion Week Jennifer Lopez watched from Stella McCartney’s rain-soaked gardens.
Rihanna turned out for the upstarts at Matières Fécales, the conceptual fashion house whose name translates as “fecal matter.” There, the finale sent a woman in a gold lamé gown across a Paris protest square carrying two slumped dummies of white men in suits. Whatever luxury’s financial troubles, Paris retained its ability to assemble stellar front rows and Instagram-ready staging.
Midway through spring-summer 2027, shows crystallised into three stories: glamour on a grand scale; a great undressing that stripped all the way down to a pale pink thong beneath a coat that can top $33,000; and an industry working couture technique into T-shirts and jeans – all while asking itself, nervously, who all of this is for. “Was it an adieu?” one front row guest asked.
Marking a decade at the house, designer Anthony Vaccarello dispensed with his customary interviews and let a retrospective-tinged collection carry the occasion. No departure was announced – but the guessing fit the mood of an industry swapping designers at a frantic clip in search of growth.
Last month, cosmetics giant L’Oréal overtook LVMH as France’s most valuable listed company. It’s the first time since 2017 that a non-luxury company has topped the Paris bourse.
Saint Laurent’s parent Kering has returned to growth after a bruising downturn, but Balenciaga remains under pressure behind the runway gloss. Saint Laurent on Tuesday night featured gold – and it was almost the whole story: brittle, fluid, translucent or densely worked. Gold, of course, is exactly what Kering wants from this house.
Saint Laurent, the group’s second-biggest label, is growing again on strong American and European demand, hauling the load while Gucci struggles to reverse years of falling sales. Safari jackets and trenches came in crinkled metallic cottons. Cocktail dresses featured glinting lace, cropped jackets in brocade. Stilettos stood on serpent-shaped heels. Then came the black finale, led by supermodel Anja Rubik - a reversal of Yves Saint Laurent’s all-gold closing sequence in 1991.
Two days later, Chloé approached excess through texture. Chemena Kamali piled broderie anglaise with lace, pearls and tassels, and sent out rainwear and long-brimmed fishermen’s hats in vivid colors.
The question was how much decoration Chloé’s promise of easy dressing could carry. McCartney’s show, meanwhile, rewarded its damp audience – Lopez under an umbrella among them - with easy tailoring, coral-like knitted forms and airbrushed dolphins on denim.
Sculptural hems and peplums gave the clothes an underwater buoyancy, while naturalist David Attenborough’s voice supplied the ocean-conservation message. The peplum was one of the week’s quiet constants, turning up sculpted here and stitched into shirting at Balenciaga.
Air was the week’s other quiet constant, and Issey Miyake built a collection on it: dancers opened Satoshi Kondo’s show on Friday by billowing a vast cloth to live piano, before balloon-twisted dresses and nylon forms that inhaled with every step floated past - what the house calls ma, “the space in between” body and garment.
At Tom Ford, Haider Ackermann staged a particularly playful display: sharp tailoring accompanied by bare chests, fishnet, severely reduced swimwear and silk robes. Black swimsuits were more geometry than garment. A male model in a sweater and pale pink thong carried a vicuña coat – the world’s most expensive wool, which can run to over $33,000 a coat – draped over a weekend bag.
At Balmain, Antonin Tron built a stronger second outing around midcentury backstage photographs and their air of glamorous half-dress: corset bodices, garters swinging from miniskirts, bras under shrunken satin bombers, eel skin and animal-patterned jacquards.
Simulated rain lashed the covered windows of Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion. Printing, embroidery and sequins gave the surfaces depth, though their richness sometimes competed with the sensual draping. Even Rick Owens went boudoir, on his own terms: on a ramp across the Palais de Tokyo’s reflecting pool, he sent out stone-colored column gowns, spiked tulle, crystal-laden footwear and full-body constructions of tulle and elastic.
The cages turned literal at Courrèges, where Drew Henry’s debut broke up its neon tailoring with floral bra tops, flower-dotted cage jumpsuits and hotpants. The question beneath it all was harder to stage: in a downturn, how does luxury justify itself? Pierpaolo Piccioli’s answer at Balenciaga was technique. Dense rows of stitching shaped a white shirt into a fitted waist and flaring peplum. A T-shirt received a similar treatment. Jeans were cut on the bias – diagonally across the fabric – to change their fall. The collection made a persuasive case for putting couture knowledge to everyday use. Loewe, marking its 180th year, answered more plainly still: fewer technical fireworks, more supple leather and glass-bead dresses – clothes made to be worn rather than talked about.
Luxury’s answer to the squeeze? Not lower prices – but craft moved into the clothes people live in, so the cost feels earned.
The new it-brand took over Paris’ protest area, Place de la République, for a show titled “The 99 Percent.” The collection brought together sari-inspired draping, shredded denim and figures styled to evoke masked demonstrators.
While public access was part of the idea, the irony was hard to miss: 99% of the world cannot afford Matières Fécales’ clothes. The 99% have been voting with their wallets: pinched by inflation and prices up some 20% in two years, around 60 million customers have abandoned luxury since 2022, according to consultants Bain & Company - which warns even the wealthy clients who remain feel “betrayed.” Paris had demonstrated how to make people look, but it’s the clothes, the industry hopes, that will persuade them to spend.
Associated Press