Paris Fashion Week Spring Summer 2026 witnessed creative directors presenting their debut at luxury fashion brands, amongst the 74 shows and 37 presentations. It was a season of fresh creative direction: Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela, Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga, and Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier.
Fashion month has already given us plenty to talk about—from the runways of New York to London and Milan. Paris saves the best for last. With 74 shows and 37 presentations, the nine-day finale of Spring Summer 2026 witnessed feverish anticipation thanks to the string of landmark debuts. Here are some of the top shows of Paris Fashion Week Spring Summer 2026.
Chanel
Chanel Spring Summer 2026 at the Grand Palais was the most anticipated show at Paris Fashion Week and was attended by several celebrities including brand ambassador Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, and Ananya Pandey. French-Belgian designer Matthieu Blazy’s galactic set brought to mind the larger-than-life show sets of Karl Lagerfeld. Inspired by modernity and freedom, the ethos of founder Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s designs, the show honoured the House codes and added a youthful twist.
It began with an androgynous checked wool pantsuit and shirt; the chopped-off jacket was a recreation of Blazy’s own blazer (inspired by Coco Chanel’s habit of borrowing clothes from her boyfriend Arthur Capel) and the shirt was made in collaboration with Parisian shirtmaker Charvet. “There are Chanel women all around the world, and I saw that suit from 1964 and what was so mesmerizing about this suit is that I couldn’t tell where it came from,” he told WWD. “It could have been French, but maybe from other horizons.”
The show proceeded with tweed jackets that were styled to appear as if they were frayed at the hem while evening gowns bloomed with appliqué flowers or dramatic feathers. It’s a rare review of Chanel that hasn’t mentioned the modern, globally relevant design that characterises the aesthetic steeped in centuries-old textile tradition. This show was no different and would undoubtedly be favoured by both mothers and daughters in any part of the world.
Dior
Jonathan Anderson’s debut womenswear show began with a short film by British documentary maker Adam Curtis.”Do you dare enter the house of Dior?” It gave way to archival footage from the brand’s history, horror film cuts and ‘60s movies projected onto an inverted pyramid. And then the screen turned a bright optic white to illuminate the room.
This was Jonathan Anderson’s symbolic clean slate. ‘Daring to enter the house of Dior requires an empathy with its history, a willingness to decode its language, which is part of the collective imagination, and the resoluteness to put all of it in a box,’ said Anderson in the collection notes. ‘Not to erase it, but to store it, looking ahead, coming back to bits, traces or entire silhouettes from time to time, like revisiting memories.’
He sent out 74 looks, though what stood out was what his show notes referred to as “rewiring the everyday.” It’s a skill Anderson perfected in his time at Loewe: the art of taking the familiar and giving it a fantastical look. For example, the bar jacket, cropped and worn with a flared, pleated mini. Or the 1952 La Cigale dress which inspired the trapeze dresses or double-breasted overcoats. Anderson said he was thinking about the ‘tension’ between fantasy and reality, of dressing up and dressing down. A rare standing ovation at the end of the show declared Dior SS26 a winner.
Saint Laurent
Saint Laurent SS26 at Paris Fashion Week was a languorous night under the stars. Anthony Vaccarello leaned into his signatures this season, delivering sharp tailoring, draping and minimalism. The collection played with opposites—strong-shouldered jackets and leather bombers versus slinky, asymmetrical dresses. The visual was spectacular as models walked through a garden of white hydrangeas hedges, forming the YSL logo as seen from a drone above, with the Eiffel Tower lit up majestically in the backdrop.
Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney Spring 2026 collection is an expressive and easy wardrobe of timeless classics. “For living free, in the moment. For living on the wild side. A duality of feminine, feline elegance and masculine shapes. Stronger, sexier attitudes refocus house icons selected by Stella, reimagined in moulded outlines, sculptural draping and statement details,” per the official website. Stella McCartney roped in Helen Mirren to serve as the opening act for SS26, which took place at the Pompidou Centre. Mirren read the lyrics of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ and the designer appealed to her guests, ‘Come together for humanity, animals and Mother Earth.’
Stella’s love for animals is felt in a clouded leopard print, with fewer than 10,000 of these cats left in the wild due to poaching. The luxury brand used fabrications from plant-based alternative Fevvers and Pure.Tech, the first ‘programmable’ fabric that ‘absorbs and neutralises pollutants including CO₂ and NOx’. Iconic Savile Row tailoring includes slim 70s jackets inspired by Paul McCartney’s archival wardrobe. Power shoulders bring bold shapes to moulded coats and long cardigans. Classic men’s trenches are in grey herringbone wool, contrasted with regenerated nylon cropped bombers. Dresses WEre draped with sweetheart necklines hand-sculpted in wire, lace dresses and tuxedo tailoring WEre padded at the shoulder and hips, and Stella’s music heritage is felt in the rock ‘n’ roll attitude of tank tops with algae-based pigment lettering, and whipstitched wide organic cotton jeans and denim featuring black equestrian leg panels.
Givenchy
Creative director Sarah Burton feels power dressing doesn’t always have to mean wearing a suit or other traditional menswear garments. Instead, she looked to find strength in what a note on the seats described as ‘feminine archetypes’. There were bra tops, bodysuits with pearls, frilled mini dresses which flared out like tutus, and bold jewellery, like a crystal bodysuit. Then there was the finale look: a floral-embroidered bra and skirt. Ultimately Sarah Burton at Givenchy posed a question: what does powerful femininity look like when you strip the cliched shoulder pads?
Per BoF: “Reduction was her end, the white shirt was her means. And a wrapped skirt. And a jacket so stripped of its canvassing, its structure that you could practically knot it like a shirt. (Elise Crombez did.) Burton said she was so used to seeing things with big shoulders and heavy construction that it took a while to get it right. “Peeling back the structure of tailoring,” she called it. The process was literalised in a kind of tuxedo jacket-dress hybrid with trompe l’oeil white cuffs whose neckline had been peeled back off the model’s shoulders.”
Hermes
“Time no longer races. It breathes, like these silhouettes, rooted and weightless. Straight lines, sharp angles, neat contours.” Hermès.
Horse-riding is part of Hermès DNA, something that Nadège Vanhée embraced for SS 2026. Staged on a sand-covered runway, ‘Free Rein’ used the saddle’s construction to inform several silhouettes. The first look, a brown leather bodice layered, leather-and-canvas coat and leather Bermuda shorts accessorised with riding boots, set the stage. There were silk scarves, nodding to the carrés, which were introduced in 1937. The palette stayed true to Hermès’s aesthetic, with muted tones of beige, brown, navy, and black with pops of red, plum, and tangerine. Vanhee honoured the house heritage and legacy of craftsmanship while moving it forward.
Maison Margiela
Presenting at the Centquatre-Paris cultural centre, where he showed his debut Artisanal show for the house earlier this year, Glenn Martens roped in an orchestra of local children from Romilly-sur-Seine to provide live music. Wearing oversized Margiela suits, the little musicians played Mozart’s and Symphonie N°40 to Strauss’ Le Beau Danube bleu. The collection drew on the Maison Margiela archive of deconstructed glamour, which largely drew on tropes of eveningwear. Tuxedo jackets were worn with torn shirts beneath; a column gown was remade in leather, and the scooped line of a waistcoat informed the cut of the outerwear. Elsewhere, dresses were pieced together from a collage of fabrics, from sequins to jewellery-like appliqué, while the collection’s closing gown looked to have been wrapped in red plastic bags! Ps Models’ lips were pulled open with contraptions that gave the illusion that their mouths had been stitched open at each corner – a nod to the house’s signature stitch!!
Jean Paul Gaultier
Dutch designer Duran Lantink has made a name with collections which take the archetypal elements of a wardrobe and exaggerate their proportions to surreal effect. It made his eponymous label one of Paris’ critically acclaimed labels, the winner of the Karl Lagerfeld award at the 2024 LVMH Prize.And the reason he is the ideal person for Jean Paul Gaultier to pass the baton to. At his much-anticipated debut for Jean Paul Gaultier in the basement of the Musée du Quai Branly, Lantink brought this playful approach to the Gaultier archive, undertaking what he called a ‘Duranification” of the heritage fashion brand.
Per BoF: “Gaultier also mutated silhouettes, most famously with Madonna’s cone bra. Its ubiquity made Lantink wary, but he felt compelled to acknowledge its importance as the house icon by opening the show with his version, rounded and pushed to the side. It was the best possible way to announce his arrival. He followed it with Leon Dame in a cropped black leather bomber that devolved into a jockstrap, looking like a cross between a Colt Man and a Superman, a hybrid that Gaultier himself exalted…”
Schiaparelli
A celebration of the house codes, Daniel Roseberry looked to founder Elsa Schiaparelli for “Dancer in the Dark”, exploring her love of ‘unexpected frictions’ in exaggerated-shouldered jackets cut with ‘tailleur rigour’, and textural gowns with polka dot feathers, chainmail torn to reveal skin beneath, and satin columns. Kendall Jenner commanded the spotlight in a sheer polka-dot chiffon jumpsuit. Elsewhere, Roseberry drew from Schiaparelli’s personal wardrobe, presenting trompe l’oeil knits in loud triple-tone jacquards while the house leaning towards the surreal came in accessories made to “surprise and delight”, from gold sandals to handbags inspired by Dalí’s melting clocks! Quoting Yves Saint Laurent, who once described Schiaparelli as “a comet illuminating the Paris skyline, determined to dominate,” Roseberry made it clear that he wants his women to do exactly that.
Balenciaga
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s debut at Balenciaga was titled ‘Heartbeat’. Teased with a show invite in the form of a cassette tape which played the sound of a beating heart, the vibe at the Kering headquarters on Rue de Sevres was glamorous with a front row of Anne Hathaway and the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle. Alessandro Michele set the scene for SS26 with a story about Italian writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 1941, when he was a young student, he wrote a letter to a childhood friend, recalling a night filled with fireflies. For Pasolini, it represented, Michele explains, ‘the ability to resist the darkest night…glimmers so elusive to survive the darkness of the ruling fascism.’
For his big debut, Piccioli translated archetypal Balenciaga couture – in particular, the trapeze-like line of the Sack Dress – for the modern buyer. The silhouette established a fashion trend when Cristobal Balenciaga debuted it in 1957 — styled with opera gloves, black pumps and giant bug-eye sunglasses. Other Cristobal signatures were reimagined, like the cocoon coat and the babydoll dress. The 1967 wedding dress silhouette appeared as a cropped crepe top and again as a leather off-shoulder cape.
Piccioli peppered in nods to his predecessor Demna, with grunge-style jeans and shorts, and futuristic sunglasses that wrapped around the models’ heads. Notable, though, was how he infused a couture sensibility into the construction, elevating wardrobe basics like leather jackets, t-shirts, and sunglasses. Cristobel Balenciaga was known as ‘The Master’ of haute couture. SS26 is Piccioli’s homage to the master.
Valentino
The show set for Alessandro Michele’s Valentino SS26 was minimal. Centred around a square-shaped black runway, interest came from a series of lights which swirled across the ceiling – a symbolic representation of fireflies, the glowing insect from which this SS26 collection took its name.
A voiceover at the start of the show explained their relevance: Michele had begun this collection by looking towards a 1941 letter sent by Pier Paolo Pasolini to a childhood friend in which he talks about the magic of seeing fireflies in the forest. “We envied them because they loved each other, because they longed for each other through amorous flights and lights,” it read. For Michele, as the voiceover (read by Pamela Anderson) continued, these “erratic luminescences bursting with life’ represented ‘the ability to resist the darkest night” – namely, the onset of World War II.
Clothing this season was stripped back the compared with the past two collections though it came with gestures of glamour: voluminous blouses were worn with velvet skirts, evening gowns came in bold jewel tones or sheer and embellished with crystals, while the bow continued to be a central motif, appearing on the neck of blouses or the hem of a skirt. At the end of the show, the colourful coterie of models gathered on the runway, gazing upwards to the swirling lights above – it made for a cinematic tableau, a reminder of Michele’s ability to draw emotion with his runway shows.
Jasmeen Dugal is Associate Editor at FashionABC, contributing her insights on fashion, technology, and sustainability. She brings with herself more than two decades of editorial experience, working for national newspapers and luxury magazines in India.
Jasmeen Dugal has worked with exchange4media as a senior writer contributing articles on the country’s advertising and marketing movements, and then with Condenast India as Net Editor where she helmed Vogue India’s official website in terms of design, layout and daily content. Besides this, she is also an entrepreneur running her own luxury portal, Explosivefashion, which highlights the latest in luxury fashion and hospitality.
