5 things to expect from Paris Fashion Week FW26 Women’s A packed edition with several absentees but also lots of new features
If the recently concluded Milan Fashion Week felt relatively chill for editors, photographers, PRs, and fashion insiders of all kinds, the Paris Fashion Week FW26 Women’s is shaping up to be a real tour de force. Despite a good number of absent brands, including Valentino and Maison Margiela which will instead organize destination shows, the calendar for the coming days is jam-packed. The press is already anticipating the shows of The Row and Miu Miu which, as often happens, promise to indicate the direction of next season’s trends; while a series of cult names ranging from Matières Fécales to Niccolò Pasqualetti, from Tom Ford to Michael Ryder’s Celine will fill the week with absolutely noteworthy moments.
But amid all this abundance, there are also debuts of new designers and young brands, farewells, and returns to the scene, as the new creative landscape of luxury finally takes shape.
Here, then, are the 5 things to expect from Paris Fashion Week FW26 Women’s.
Antonin Tron’s debut at Balmain
The last designer of the great creative reset to present his new vision for a historic brand is Antonin Tron at Balmain. After the very long era of Oliver Rousteing at the helm of the brand—a period that cemented in the collective consciousness the idea of a Balmain made of gold and square shoulders, with a visually aggressive and opulent aesthetic—we are very curious to discover what Tron will bring to Balmain in his new era. With, of course, the existential question at the top of mind: can Balmain become relevant again as it once was?
Pieter Mulier’s last show at Alaïa
While preparing to leave Alaïa to head toward greater and nobler endeavors with the major Versace revamp in Milan, Pieter Mulier will conclude his five-year tenure at the brand with a final farewell show. The occasion will certainly be less dramatic because Mulier is not retiring from the scene at all, merely moving to new Italian shores, yet the moment of parting between the creative director and the brand will feel like the consensual end of a beautiful love story. Because even though it is clear that Alaïa possesses its own historical relevance, it was Mulier who revived and gave new luster to the brand, bringing it to the eyes of a new generation.
Off-White’s return to Paris
Off-White is a brand that continues to spark a certain curiosity. On one hand it is a phoenix everyone would like to see rise again, on the other the management’s handling (we are not talking about Ib Kamara who creatively seems seriously committed to leading the brand) has led Virgil Abloh’s venerable creation to zigzag too much between Paris and America in search of relevance and impact that have not yet arrived. It doesn’t help that the brand is so divided between a very broad commercial vocation and a more conceptual one that would require a recentering and consolidation of its aesthetic in a world where bold graphics, futuristic constructions, and various distressing effects no longer seduce even hip-hop artists. We will always remain curious to see where the brand goes next.
The great reconfirmation: the second shows
If a year ago at this time we were talking about the great reset in reference to the many creatives who would debut at the helm of major brands, this season will be the great reconfirmation - in other words, the turn of the second shows, the reaffirmations, and the new steps that will confirm, in short, which direction things are heading. The debut sets the tone, but the subsequent collection demonstrates that the hand guiding each brand is steady. In some ways, they are even more important because they clarify whether we should prepare for an evolution or a repetition. And this season we have the second women’s ready-to-wear collection of the new Dior and the new Chanel; but also those of Loewe, Carven, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Mugler and obviously Balenciaga. Many things will need reconfirmation.
The new entries: Litkovska and Situationist
The Ukrainian brand Litkovska and the Georgian brand Situationist will make their first appearance on the official Paris show calendar this March. Both had actually already participated in fashion week but only with presentations. This season marks their debut with proper runway shows and curiosity is sky-high, both because they are relatively established new names on the indie scene that are precisely waiting for the catwalk debut to make the proverbial leap into the parterre de roi of the Parisian calendar, and because the creatives behind each of the two brands could go very far even in more historic Maisons.
