Monet met modern floral sophistication at the Dior show, while Bella Hadid walked in Saint Laurent’s grand spectacle with the Eiffel Tower as the backdrop
Paris Fashion Week got off to a great start, weather included.
Clear skies and unseasonably high temperatures greeted buyers, editors and celebrities descending on the French capital for the fall/winter 2026 shows.
Brands ranging from Chanel to Louis Vuitton and HermEs are showcasing their latest collections at a time when the luxury market is dealing with global uncertainty. Tensions in the Middle East and a prolonged slowdown in luxury spending in China – where a much-awaited recovery has yet to fully materialise – are just some of the issues affecting the industry.
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Here’s the lowdown on two of the biggest shows of the week from two quintessentially Parisian brands: Dior and Saint Laurent.
The weather cooperated on the second day of Paris Fashion Week as the Dior show took place on a gorgeous afternoon in a glass box in the heart of the Tuileries Garden.
At the centre of the structure was a human-made pond with floating water lilies, similar to the ones famously painted by Claude Monet, a selection of which is displayed at the Musee de l’Orangerie, a museum also located in the Tuileries.
Even before the show, guests had an inkling that the location would play a pivotal role in its inspiration. The invitation came with two miniature reproductions of the green chairs tourists and Parisians alike rest on in the Tuileries – if they can get one, that is, especially on a sunny day.
Flowers and manicured gardens – “the craft of artifice”, as the show notes put it – were on creative director Jonathan Anderson’s mind this season.
Florals? For spring? (Or fall, in this case.) Groundbreaking, right?
But leave it to Anderson to turn such a common trope on its head and deliver a beautiful collection that was a masterful follow-up to his haute couture show.
It’s not easy to reinterpret flowers in a modern and innovative way, but Anderson did that and then some, focusing on silhouettes and shapes rather than mere embellishments.
Ruffled hems, cascading trains, flared sleeves and delicate pleating turned outfits into stylised versions of blooming flowers, just like those Monet water lilies.
The waist was a focal point, with shrunken peplum cardigans and some of the best versions of Dior’s signature Bar jacket that Anderson has designed so far.
Loose coats and separates in a Prince of Wales pattern had the ease of bathrobes. They were among the more casual pieces, which also included crystal-encrusted denim, flowy blouses and baggy pants that split at the ankles.
Accessories were knockouts – from polka-dot pumps and sandals with mismatched floral adornments, to work boots with the Dior logo in gold caps, to a whimsical frog-shaped minaudiEre. A series of bags were emblazoned with the Dior Medallion. They are likely to be commercial hits when they drop next season.
The last look couldn’t have been more unassuming and yet more appropriate to end such a vibrant line-up: a robe-like black coat with a plunging neckline and a satin lapel (similar to a few others in the collection). It was the best finishing touch to the riot of detail and creativity that preceded it.
If you were to look for one word to describe Anthony Vaccarello’s oeuvre for Saint Laurent, it would have to be “consistency” – and that’s far from a bad thing.
The brand’s womenswear shows always take place in the evening across from the Eiffel Tower, arguably the most iconic landmark in Paris – if not the entire world.
You’d think that with such a dramatic backdrop, half the job would be pretty much done, but Vaccarello loves putting on a spectacle that does the location justice. From the music to the casting and even the fragrance wafting inside the venue, everything is painstakingly planned to elicit the strongest emotions from jaded fashion people.
Held in a structure with glass walls overlooking the Eiffel Tower and filled with the pungent scent of Opium – one of Saint Laurent’s signature perfumes – the show opened with a series of oversized broad-shouldered suits in dark shades such as black and brown worn with nothing underneath.
The show notes referred to them as “architecture for the body”.
While the tailoring almost erased the models’ bodies to create an imposing, uniform silhouette, the looks that followed were a celebration of feminine glamour – lingerie-inspired dresses and separates in silicone-coated lace that clung close to the body. Vaccarello’s aim was to juxtapose the fluidity of the tailoring with the “severity” of the see-through lace, defying long-held notions of what each should be. When you’d expect tailoring to be rigid and strict and lace to be soft and supple, he did just the opposite.
Some of those lace dresses were worn with chubby furs that looked gigantic on the models’ tiny frames and were accessorised with low-slung belts with crystal-embellished buckles.
As always, the jewellery was exceptional, from sculptural golden necklaces to dove-shaped earrings that were true stunners.
Vaccarello’s shows for Saint Laurent have become a kind of formula, but it’s a winning one. They are repetitive but intentionally so – and all the more powerful for it.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
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