With the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon commanding global attention, and fashion houses increasingly staking their claim both on and off the pitch and court, it would have been easy to overlook the week’s other great spectacle. Amid penalty kicks, yellow and red cards, break points, and nail-biting finishes, Paris was quietly staging fashion’s own championship. Haute Couture Fall 2026 delivered no shortage of drama, from Daniel Roseberry’s marine-inspired Schiaparelli and Jonathan Anderson’s sculptural Dior, to Matthieu Blazy’s storybook Chanel and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s much-anticipated first couture collection for Balenciaga.
Schiaparelli
Daniel Roseberry did it again. Titled The Call of the Void, the collection ventured into surreal territory with an unexpected protagonist: latex. Entire gowns were crafted from the material, while elsewhere it appeared as polka dots, sculptural details, and, in true Schiaparelli fashion, prosthetic earlobes transformed into earrings. Roseberry’s women were reimagined as glamorous creatures of the deep, somewhere between society swans and bioluminescent angler fish luring prey with their light. The designer softened that tension with exquisite floral embroideries and ivory gowns that looked almost like blank canvases waiting to be painted. Pure art. Pure magic.
Dior
Jonathan Anderson continued to blur the line between fashion and contemporary art for his second couture collection for Dior by drawing inspiration from the work of 84-year-old American artist Lynda Benglis, whose experimental sculptures have challenged artistic conventions for decades. Anderson translated her poured latex works, pleated metallic sculptures, and signature “frozen gestures” into couture through shimmering metallic gowns, sculptural folds, and dramatic bows tied at the neck, waist, and back. The collection also paired Anderson’s more conceptual designs with odes to Christian Dior the person, who often called his women “flowers,” a legacy reflected in many of the floral embroideries and embellishments, though the use of dandelions and cacti instead of more traditional blooms was unmistakably Anderson.
Balenciaga
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut at Balenciaga was one of the week’s most anticipated moments, and he did not disappoint. The designer paid tribute to Cristóbal Balenciaga while embracing what he does best: creating beautiful clothes and using color in ways few designers can. Neon pink, mint green, rich orange, and deep jewel tones brought warmth and romance to the house’s famously sculptural silhouettes, proving once again that Piccioli understands color on an emotional level. A detail worth mentioning: the sequins were made from biodegradable cellulose, an apparently very difficult material to source, but which proved that there are still so many opportunities for fashion to become more environmentally conscious through innovation and new technologies.
Chanel
After discovering a book of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales in Gabrielle Chanel’s personal library, Matthieu Blazy transformed the Grand Palais into a storybook world. Giant beanstalks erupted from the floor, menacing wildflowers towered overhead, and the runway filled with couture characters that seemed to have just been plucked from a fairy tale: princesses, queens, shepherdesses, scarecrows, witches, and woodland creatures, all reimagined through the lens of Chanel. Despite embracing fantasy, Blazy skipped couture’s oldest tradition. Instead of ending with a wedding dress, he closed the show with Chanel’s ultimate icon: the little black dress, who turned one hundred years old this year.
Jean Paul Gaultier
Duran Lantink did not play it safe for his couture debut for Jean Paul Gaultier, and we loved to see it. Drawing on everyone from Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette to science fiction, Lantink embraced the freedom that couture, and Gaultier, allow. Towering tulle confections, exaggerated silhouettes, sculptural tailoring, and wonderfully offbeat proportions constantly shifted between eighteenth-century grandeur and futurism. It was theatrical, provocative, playful, and delightfully strange.
