Men’s Fashion Week returns to Paris next week with a final calendar featuring Saint Laurent, SSSTEIN, Celine, Rick Owens, Camiel Fortgens, Doublet, Willy Chavarria, Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, and Hermès. Running across six days, it will showcase the upcoming collections for Spring/Summer 2027 – a first glimpse into what’s to come. The city will definitely be buzzing with events and happenings throughout the week, with shows, presentations, and off-calendar moments unfolding across the French capital.
But for those looking for something beyond fashion, art offers a counterpoint to the pace. If you’re in the city, COLD recommends these must-see exhibitions running during that period, from Sven Marquardt’s photography presentation opening the week to the almost-always sold-out Lee Miller exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. Together, they offer a slower rhythm amid the intensity of fashion week.
Futur Passé by Sven Marquardt at Espace Parallèle
Curated by Ameesia Marold, the exhibition brings together two bodies of work by photographer Sven Marquardt. Eastside Girls (1984–1989) captures his early years documenting the punk scene in East Berlin while the Wall still stood, while Rudel (2012) turns its gaze towards the community that surrounds him today. Meaning “pack” in German, Rudel reflects ideas of trust, belonging, and the chosen family he has found within Berlin’s nightlife culture.
“I intentionally planned this exhibition during Men’s Fashion Week. Fashion has shaped Sven as a cultural figure, and it runs through his photographs – the way his subjects dress and present themselves is an act of identity, not styling,” says Marold. “The crossover felt natural. It’s also a buzzy, electric moment in the city, and I wanted that energy to surround him and his work. Paris is the first time Sven is showing in France, and that matters to him – it’s a city he has long wanted to exhibit in, and one that is increasingly becoming an epicenter of the art world.” Visit the exhibition on June 23.
Cloud #07156 by Fujiko Nakaya at the Bourse de Commerce
Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya’s cloud sculpture takes centre stage in the Bourse de Commerce’s Rotonde, entering into a quiet, luminous dialogue with Tadao Ando’s concrete cylinder. Part of her ongoing project, Cloud #07156 was created specifically for the space.
To produce fog, Nakaya uses a precise technique: “I use high-pressure pumps and diffusers. Water under pressure is released through a tiny hole in the nozzle and strikes a needle placed above it. The water then breaks into droplets twenty to thirty microns in diameter, the same size as those found in natural fog,” she explains.
Her practice brings natural elements and their flowing and uncontrollable beauty into conversation, resulting in a constantly shifting experience shaped by time, space, and the visitors themselves. On view at the Bourse de Commerce until 14 September.
Lee Miller Retrospective at Musée d’Art Moderne
Considered one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, American artist Lee Miller produced an extensive body of work as a portraitist, fashion photographer, and war correspondent accredited by the U.S. Army.
But it is not only her arresting images – particularly her work as a war photographer – that define her legacy. Miller was on ground during World War II, producing photographs that are both epic and sometimes painful, capturing the stark contrasts of reality such as a fashion shoot for Vogue set against the rubble of war, or the now-iconic image of Hitler’s bathtub. Despite the time, the images all feel in-the-now, echoing our digital culture of over-documentation and overexposure on social media, where everything is recorded.
The exhibition traces her journey, from her beginnings in New York to her wartime years in Europe, including her time in Egypt and later life in London. But beyond the photographs, it is her story that is most fascinating: a woman moving fearlessly through war zones, asserting her place in a male-dominated field at a time when this was almost unimaginable. Miller’s life is what makes the show.
Laure Prouvost Presents We Felt A Star Dying at the Grand Palais
Following its successful presentation at Kraftwerk Berlin, LAS Art Foundation along with OGR Torino brought We Felt A Star Dying, the installation by the Brussels-based French artist Laure Prouvost to Paris. Combining video, sculpture, scent, sound, and light, the work is the result of two years of research with philosopher Tobias Rees and scientist Hartmut Neven, where Prouvost became interested in quantum computing and our place within a much larger universe. A recurring element in the Turner Prize-winning artist’s work, visitors must pass through a tunnel, a symbol of transition from one world to another, towards an “an alternative language for understanding the world.” On view until 26th of July.
Leonora Carrington at the Musée du Luxembourg
This first major exhibition in France devoted exclusively to British-Mexican artist Leonora Carrington brings together 126 works. Often described as a feminist, avant-garde environmentalist, and migrant, Carrington was a lifelong traveler whose work unfolded across multiple cities—from Florence to Paris, from the South of France to Spain, and finally to Mexico, where she crystallised her reputation as a cult figure aligned with surrealism, mythology, and esotericism.
The exhibition in Paris features paintings that draw deeply from her inner world, where human and animal, masculine and feminine forms merge and transform, and are shaped by metamorphosis and shifting identities. These works are an ode to her surrealist imagination and an intimate walk into her fascinating mind.
