From the soft yet empowered collection of Jonathan Anderson at Dior, to the coolest girls front row at Miu Miu, Alain Paul’s Le Labo–scented show, Duran Lantink’s sophomore outing at Jean-Paul Gaultier and the effortlessly wearable layers of UJOH, Paris Fashion Week offered plenty of inspiration for the upcoming autumn and winter months.
With so much happening this season, we focused on the designers and stories that felt as compelling as the designs themselves, and on worlds that appeared textured, tangible, and immersive. Here is our edit of the AW26 looks worth knowing, highlighting a mix of established names and emerging voices shaping what’s to come.
DIOR
We’ve all seen it online. From the wish-we-had-one invitations featuring quintessentially Parisian Luxembourg chairs to the beautiful greenhouse set, complete with a lily pond in the middle of an octagonal runway. The weather that day was perfect, and so was the collection. Although designed for Autumn–Winter, it aligned effortlessly with the city’s early spring atmosphere.
Flowers appeared throughout the collection in a variety of forms: shaped, embroidered, printed, or implied. The Bar jacket, an architectural masterpiece and a stylistic emblem of the House that sealed Christian Dior’s success in 1947, was reinterpreted in fresh ways. Recognisable for the extreme slenderness of its nipped waist and soft structure, the first three looks offered a preview.
At first glance the looks appeared identical, each paired with a ruffle-heavy tutu skirt with a long trailing hem, yet each had its own character: the first styled with a casual cardigan, the second a textured cream jacket, the third a more sophisticated and structured printed piece.
Elsewhere we saw embroidered jeans and draped peplums. The collection was playful and whimsical, unexpectedly colorful for autumn, while maintaining a cool, slouchy vibe and flattering silhouettes. Unlike Demna’s Gucci, it didn’t make me feel body-conscious watching it. Everything had a flounce to it, a sense of movement. Reinventing the everyday wardrobe, a theme fashion returns to again and again, seems, for Jonathan Anderson, almost like a walk in the park.
Photos: Dior.Com
MIU MIU
Mindful intimacy. The collection was inspired by the smallness of our bodies within a vast, chaotic world. The colors were earthy and neutral, blending perfectly with the moss-covered runway set at Paris’ Palais d’Iéna.
It was signature Miu Miu: embellished dresses paired unexpectedly with trapper hats, flared trousers with ankle openings, appliquéd shift dresses, zigzag headbands, floral earrings, appliquéd dresses, ribbon details, and a black leather pinafore dress with matching blazer that seemed to distort at the edges, as if the leather were morphing into fur.
There was something about the show’s randomness that hinted at the 1990s, but also spoke of the times. In a time when everyone is so fluent in fashion, sometimes there are simply no rules – anything can pair unexpectedly with something else.
But at the heart of it all were the iconic girls. All the coolest girls were at Miu Miu: the eternally cool Chloe Sevigny, Gillian Anderson, Lily Newmark, and models Kristen McMenamy and Gemma Ward walked the show. Lotta Volkova, of course, was there styling, and naturally, so was Miuccia. With that lineup, it’s hard to go wrong.
Photos: Miu Miu
ALAIN PAUL
For AW26, Alain Paul proves that tension can still hold tenderness. Presented at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the designer dived into the venue’s archives, studying its collections with a particular focus on 18th-century French fashion.
The references are there: defined waists, pannier structures reinterpreted through fluid crepe dresses, ruffles, bows, drapery, tapestry motifs, and touches of silk. Yet despite these historical nods, the collection doesn’t feel overly nostalgic. Instead, it feels very much of the now, aligned with Paul’s own fascination with dance, a consistent theme in his work.
Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure de Danse de Marseille, movement has been a core principle for the label. So despite the sculptural construction throughout the collection, everything flows, everything feels effortless.
One look in particular stood out: a jacquard cardigan layered over a wool-cashmere sweater, finished with the signature Alain Paul bolero sleeve and paired with a soft cream skirt tied in a bow at the front.
The final look, created in collaboration with Cécile Feilchenfeldt (a Loewe Foundation Craft Prize finalist and renowned for her knitting), reinterpreted le corps de baleine in knitwear and metal boning to feel more liberating rather than confining. The collection is called Répertoire: structured, polished, poised to perform.
Photos: Alain Paul
JEAN-PAUL GAUTIER
Duran Lantink is known for his extreme designs and sculptural silhouettes, and while provocation remains at the heart of this highly anticipated collection – from tire chokers and corset-body hybrid jackets to a sculptural burgundy velvet gown – it blended seamlessly with iconic Jean-Paul Gautier signatures.
For example, the printed bodysuit now featured a wooden mannequin figure of a woman, inspired by the A/W 2004 Les Marionnettes collection, and perhaps echoing a toned-down version of his debut’s nude bodies.
The entire collection felt both elegant and retro-futuristic, as though it belonged to a film or a parallel world populated with its own characters: marionettes, dark cowboys, detectives or bankers in unusually elevated suits and ties, misfits — each figure portraying a strong visual narrative even without reading the show notes.
The world-building was noticeable, creating the kind of fantastical universe you want to be part of. This is the power of Lantink’s storytelling through design.
UJOH
Japanese designer Mitsuru Nishizaki, founder of Ujoh and former pattern cutter for Yohji Yamamoto, is known for his focus on high-quality tailoring. For this collection, like Miu Miu, there was a subtle nod to the 1990s.
The show carried a grungy, rugged energy that Nishizaki described with a single word: antithesis. He believes there is elegance in disobedience: in knowing what you should do, but choosing the opposite.
That philosophy shaped the collection, with pieces combining unexpected fabrics and details. A jacket paired faux fur with faux suede, zippers sliced across coats in unusual places, and a houndstooth vest appeared over metallic plaid.
At the same time, the collection felt skeletal in structure, each piece designed to stand alone or combine effortlessly with others, almost like a capsule wardrobe.
This season, even with a world moving fast and overconsumption rampant, Nishizaki stays true to Ujoh’s DNA: craftsmanship and working by hand. Select woven fabrics were produced on a 1960s Schoeffer machine, five times slower than modern looms, underscoring the collection’s dedication to care, detail, and patience.
Photos: Valeria Sarto