After the debuts, Paris Fashion Week gets down to business

Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 closed on October 6 with a commercial message. One year after a wave of creative director debuts, the biggest houses traded spectacle for clothes built to sell, in lighter fabrics and convertible pieces. The week ran to 68 runway shows on the official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. The creative reset has now reached the shop floor, where second-year designers will be judged on what sells. Investors have already delivered a verdict. LVMH shares have fallen 40% this year, market data showed on October 8, and L’Oréal overtook the group as France’s most valuable listed company on September 15. In that market, desirability has to be rebuilt through product. Lightness ran through the week, in sheer fabrics and softer construction that let clothes move with the body. Dior and Chanel, each a year on from its designer’s womenswear debut, made the strongest case. Dior At Dior, the invitation was a pair of “wenwan” (文玩) walnuts in a gray, velvet-lined box, which creative director Jonathan Anderson used as a metaphor for patience. Rolling walnuts in the palm is a centuries-old Chinese practice; over years of handling the shells develop a smooth patina, and well-aged pairs become collectibles. The set kept to the theme. Models walked through a white greenhouse in the Jardin des Tuileries, past camphor trees wrapped in mist, a scene that recalled a Chinese “shanshui” (山水, mountain and water) ink landscape. The clothes followed the show notes’ line, “with lightness comes movement.” Pinstripes and Prince of Wales checks were cut featherweight, and cropped jackets and miniskirts were covered in hand-cut petals. Tailoring that once signaled Dior’s structure now floated, romantic without being heavy. One year in, the results are moving in Anderson’s favor. Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls LVMH, said in its first-half results on July 27 that Christian Dior Couture “saw accelerating growth with the excellent start for Jonathan Anderson’s first designs.” Group revenue for the period fell 3% on a reported basis to 38.6 billion euros ($45.2 billion) and rose 2% organically. Chanel Chanel showed under the glass roof of the Grand Palais a year after artistic director Matthieu Blazy’s first show for the house, with 95 illuminated birds suspended overhead. The birds echoed his reading of Gabrielle Chanel, whose every step, he wrote in the show notes, “led to her being free, like a bird.” “You can finally throw on a Chanel jacket and head out the door without holding yourself stiffly,” said Chrison (克里森), a fashion content creator with more than 10 million followers on Weibo. Sales suggest the approach is working. Chanel’s comparable revenue rose about 16% in the first half of 2026, Bloomberg News reported on August 4, citing a person familiar with the company’s performance; Chanel declined to comment. Blazy’s first collection, with its reworked flap bags and tweed jackets, reached stores in March. In May the company reported 2025 revenue up 2% on a comparable basis to $19.3 billion, after a 4.3% decline in 2024. “The recruitment of new clients — who hadn’t previously bought Chanel — has been phenomenal,” Simon Longland, director of fashion buying at Harrods, told Reuters that month. Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton closed the week on the same note in a different style. Beneath a futuristic set of suspended vehicles in the Cour Carrée of the Louvre, women’s artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière built a collection titled “Ergonomie” around the body in motion. Sheer organza midi dresses and second-skin knitted jersey replaced the armorlike volumes that have defined much of his nearly 13 years at the house. Vibrant color and wearability formed the season’s second theme. Color was a signal from houses that need to be noticed; wearability was the common ground. Loewe Loewe’s co-creative directors, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, have established themselves as colorists three collections in, giving the house a design language of its own. This season crossed the New England sportswear of McCollough’s school years with Spanish Baroque references, in sunshine yellow, cobalt, coral, tangerine, emerald and ochre. That outdoor, sporty palette has become the new Loewe’s signature. The designers framed the collection in their notes as “a proposition for dressing,” asking how the new Loewe language becomes a wardrobe. Balenciaga Balenciaga returned to sheer, lightweight fabrics and to the textile mastery the house is known for, and the result felt more human and comfortable. In his third ready-to-wear collection for the house, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli worked in coral, orange, pink, cream and white, and brought couture construction to shirts and leather jackets. He titled it “Les Coraux de la Liberté” (The Corals of Freedom), after a textile sculpture by French artist Aude Franjou that stood at the center of the set. It was the first show in which his own voice fully came through, after two seasons spent balancing his romanticism against the house’s archive and the provocation of his predecessor, Demna. The tone was sober, and the clothes were versatile. Hermès Hermès took a practical brief of its own. Nadège Vanhée, the house’s artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear, built the collection around pieces that change with the wearer’s day: a coat that converts into a jacket or vest, and long dresses and skirts that zip up to a midi or mini. After last year’s wave of debuts, this calendar was steadier. Drew Henry at Courrèges and Kai Nesselrath at Carven showed their first collections, while Valentino, Maison Margiela and Casablanca were among the labels returning to Paris. Saint Laurent Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent’s creative director, marked 10 years at the house with a collection dominated by gold, shown at the Trocadéro fountain. Liquid lamé, brocade and gold leather revisited the house’s sahariennes, or safari jackets, and its trench coats, in what the show notes called the golden age of Saint Laurent reimagined for the present. It read as a summary of the codes he has built over a decade, sharp shoulders and body-conscious evening wear among them. Simon Longland of Harrods said the show was “arguably a true fashion moment,” FashionNetwork reported. Carven Carven, the French house owned since 2018 by ICCF Group, the parent of Chinese label Icicle, showed the first collection by design director Kai Nesselrath, who spent nearly a decade at Saint Laurent, latterly as head womenswear designer. It was an accessible debut of polished, unfussy cotton and silk pieces women can wear every day, and the season’s wearability argument in its plainest form. “A new generation’s perspective on the world feels especially important today,” Shawna Tao (陶晓马), Carven’s CEO, said in a statement announcing his appointment in June. Chinese brands took different routes into Paris Fashion Week this season. The labels that stood out had a clear creative vision and kept a distinctly Chinese identity while building credibility in Paris. Icicle Icicle showed a softer, brighter collection, with pastel accents and trench coats recut as dresses, its last before the debut of Sabato De Sarno. The former Gucci creative director was named to the same role at Icicle in September and will show his first collection for Fall/Winter 2027. The appointment takes Chinese fashion capital a step further. Having bought Carven in 2018, ICCF Group has now hired one of Europe’s most closely watched designers, months after Kering, Gucci’s owner, took a minority stake in the group in April. Uma Wang and Ruohan Uma Wang (王汁) and Ruohan, the label of designer Nie Ruohan (聂若涵), held to the restrained, fabric-led minimalism that has built their reputations with international buyers. Both offered an intellectual alternative to “quiet luxury” in clothes that were sculptural yet light and shaped by deliberate imperfection. Like the European houses, they let the clothes make the argument. Songmont Songmont (山下有松) again chose a static exhibition over a runway show. In its third consecutive year in Paris during fashion week, the bag brand staged “Song of Mont” (远山有声) around an installation modeled on the ancient pagodas of Shanxi, its home province. The six bag collections on show draw on Tang dynasty architecture, Song dynasty ceramics and Silk Road camel bags. While brands across the city competed to be seen, Songmont kept its focus on Chinese cultural references. This season put desirability ahead of bold statements. The real contest was over who could make people want the product again; having the newest designer was not enough. Chanel’s 83 looks, a range Chrison read as an attempt to cover every woman’s wardrobe, made that case most directly. Each of the week’s themes served that aim. With the shows over, the next test is on the shop floor, where the question is which clothes people buy to wear. That matters most in China, where major houses must win over shoppers who are turning away from logo-driven purchases with the appeal of the products themselves. An early signal may come on May 14, 2027, when Anderson takes Dior’s Cruise 2028 collection to Shanghai. It will be his first major runway show in Asia for the house, and a chance to see whether wearability resonates with Chinese luxury shoppers.

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After the debuts, Paris Fashion Week gets down to business