Paris Haute Couture Week Fall/Winter 2026–27 saw designers mining their maisons' archives, revisiting founders' personal histories and using exceptional craft to tell evocative stories.
For his sophomore haute couture collection for Chanel, for instance, Matthieu Blazy transformed the runway into a fantasy garden, with each look unfolding like a fairytale drawn from the storybooks that lined Gabrielle Chanel's apartment library. It was a vivid interplay of fiction and function. From Jack and the Beanstalk to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the collection married whimsical narratives with the rigour of couture cut and construction, embracing both traditional and contemporary ways of seeing and making.
Take the classic Chanel suit, for example. It was crafted in guipure lace to evoke magic beanstalks, its intricate texture offset by panels of weightless silk mousseline that created an illusion of lightness and transparency.
At Dior, Jonathan Anderson found his couture language in the work of American sculptor Lynda Benglis. Many of Benglis' sculptures begin as flat, two-dimensional materials before being transformed through knotting, pleating and moulding into dynamic three-dimensional forms—a process that mirrors couture itself, where fabric acquires sculptural presence on the body.
Anderson translated this dialogue into garments defined by hand-plissé, intricate knotting and fluid draping, while the artist's distinctive surfaces were reimagined in metallic, iridescent, encrusted and paper-like textiles. Even the illusion of chicken wire was rendered in soft silver netting, showcasing the ateliers' technical virtuosity.
Benglis' long association with Ahmedabad, Gujarat, also informed the collection. Her Peacock series, begun in the late 1970s after time spent at the Sarabhai family estate, inspired vivid floral embroideries and intricate beaded embellishments. Anderson's research into the artist's practice also led him to India's rich textile traditions, particularly 18th-century chintz. These hand-painted and block-printed cottons, which profoundly shaped European decorative arts, found new life in antique chintz and indienne fragments sourced from specialist dealers and applied to the Petit Dîner and Mini Lady Dior bags.
While Rahul Mishra drew on Indian temple iconography, Manish Malhotra turned inward. His debut couture presentation, Maa, explored the enduring bond between a mother and child. His collection progressed from sculptural, protective silhouettes to fluid draped forms, tracing a journey from creation and nurture to identity and legacy. Intricate vintage salli work, zardozi and painstaking hand embroidery culminated in over-th-top gowns, dresses and long jackets.
Here are some of the key trends that emerged:
Goddess dressing
Mishra has long crafted mythology-infused couture that exists somewhere between fashion and wearable art. This season, the couturier turned to India's sacred stone carvings, drawing inspiration from the cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora as well as the sculptural traditions of Gandhara. Gods, goddesses and sensual apsaras—the celestial dancers immortalised in stone—were painstakingly translated into silk thread through intricate embroidery. Corseted bodices adorned with garlands of natural stone beads evoked the grandeur of ancient temple sculptures, transforming India's artistic heritage into contemporary couture.
Elsewhere, goddess dressing emerged as one of couture week's defining narratives. At Dior, Anderson closed his debut with a sweeping white bridal gown whose dramatic train channelled classical femininity. Chanel embraced the mood through a series of one-shouldered, appliquéd dresses, while Pierpaolo Piccioli's first couture outing for Balenciaga featured floor-grazing capes and sculptural trains. At Armani Privé and Manish Malhotra, richly beaded, red carpet-ready gowns reinforced couture's renewed fascination with regal, unapologetically feminine silhouettes.
Drama through 3D textures
Material innovation emerged as another defining thread of the season. At Schiaparelli, surrealism took on a tactile dimension through cast jackets and bustiers moulded in milky, jelly-like silicone. A black latex jacket unfurled into inflatable, squid-like tentacles, while latex gills adorned a transparent top and a translucent rubber skirt, edged with delicate petal embroidery, blurred the line between the organic and the synthetic.
Iris van Herpen, meanwhile, pushed the boundaries of couture with her Sonic Starquakes collection. Inspired by the explosive energy of supernovae, her ethereal "plasma" dresses appeared streaked with living bolts of lightning. To create the effect, the garments were electrically charged before being cryogenically preserved, trapping billions of electrons within the fabric and transforming science into spectacle.
Elsewhere, texture became a storytelling device. Dior explored the sculptural possibilities of pleating, while Chanel and Balenciaga punctuated their collections with tactile feathers that added movement and softness to sharply constructed silhouettes.
Unexpected materiality
At Schiaparelli, artistic director Daniel Roseberry pushed couture into a different territory by experimenting with materials that mimic human skin. Working with a Paris-based atelier known for creating hyperrealistic infant prosthetics for film, Roseberry repurposed medical-grade silicone into a couture textile.
Poured into thin sheets that resembled double-faced satin, the material was moulded into sculptural boleros, rigid corsets and gleaming anatomical forms that clung to the body like a second skin. One striking look transformed its wearer into an otherworldly, pale crustacean, underscoring Roseberry's fascination with the blurred boundaries between the human, the natural and the surreal.
Iris van Herpen, meanwhile, continued to redefine the limits of couture, becoming the first designer to integrate plasma into a haute couture collection. The result was garments that fused cutting-edge science with craftsmanship, embodying the house's long-standing dialogue between technology, nature and fashion.
Quirky accessories
Playful accessories emerged as some of couture week's most memorable conversation starters. At Chanel, Blazy infused the house's accessories with fairytale whimsy. There were Jack and the Beanstalk-inspired heels, where Chanel's signature pearls became magic beans, a bean-shaped handbag, and a silver hen clutch complete with a dangling golden egg. Gold egg heels and delicate butterfly pumps injected a sense of fantasy into the collection, proving that couture's most covetable pieces are often its most imaginative.
At Dior, Jonathan Anderson drew instead from the natural world. Armadillo-shaped bags, blooming cactus motifs and floral minaudières paid tribute to Christian Dior's enduring love of gardens, extending the collection's dialogue between art, nature and craftsmanship into the realm of accessories.