PARIS FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2026: DAY 1
editors ELIANA CASA, MAREK BARTEK, MARIA MOTA and MARIE-PAULINE
HODAKOVA
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images HODAKOVA via vogue.com
Hodakova opened spring with a new step forward. No, literally. Ellen Hodakova Larsson debuted shoes for the first time, and, of course, they were fashioned from discarded leather with rounded toe caps set on curved wooden Louis heels. Just like the shoes, the entire collection was defined by contrasts: hard and soft, playful and severe. Vintage bed linens were reshaped into softly rounded dresses, and umbrella skeletons were reborn as spiky structures. Pointed busts appeared by way of sharp seams or even a handbag reimagined as a bra. “Reincarnation is a topic that is definitely what I want Hodakova to be,” Larsson explained, cementing her role as fashion’s patron saint of all that’s normally discarded.
Hodakova’s fashion is slow, deliberate and radical, and her craftsmanship striking. A white cotton dress was hand-pleated with painstaking care and silver and black gowns shimmered under the lights.Their surfaces embroidered with hundreds of stitched zipper heads, one of them being a reference to Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene. For the finale, Larsson collaborated with Joar Nilsson to translate the age-old technique of Swedish thatching into sculptural garments, reminding us that she’s just as comfortable in the worlds of art and architecture as she is in fashion.
BURÇ AKYOL
review VERONICA TLAPANCO SZABÓ
all images BURÇ AKYOL provided by the brand
Burç Akyol, the French couturier of Turkish descent, has always carried a story stitched into his seams. Introduced to tailoring as a child by his father, this season, his gaze turned to the Sulukule neighbourhood of Istanbul, a community, whose dances, singing, and exuberant dress once filled the streets with bold vitality. This energy carries out to this collection in the harmonies of colour, tailored jackets atop fabric tied at the hips, full skirts, in a palette at once humble and elevated. The rose (Gül) recurred throughout, a symbol in the East of resistance and rebellion. Roses appeared tied at the waist in satin blush and silken fuchsia, printed into the floor motifs, and murmured into sheer pleats. Other looks stayed closer to classic tailoring with gold-accents and padded shoulders. His silhouettes also mingled with rich sheens and airy transparency, complexity and layering became treasures here, precious at a time when the world seems to flatten. Akyol dismisses seasonality as irrelevant, instead, his practice feels like tending a garden of roses, cultivating, re-styling, cherishing—so the show bloomed.
SAINT LAURENT
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images SAINT LAURENT provided by the brand
What a better way to finish off the first day of Paris Fashion Week than with the Saint Laurent show, staged at the Eiffel Tower. This season Anthony Vaccarello reminds us that aesthetics are a language on their own, and that the Saint Laurent woman is fluent in all of them. She is a heroine, a sex symbol and a princess all at once, on her own terms.
The show opened with sharp tailoring. Leather jackets with defined shoulders, pencil skirts, and crisp pussy-bow blouses blown up to dramatic proportions carried a sense of power dressing and provocativeness. In the notes, Vaccarello mentioned Robert Mapplethorpe as an inspiration for the first chapter of the collection. Second part was dedicated to variations of knee-length nylon coats and dresses. They were clingy, translucent, and deliberately styled with nothing beneath. Belts from the trench coats were cinched not at the waist but wrapped high around the neck, transforming into chokers with their buckles as pendants. The finale softened the mood with billowing gowns in jewel-coloured nylon, rippling in the night air. Tough, romantic and defiant. This is Saint Laurent.