PARIS FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2026: DAY 6
editors ELIANA CASA, MAREK BARTEK, MARIA MOTA and MARIE-PAULINE CESARI
ALAÏA
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images ALAÏA via vogue.com
At Alaïa, Pieter Mulier turned introspection into a mesmerising experience. “In the world that we live in now… I wanted you guys to feel you were in a cocoon for 10 minutes—this thing of an absolute dream—but still with a tension,” he shared backstage, adding, “I wanted clothes that cry,” — and somehow, they did. The space itself shimmered like a dream: faces projected across the floor and ceiling, shifting into body scans that pulsed in rhythm with the models’ steps. The effect was hypnotic. Not showy but intimate. It was truly a digital spectacle framing what was a deeply emotional collection.
It opened with simplicity: stark cotton tunics cut close to the body, a nod to an archival coat Azzedine once made for himself. Reverent but not nostalgic, modern in its modesty, they were styled with stockings from the tops of which cascaded silk fringes. What followed traced the line between sensuality and sculpture: seamless silk knits hugging the frame like liquid architecture; hybrids of armless top-leggings or open sided skirt-trousers. If Mulier’s early Alaïa was about power and body-con, this felt gentler, grown-up, and human. Coats unfolded into fluid, almost weightless forms; satin gowns at the end carried a whisper of the 18th century, rendered with startling precision.
More than a return to form, this was a reckoning. A reminder that beauty and vulnerability can coexist. Mulier doesn’t design for virality or shock. He builds atmospheres, emotions, entire worlds of touch and tension. In a moment when so much of fashion feels engineered for clicks, Alaïa still feels handcrafted — not just in technique, but in spirit.
HERMÈS
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images HERMÈS provided by the brand, photographed by FILIPPO FIOR
Hermès headed south this season, to the wild plains of Camargue, where horses, bulls, and wind rule over elegance. “I wanted to give a spirit of freedom, of letting go, of bohemianism,” said Nadège Vanhée backstage, reimagining the equestrian codes of Hermès through a freer, more sensual lens.
Corsetry became her language of liberation: not lace and boning, but leather harnesses styled over bandeaus, shirts, and quilted silk-twill jackets in desert tones of sand, rust, and olive. The effect was both pragmatic and erotic — the horsewoman meets the city flâneur. Quilting, borrowed from the structure of a saddle, appeared across everything from pencil skirts to impeccable leather coats. There was skin, too — not to be paraded but rather used as texture. “I wanted the language of skin in the collection,” Vanhée said. Between the earthy palette, supple materials, and a new saddlebag to anchor it all, Hermès felt less tamed luxury, more elegant escape.
COMME DES GARÇONS
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images COMME DES GARÇONS via vogue.com
“Believe in the positiveness and the value that can be born from the damaging of perfect things,” wrote Rei Kawakubo in her show notes — a line that could only make sense once you’d seen the collection. This was Comme des Garçons at its most raw and resolute: sculptural silhouettes, layered, frayed, and padded into strange, beautiful disarray. Kawakubo took perfection apart, both literally and conceptually. Undyed cotton shells opened like seed pods, revealing flashes of scarlet satin; coarse canvas was gathered into collapsing ruffles; white brocade and lace were interweaved with jute and horsehair. The effect was one of controlled destruction. Beauty born from distortion.
Models moved through silence, their pillow-like forms topped with distorted wigs, their clothes dense with meaning. It was less about fashion as wear, more as meditation on fragility, resistance, and the poetry of imperfection. Comme des Garçons, in its truest, most human form.
BALENCIAGA
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images BALENCIAGA provided by the brand
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s debut at Balenciaga felt like a homecoming and a rebirth all at once. Showing inside the house’s historic headquarters, the designer traded Valentino’s romanticism for something more refined — elegance stripped to essence. His point of departure? Cristóbal Balenciaga’s 1957 Sack Dress, whose radical simplicity once freed women from Dior’s corseted New Look. “He put the human at the centre,” Piccioli said. “Body, fabric, air.”
That philosophy translated into silhouettes that floated rather than fitted. The opening look — a long black V-neck gown paired with white gloves and bat-like sunglasses — set the tone: reverent yet defiant. Volume took new forms in sculptural balloon skirts, cocoon coat in absinthe green, and trapeze dress that spiralled into asymmetric hems. Crimson, magenta and chartreuse pulsed like emotion itself, proving Piccioli hasn’t abandoned beauty; he’s simply recalibrated it.
There were nods to Balenciaga’s lineage too: conceptual riding hats recalling Ghesquière, a reimagined tunic split at the neck, and tailoring softened to near-weightlessness. Even the everyday turned poetic — chinos cut with couture precision, an oversized shirt trailing into a train. Where Demna once courted irony, Piccioli offered sincerity. His Balenciaga is one of optimism, grace, and human scale, reminding us that simplicity, when done with right, can feel radical again.