More than forty years on, the test that counts for a master of the avant-garde is one of manner, of whether the original move has hardened into formula.
Pierpaolo Piccioli took over the creative direction of Balenciaga in July 2025, and this marks his fifth collection for the house. Here, however, the language finally feels entirely his own. Piccioli chooses subtraction over accumulation, lightness without diminishing presence. While much of the season leans into ornament, he moves in the opposite direction: stripping away the excess, allowing the silhouettes to breathe, and delivering one of the clearest, most precise and distinctly counter-current statements of the season.
Anthony Vaccarello gave no interviews this season. In their place came a note, handed out with black calla lilies. "I've had this collection in mind for a long time, and finally felt that this was the right moment to bring it to light.
In Paris, in its thirtieth year, Jonny Johansson questioned why his own house keeps showing in the city at all. "I think about us sometimes when we go here [Paris]. I'm like, 'are we going here like a ship trying to bleed out creativity?'", the designer said after the show, comparing Acne Studios' presence in Paris to the Vasa, the Swedish warship that sank in 1628.
The house was founded in Antwerp in 1986 by Dries Van Noten, one of the Antwerp Six, and for close to forty years its signature was cloth sourced far away and prints people collected.
Glenn Martens arrived at Maison Margiela in January 2025, after John Galliano's ten years, and with this fourth collection he brings the house back to Paris after the season it staged in Shanghai.
On 25 September 2026, the day of the Gucci show in Milan, a digital release appeared under the name loki, titled "The Store (Original Sountrack)": two tracks, "Bosssa Nova" at 7:05 and "Tango" at 8:22, copyright held by 13788640 Records DK.
Near the top of the show there is a pale tailored look: structured pointed shoulder, cinched waist, skirt cut to match. The jacket's peplum stops in a fray, and the skirt is left the same way at the bottom.
Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027: research fashion holds the middle three days, between a house back from Shanghai and one with no runway.
A dark tunnel, with sudden flashes picking out the models one by one. In that corridor, on 25 September, The Attico showed spring/summer 2027, ten years after the label began.
