The Kurator's Paris Fashion Week AW26 highlights 

Fashion month ended in Paris with the full drama of an Olympic finale: a stadium of tweed, leather, silk, and tulle, each runway a medal-winning performance, each model a competitor by sheer presence. It was a month of drool-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-it, get-your-credit-card-out-now collections - moments that make you want to touch, wear, and live in every look.

Here are some of our favourite highlights of the week:

Nicolas Ghesquière’s Super Nature felt as if clothes had grown from the earth itself. Silhouettes responded to wind, rain, and sun; animalier motifs appeared in canvas and denim; leather flowers and mineral-like buttons seemed plucked from a secret garden; heels evoked antlers, resins mirrored flora. Each look was wildly inventive yet deeply rooted, impossible to ignore.

In the Louvre’s Cour Carrée, the collection became a living painting, part pastoral, part futuristic allegory. The Noé bag, restored to its 1932 proportions, was not nostalgia but a portable curiosity, a vessel for memory and exploration - Louis Vuitton at its most hard to forget, beautiful, and strange.

Miuccia Prada’s Mindful Intimacy puts the body at the centre of thought. Cotton poplin, washed double cashmere, and embroidered tulle embraced wearers with tenderness that felt understood, warm, and strangely powerful. Bows, shearling linings, and hats acted as  armour, drawing attention effortlessly in a 'It girl' manner.

The forested palazzo set mirrored the collection: intimacy within expansiveness, delicacy as strength. Casting from Gillian Anderson to Chloë Sevigny emphasised that presence can command without flamboyance, and the ever-lasting relationship between fashion and film. 

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Winter 26 collection explored light, shadow, and the poetry of form. Ombré sneakers, reflective textiles, and draped volumes caught movement as if frozen in chiaroscuro. Collars framed faces like miniature portraits; skirts and trousers articulated gesture with unexpected elegance and tension.

Multigenerational models shared the runway, proving that fashion can be simultaneously communal and intensely personal. 

Schiaparelli’s The Sphinx returned to playfulness sharpened by exquisite craftsmanship. Knitwear floated like thought, spiral-cut silk plissé conveyed solidity without weight, and leather-effect sheaths toyed with optical illusion. Keyholes, measuring tapes, and fauna-inspired hardware appeared in unexpected places - a hand-hammered 24k gold plaque, resin animals, and cast-bronze egret feet - each a witty, precise nod to Elsa’s original codes. Garments combined stretch-jersey second-skin tops with airy skirts trimmed in paillettes, liquid plissé silk-blend coated in clear lamination, and trompe-l’œil textures, creating clothes that surprise, provoke curiosity, and feel irresistibly alive.

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez turned LOEWE into a laboratory of curiosity and invention. Collaborations with Cosima von Bonin transformed the runway into a conversation across disciplines, where sculpture met garment, humour met craft, and play became intriguing and tangible. Clothes radiated energy and tactile allure. You will find yourself wanting to wear a lot of textured pieces post-show.

At the Jardin des Tuileries, Jonathan Anderson transformed walking into an act of choreography and observation. Pleats caught light like ripples across the Grande Allée; hems and jackets echoed the formal geometry of the parterres; colour flickered in dialogue with statues and fountains. The garden was not backdrop but co-creator: petals bloomed in cold air, shadows fractured under stone pathways, and every step became a subtle performance of gesture, scale, and attention. Dior’s clothes responded to the movement of bodies, the angle of the sun, and the architecture of nature, turning the act of passing through a park into something so special.

Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel moved with fluid energy and magnetic poise. Tweeds shimmered with flecks of metallic thread, plissé skirts fanned and twisted with each step, and elongated jackets fell with natural grace that suggested both control and freedom. Quilted bags, interlaced chains, and sculpted buttons punctuated the looks like small bursts of invention. Every gesture, from a flick of a skirt to the tilt of a bag, revealed how cloth can respond to the body, the air, and the moment itself. Models carried the collection with presence and command, showing that Chanel’s power lies in movement, texture, and the unexpected life in every detail.