Our top-10 highlights from a pristine Paris Fashion Week
The competition for attention is fierce in Paris, where 67 brands staged presentations and shows as part of the autumn/winter 2026 line-up. We round up the 10 that caught our eye, from the end of an era at Hermès to a masterclass in colour courtesy of Japanese brand Auralee. Here’s one to tickle your fancy.
1.
IM Men
Issey Miyake’s menswear line, IM Men, presented its latest collection under the stone vaulted ceilings of Collège des Bernardins, a 13th-century school located in Paris’s 5th arrondissement. The first third of the show featured ample black coats with sculptural appeal – a calling card of the Japanese brand – that would suit a modern-day monk. Then came a series of voluminous, quilted coats rendered in an optic-white recycled polyester. The show ended on outerwear with different colour gradations achieved through artisanal dip-dyeing techniques. Clean, precise and endlessly wearable, IM Men brought a welcome sense of calm to this season’s menswear edition of Paris Fashion Week.
isseymiyake.com
2.
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton’s creative director of menswear, Pharrell Williams, presented an ode to the salaryman. While his appointment as creative director in 2023 caused some to question his lack of formal fashion training, this season’s collection was the strongest to date. Making their way around a set featuring a house made in collaboration with Japanese architecture firm Not A Hotel, models wore ties under double-breasted suits in thermo-adaptive and aluminium-bonded materials developed in the Louis Vuitton atelier. Raincoats were embellished with droplet crystals. The message was one of luxury – not quiet but earned – and confirmed that hard work does, indeed, pay off.
louisvuitton.com
3.
Auralee
How can winter dressing bring joy to the everyday, when the days are short and the weather bleak? For Japanese designer Ryota Iwai, founder of Auralee, the answer lies in relishing moments of seasonal joy – from the feeling of crisp air against the skin to slanted rays of sun cutting across a room. Or by using a delicate palette that might be more readily associated with spring, and wafty layers of contrasting textures, from shearling-lined jackets to cashmere jumpers. On the runway, models wore red-and-blue chequered flannel shirts tucked into mid-waist jeans, a cobalt-blue duffel coat paired with a purple scarf and a verdigris suit offset by a red vest. A masterclass in colour, Iwai’s quiet vision for brightening up the colder months affirmed why the designer is emerging as an industry darling in Paris.
auralee.jp
4.
Yoke
Making its Paris runway debut this season was Yoke, a Japanese brand founded by Norio Terada in 2018. Upon arrival, guests were given a small ceramic sculpture handmade by Terada himself – a nod to the French surrealist painter, sculptor and poet Jean Arp, who inspired the collection. “I want to blend art with everyday clothing,” said Terada backstage after the show. “My aim isn’t to shock but to provide comfort to the people who wear my clothes.” As such, silhouettes in a muted palette took on a sculptural quality, with jumpers tied around the waist and on the shoulders over jackets.
yoketokyo.com
5.
Ami Paris
For the house’s 15-year anniversary show, the founder of French label Ami Paris, Alexandre Mattiussi, presented a cross section of Parisian society – albeit a version that functions more as a Platonic ideal than a representation of reality. “It’s about everyday life on a Parisian street. When you sit at a café terrace, you see all kinds of people passing by,” said Mattiussi. “It’s never the same stories, characters or clothes: this diversity is fundamental for me.” From the city banker commuting to the office in a grey suit and baseball cap, to the Sorbonne student in a hoodie with wired headphones, and the fashion executive in a leopard-print coat, Ami Paris offered something for everyone.
amiparis.com
6.
Willy Chavarria
American designer Willy Chavarria brought dramatic flair to his show that was held in the Dojo de Paris in the south of the capital. Between (very much lip-synched) musical acts by the likes of Puerto Rican pop singer Lunay and Italian heartthrob Mahmood, models with pompadour hair wore ankle-length cigarette trousers, football jumpers (a collaboration with Adidas) and cocktail gowns. “I live in New York City, street level, corner apartment, big windows,” said Willy Chavarria in his show notes. “I watch people. I watch them rush to work while I make my coffee. I watch them meet on corners. […] I watch them fall in love. I watch them fall apart.” A tribute to the Latino experience in the US, in the aftermath of the political events that took place in Venezuela just a few weeks ago, the designer’s contribution to the Parisian calendar was high camp and highly enjoyable.
willychavarria.com
7.
Dries Van Noten
“In this second men’s collection, I wanted to explore the idea of coming of age,” said Julian Klausner, who became creative director of Dries Van Noten last year after the eponymous founder of the Belgian label stepped down from the role. “Not in a dramatic or romantic way but praising the joy of new beginnings. The unfolding of possibilities; the naivety and the honesty of experiments with self out of the comfort zone.” As such, models wore jackets worn at university that no longer fit but carry the weight of memories. Patterned knitwear and beanies that wouldn’t easily blend in in corporate environments represented the rites of passage that every young adult must go through.
driesvannoten.com
8.
Dior
Irish designer Jonathan Anderson presented his second menswear collection for Dior. A starting point for the collection came in the form of a blue plaque dedicated to the French couturier Paul Poiret, located just outside the hôtel particulier on the Avenue Montaigne where Christian Dior founded his maison in 1946. Through Anderson’s lens, Poiret’s affinity for a worldly opulence became refracted to suit the lifestyle of a modern-day flâneur. Polo shirts that feature embroidered epaulettes, shrunken Bar jackets and skinny jeans certainly wouldn’t suit the lifestyle of the average commuter but the lineup was an affirmation of esoteric ideals and the value of experimentation on the runway – the kind we have come to appreciate from Anderson.
dior.com
9.
Celine
“Character over costume,” said American designer Michael Rider’s show notes for his sophomore collection for Celine. The succinct declaration was one in favour of clothes intended to be worn, not paraded. In practice, this looked like tan lace-up shoes and boots, denim shirts worn over white turtlenecks and a return to slimline silhouettes on suit trousers. Models tucked small leather pouches into their belts or clutched large carryall bags close to their bodies. As in Rider’s first collection, how the pieces were styled mattered as much as the clothes themselves. With shirt collars and cuffs flicked out, khaki overshirt tied around the waist and blazers carried rather than worn, Rider succeeded in capturing the essence of the modern Parisian man, sauntering along the Left Bank.
celine.com
10.
Hermès
There was a unanimous standing ovation for Véronique Nichanian’s final collection as the artistic director of Hermès’ menswear. The French designer’s 38-year tenure came to an end with a show that felt like a victory lap, one that captured Nichanian’s signature approach to menswear: sleek, understated and endlessly wearable. The maison’s mastery of leather was on full display, with full-grain lambskin jackets, shearling coats and a single-breasted crocodile coat making their way down the runway. Reimagined pieces from the designer’s previous collections made appearances (if you can’t reminisce on your life’s work upon retirement, when can you?), including a leather jumpsuit from 1991 and a reversible lambskin blouson from 2000. It’s a testament to Nichanian’s steadfast vision that these clothes designed decades prior looked as contemporary today as they did then. As one era ends, Grace Wales Bonner prepares to take over the menswear reins at Hermès – although the transition will not be rushed. The British designer’s first collection for the house will take place in January 2027.
hermes.com
