What the new creative director debuts at Paris Fashion Week tell us

Few things in fashion are as compelling as a strong narrative, and at Paris Fashion Week, this season’s narrative thread was tethered to ideas of rebirths, re-imaginings, and proverbial new chapters. It’s a continuation of the theme that has dominated fashion headlines over the last year, with resignations and new appointments arriving on the regular, and speculation and anticipation steadily on the rise. Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga, Dior under Jonathan Anderson, Duran Lantink’s Jean Paul Gaultier ready-to-wear—the story practically writes itself. A flurry of Creative Director debuts clustered over a handful of days, each accompanied by the whispered suggestion that the fate of a storied fashion house hangs delicately in the balance. Yet, this season comes at a time when reports outline a slowdown in consumer spending and an uptick in price sensitivity, which might explain why, for all the backstage chatter and front-row frenzy, the runways in Paris spoke more to thoughtful calibration with an eye towards commercial metrics than they did rupture and rebellion.

Consider Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, who approached the House’s storied codes with enough reverence to tradition to please the puritans and held enough nerve to make clever updates that signalled a new era. His debut opened with a slouching houndstooth trouser suit that spoke directly to Chanel’s famously rigid suiting vocabulary, but with an easy silhouette that felt refreshingly contemporary. Blazy’s playful treatment of tweed—frayed at the edges, softened, even weathered—wasn’t entirely radical, but went far enough to make the familiar feel interestingly o?-axis. There was an unmistakable sense at Chanel that the House’s legacy was being furthered with the same spirit of insolence and rebellion that fuelled its founder decades earlier, in the hands of a designer who understands the shifting mores of the modern fashion landscape. The iconic 2.55 quilted bag, for example, was presented not as a pristine artifact, but scrunched and open-mouthed, as if ripped straight from the arm of a slouchy young street style scene staple; quietly monogrammed charvet shirts paid homage to Coco’s lover Boy Capel, whose clothes she would frequently borrow; and guests were presented with much-coveted invites that included a Chanel-engraved necklace which quickly won bragging rights on Instagram.

At the Tuileries, Jonathan Anderson opened his debut for Dior at dusk with an Adam Curtis film that collaged horror movie clips with archival Dior footage in the filmmaker’s signature style. Set to the tune of Lana Del Ray’s Born to Die, the film included cameos-via-clips by Marlene Dietrich and Princess Diana, and opened with the question, ‘Do you dare enter the House of Dior?’ It’s safe to say that Anderson isn’t afraid to be accused of being cinematic, but his collection pleasingly skirted the line between being faithful to his sense of offbeat sensuality, and respecting the time-honoured codes that have made Dior synonymous with sophisticated French couture for decades. There were sculptural white dresses that were at once prim and irreverent, pirate hats that winked at Galliano, and the House’s iconic Bar Jacket was cropped and perched over a pleated miniskirt for a sleekly modern take on the New Look. It’s clear that Anderson abides by the principle that one must know the rules before breaking them, because the designer pored over the Dior archives before taking the Maison’s DNA and cleverly distorting it to create a collection that read as a playful subversion of a beloved myth.

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s debut at Balenciaga, meanwhile, was billed as the biggest pivot of all—a move away from the meme-inflected chaos of Demna’s tenure and closer to the House’s roots. Piccioli’s ‘Heartbeat’ show carried the promise of a new era of sensitivity—guests received letters that emphasised the importance of human connection, and the room was perfumed with Getaria, a fragrance named after Cristobal Balenciaga’s birthplace. Models walked in impeccably cut denim and feathered opera skirts, leather corsets, trousers, and skirts with slits gave the presentation a sexy edge, and the cult favourite City bag shed its previously unkempt avatar, receiving a tasteful facelift with suede trimmings to match.

While Piccioli wasn’t shy about inaugurating a new beginning, that wasn’t to say that Balenciaga’s penchant for the viral moment was in the past—Meghan Markle made her Paris Fashion Week debut with a late-stage appearance, greeted by audible gasps from the front row and an almost immediate barrage of clips across social media.

Not all viral moments are created equal, however, as fashion week’s enfant terrible Duran Lantink found out at his opening ready-to-wear show for Jean Paul Gaultier. If Dior, Chanel, and Balenciaga were meditations on clever continuity and commercial savvy, Lantink’s collection was a staunch statement against being reasonable. Skin suits were presented with body hair, plunge dresses defied gravity and maybe even good sense, and models walked down the runway with tubular breast sculptures attached to their chests. If it was divisive in the room, it wasn’t online—the internet seemingly hated it in unison, accusing Lantink of misogyny and a fundamental disrespect for women’s bodies, with the designer citing his love for Gaultier’s combatively provocative sensibility as his inspiration. In an era where ‘wearability’ is king and commercial success a metric that Creative Directors live and die by, it’s rare to see a designer more concerned with capturing the sartorial impoliteness of its founder—whether that tactic is sustainable remains to be seen.

In a season of sparkling Parisian debutantes, the remainder spoke in a kind of chorus: Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe nodded at Jonathan Anderson’s legacy by encasing their garments in sculpted leather at Loewe while staying true to their affinity for the sculptural; Glenn Martens opened his show at Maison Margiela with an actual children’s choir that sang deliberately off-key to accompany his duct-taped slip dresses and ribboned coats; Mark Thomas at Carven presented a meditative 34 looks in a restrained, almost medicinal palette; Simone Bellotti, meanwhile, turned the volume up on the colour while honouring the restrained silhouettes that characterise Jil Sander. Each of these designers, in their own ways, negotiated a conversation with the past, but perhaps without raising their voice above a whisper.

Lantink’s antics at Jean Paul Gaultier aside, there was a notable sense of restraint among the debuts at Paris Fashion Week’s Spring/Summer showings. Amid economic volatility and a slowdown in consumer spending, the so-called ‘retail panic’ now stands to affect runways as much as it does the High Street. Seen through this light, the season’s hesitations—designers repeating, refining, and reframing familiar ideas—make unfortunate sense. This sense of unease within the industry colours every decision made, and with social media continuing to have the ability to turn a single look into a referendum on brand identity, debuts have now become opportunities to display commercial viability more than an invitation to express creative prowess.

For now, Paris offered a look at both the desires and the fears that are shaping fashion at this moment. It was a week that stood suspended between ambition and risk, reverence and rebellion, past and present, hinting at the possibilities that might yet unfold if fashion can loosen its grip on its own history long enough to secure its future. Perhaps then we will witness the revolution that has been so breathlessly forecasted.

Lead image: Chanel

All images: Courtesy the brands and Getty Images

This article first appeared in the December 2025 print issue of Harper's Bazaar India
 

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