Paris Haute Couture Week for Fall/Winter 2025–2026 took place from July 7–10, 2025, amid record summer heat in the City of Lights. Despite soaring temperatures (the Eiffel Tower summit even closed), the fashion world delivered high glamour and jaw-dropping creativity.
Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry launched the week in surreal style, with a collection titled ‘Back to the Future’ that melded 1940s pre-war aesthetics with echoes of an absurdist future. Described as the ‘beating heart of haute couture’, the highlight was a dress, red as crimson, that featured a mechanically beating heart encrusted with red rhinestones.
Moreover, American rapper Cardi B brought the drama when she arrived at the Petit Palais in a pearl-fringed Schiaparelli gown, and accessorized with a live black crow companion, inspired by her upcoming album. The bird squawked, flapped, and nearly lunged, perfectly matching the show’s surreal aesthetic
Iris van Herpen took her designs to a different dimension, creating a “living look” that incorporated 125 million bioluminescent algae that require 8 hours of rest and light in a calm, cool environment to thrive. The Dutch designer, when asked about the longevity of the dress, responded “We don’t know. No one knows. It’s one big pioneering process, but I don’t think this will be possible to deliver to a client yet. It’s more of a museum piece because it really needs to be taken care of every day.”
Herpen’s designs show that the Haute Couture stage is more than just an annual display for the latest in luxe fashion, it’s a space for artists to break onto new frontiers and revolutionize our very perception of what fashion is.
Chanel’s show at the Salon d’Honneur at the Grand Palais saw a return to simplicity, as envisioned by Gabrielle Chanel, with silhouettes strutting down the runway in earthly shades of ecru, ivory, brown, green, and black.
Meanwhile, Armani Privé saw the Italian designer, who couldn’t be present at the show himself as he was recuperating from an ailment, explore the different faces of the color black, from velvets that caught the light to sleek evening gowns that channeled Twiggy in the 1960s.
Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 saw the marriage of art and theatrical spectacle blossom at the altar of deep-rooted craftsmanship. From Schiaparelli’s beating heart to van Herpen’s surrealist biofashion beauties, this edition confirmed what we already knew.
