Paris Fashion Week AW26 was the unofficial season of the sophomore. Last September, an inordinate number of designers made their debuts across numerous different brands, which resulted in an historic PFW for everyone involved. It makes sense, then, that this season would be all about the follow-up show, with designers proving if they could keep pace with the hype of their glitzy debuts, and consolidate their creative visions into something lasting. Luckily, designers like Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier, and Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe came true on the promise of their first seasons, arriving back on the scene with tons of flair.
Speaking of flair, though – the catwalk wasn’t the only space where creativity continued to flourish. As always, the guests at PFW were on hand to demonstrate that a thriving fashion industry is nothing without its audience, and the runways can’t function without pulling from the streets. Outside the shows this season, there were suggestive cutout t-shirts (glory hole, anyone?), underwear stacked over button downs, plus one outfit made entirely from ginger wigs. At the Rick Owens show, the designer’s usual cabal of distinctive die-hards came together en masse, while Vivienne Westwood’s fashion punks were head and shoulders above the rest in their towering Gillie platforms. Whether it was elegant cummerbunds wrapped round waists, or battered Balenciaga bags spray painted neon, this season’s showgoers provd that, even after all this time, there’s still something new to be found in Paris Fashion Week’s street style.
For all those looks and more, scroll through the gallery above