Here’s what’s happening at Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week gathers momentum with bold silhouettes and theatrical ideas

Activelifezero.com – Paris Fashion Week has moved into high gear, bringing celebrity sightings, packed streets and a densely scheduled run of presentations across the French capital. Rihanna has been among the familiar faces drawing crowds, while fans have assembled outside venues to cheer for stars arriving at the shows.

The opening stretch set up a contrast between newer voices and fashion’s largest houses. Monday gave space to emerging talents, including the creative pair behind Matières Fécales, Swedish designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson and LVMH Prize winner Julie Kegels. By Tuesday, Dior and Saint Laurent had raised the scale with polished collections and high-energy staging, while Maison Margiela delivered another of its characteristically disruptive runway statements.

Maison Margiela embraces deliberate discomfort

Glenn Martens presented Maison Margiela’s latest show amid fading flowers, whose scent added an unusual note to the room. The collection continued his interest in questioning familiar ideas of elegance. Models appeared in knee-high boots without toes, sharply shaped blazers and shirts cut so that the chest remained exposed. Floral motifs also competed visually with the surroundings, turning the show into a study of tension rather than conventional prettiness.

That approach suited a label long associated with fashion’s stranger edges, including its instantly recognizable split-toe tabi footwear. Here, the clothes did not seek easy harmony; instead, they made the audience consider where beauty, awkwardness and wearability overlap.

Rick Owens sends an otherworldly procession over water

At Rick Owens, the sloping catwalk beginning above the Palais de Tokyo and extending across its fountain gave the models a dramatic, almost extraterrestrial entrance. The setting routinely makes the descent feel cinematic, and Thursday’s looks heightened that impression.

Owens sent out prism-like tentacle dresses constructed with tulle edging threaded through elastic cords. As the models moved, the cords bounced and shifted, making the garments seem active rather than fixed. The result was a collection that used motion as part of its design language, allowing fabric and structure to react visibly to each step.

Issey Miyake explores clothing shaped by air

Satoshi Kondo, who has led Issey Miyake womenswear since 2019, focused on a simple but expansive proposition: clothing can do more than follow the body’s outline. It can also work with the air surrounding it.

The Friday presentation opened with an interpretive dance piece lasting five minutes, choreographed by Tess Voelker. Voelker and her collaborators manipulated a huge sheet of pink fabric that expanded into a mushroom-cloud-like form when it filled with air, then collapsed as the dancers guided it back down.

That performance introduced the collection’s most literal response to Kondo’s idea. Its final three looks included two exceptionally light jackets and a nylon-yarn skirt with a drawstring hem. The construction allowed the pieces to catch a breeze in the manner of a sail, suggesting that movement and atmosphere could become part of an everyday outfit rather than a runway-only effect.

A vivid new direction at Balenciaga

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Balenciaga collection included acid-bright City Bags, enlarged cummerbunds, capes and flowers inflated with air and arranged around the neck like braces. More than a year into his role, the Italian designer’s colorful, expressive approach has marked a clear change from Demna’s frequently sardonic and satirical interpretation of the house.

One understated item made that evolution especially clear: a boxy pink shirt, close in tone to the shade strongly associated with Piccioli’s work at Valentino. From the front, it resembled an office-ready button-down, with turned-up cuffs and a chest pocket. When the model turned, however, it revealed a hood built into the garment.

The shirt-and-hoodie hybrid had appeared during Demna’s tenure as well, though in far murkier colors. Recasting the idea in rosé showed how a familiar product can communicate something entirely different when shape, palette and attitude are changed.

Chloé revisits archive pieces through Chemena Kamali’s lens

Chemena Kamali’s latest Chloé collection drew on a personal fascination with the label she has led for three years. Her ongoing research in its archives has left several past designs lodged in her imagination, including the 1972 “Noel” suit created by Karl Lagerfeld. For Thursday’s show, she reinterpreted its tailored character by layering it over frilled lingerie-style harnesses.

Another archival reference came from 1950s raincoats. That idea became the collection’s most immediately appealing group: transparent pink, smoky gray and vinyl rain macs with flowing Inverness-style capes. They were layered over trench coats and highly decorative dresses, pairing practical outerwear associations with a more romantic mood.

Kamali also offered sturdier rainwear in scarlet and classic yellow, each accompanied by an oversized sou’wester hat. The styling deliberately avoided the predictable choice of rain boots, sending the models out instead in slingback pumps. It was a reminder that fashion often treats utility less as a restriction than as material to be reimagined.

An intimate mood beneath the Louvre

Daniel Roseberry transformed a basement space at the Louvre into the setting of an affluent jazz club. Black velvet drapes, cream-and-black carpeting, chandeliers and bistro tables illuminated by lamps established an intimate backdrop for a parade of evening-focused looks.

Across the week, the strongest presentations have treated the runway as more than a place to display garments. Whether through air-catching fabric, archive reinterpretations, provocative construction or immersive scenery, designers are using clothing to pose questions about the body, movement and fantasy. With more shows still ahead, Paris remains a place where those ideas can be tested at their most ambitious scale.