Published
October 5, 2025
A Sunday in halftones at Paris Fashion Week: a derailed debut at Jean-Paul Gaultier; smart merchandising at Celine; fine art elegantly in Akris; and the same as always, the same from Alessandro Michele at Valentino.
Jean-Paul Gaultier: train crash in Jacques Chirac’s basement
Too many debut designers played it safe this season, respecting the brand’s codes and DNA. Duran Lantink tried to break the playbook at Gaultier’s house and the result was an absolute fashion disaster.
He certainly played with many of Gaultier’s icons, but always on his own cheeky and silly terms. Giving a few examples among many: Jean-Paul’s innovative printing on chiffon became body stockings with exact prints of the body, but with stains and blood included. As they say in New York, “he hid.”
Or the opening look that referenced Madonna’s legendary silver conical bra but instead became an alien doll with squashed orange breasts. Sad.
Or JPG’s love for a blue and white target, which in Lantink’s hand became an absurd molded leotard worthy of a joint laboratory between the Teletubbies and the Target department.
The signs were bad when you entered the place. An 80 meter dark corridor where one sat in front of the heating and sewage pipes of the Jacque Chirac Museum. It’s hard to imagine how anyone thought a basement could be a suitable setting for a Gaultier show, a brand known for its optimism, humor and fearless irreverence.
Duran, born in Holland, tried a whole series of athletic looks, playing with the beautiful aesthetics of Jean-Paul’s body. The stranger worked, almost. Barely.
One entered and exited the space, passing through a faux disco bar filled with empty bottles, dirty glasses, and empty cocktails. Again, a sad entry into a new era at Gaultier. And, after this absurd spectacle, a symbol that – for the moment – the party is over at Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Celine: sunny days, smart merchandising
The sun shone on the Celine show on Sunday and appears to be shining on the house, where creative director Michael Rider is a hit after just two quick collections.
Fir, elegant and colorful and packed with commercial successes, seemed like the most shopper-friendly collection in Paris.
Celine’s business is said to have cooled after the departure of Rider’s acclaimed predecessor Hedi Slimane, but this spring/summer 2026 collection surely contained plenty of consumer goodness. It almost seemed as if the brand didn’t need a marketer, so clear and focused was the message.
Presented outside on a beautiful tree-lined path in the Parc de Saint Cloud, it created a moment of grace in the midst of the most hectic Paris Fashion Week in living memory, with a debut designer show at the biggest houses every day.
Rider’s tailoring was impeccable, pairing sharp-shouldered ’80s jackets with Spanish-style peg-leg pants that flared slightly at the ankle for both men and women in a co-ed show.
Her cocktail dresses were short, flared and made of pop-art flowers. It covered blouses with sculptural delicacy, almost like a toga.
Once again, her time at Ralph Lauren was evident in a bright yellow cashmere sweater with a rider and carriage design by Celine.
As in his debut, he gave the guests a silk scarf, and the scarves were the leitmotiv of the show. Worn as handkerchiefs, bracelets and ties… or by distinguished writers in Harry’s Bar upstairs, and not in the basement.
Footwear flourished, from boxing boots with vertical Celine logos or pointy loafers with double crocodile CC logos, to minimalist cowboy boots.
These are two home runs for Celine’s American designer, although the collection needed a little more Parisian soul and pizzazz.
Akris: Ars longa, vita brevis
It’s always good to see a collection from Akris, a brand dedicated to dressing women, not decorating them.
Continually renewed by the inspiration of fine art, this season Akris creative director Albert Kriemler evoked memories of the great painter Leon Polk Smith.
Famous for his geometrically oriented abstract paintings (although it may seem like a contradiction), Smith’s images certainly inspired some great clothing. Where its curved shapes and brilliant minimalism merged into a glorious final flourish of abstraction of unexpected ingenuity.
Presented before a giant reproduction of one of Smith’s panels in the center of a curved walkway inside the Palais de Tokyo, the cast quickly paraded. The Akris customer, of course, is a busy girl, an overachieving professional always on the go, and these clothes were designed for an active life.
Opening with vermilion wool suit: capri pants combined with long jacket cut with polygonal panels; or white cotton skirts with bright orange polygonal patches or a beautiful panama silk organza parka with matching mini skirt.
Albert cut second-skin leather doublets or shirt jackets in lamb nappa and paired them with denim capri pants, the kind of look that would flatter any member of the audience. Or most women, because even if Akris is out of many women’s price range, it still represents one of the most powerful fashion brands on the planet over the past two decades. That’s not an exaggeration.
Valentino: Desire among the darkness
Alessandro Michele referenced Pier Paolo Pasolini’s student days during World War II in his last show, in a collection held in an all-black tent that shook during the show as if it were being bombed. Staged under a low ceiling with twisted fluorescent lights suggesting a night bombing or a Berlin nightclub. Not exactly places one associates with a Valentino girl, n’est-ce pas? But there you have it.
Altogether, the collection itself can only be described as a Michele classic. A mix of retro glamor with high-waisted skirts and knee slits, combined with all types of chiffon blouses with pointed shoulders. The collars always came with bows and ties.
She impressed in a violet dress coat that appeared to be finished with architectural moldings and exquisitely draped jacquard dresses.
For the evening, Alessandro played with the new refinement of the season: sexy and largely transparent lace stockings and columns, to better reveal the lingerie.
At a mixed show, boys walked around in remarkably well-tailored double-breasted blazers, pressed as if they had just been taken out of a suitcase. And both sexes were able to wear garments with gold metallic embroidery: boleros for the girls, shorts and even bowling shoes for the boys.
In all, the cast wore clothes that looked ready for a party. However, everyone walked dejectedly at the end, with an orchestral soundtrack worthy of a funeral.
In his program, Alessandro made reference to Pasolini’s erotic letter from 1941 and a 1975 essay that warned about the resurgence of fascism not through violence but through “the conformism that devastated values, souls and languages, a new night so impenetrable that it completely devours differences and the luminous dances of fireflies searching for love.”
Michele is to be applauded for raising the specter of resurgence of fascism, especially given the scourge of ICE and attacks on free speech in the United States. We are not far from a great democracy falling into modern fascism. But as a fashion statement, it was a repetitive revival of clothes that seemed too, too familiar.
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