One of the most exciting weeks in the fashion calendar is back. Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week returned this week with the latest collections for Couture Fall 2026. It is where we see the best craftsmanship and artistic capability the fashion industry has to offer as well as some of the wackiest.
Read on for the highlights of Couture Fashion Week Fall 2026.
Elie Saab
Images Courtesy of Elie Saab
Titled ‘The Ball of Untamed Dreams’, the Fall Winter 2026 collection by Elie Saab is inspired by a world of surreal metamorphosis, where the extravagant attire reflects the wearer’s wildest fantasies. Each look is as opulent as the rest: a gown of opaline organza strewn with pearls, a sensuous fishtail of magenta silk blooms, like a Dalí rose. Flowing goddess dresses in pastel shades show Elie Saab’s signature elegance while black winged column dresses channel a fiery strength. Corsets are embellished, trains are dramatic, and tuxedos are sharply cut. The couture bride wears a bodice of molten iridescence, with a shimmering skirt in layers of champagne.
Jean Paul Gaultier
Images Courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier
Duran Lantink continues to push the limits of both feminine and masculine silhouettes for Jean Paul Gaultier Couture. ̏I prefer to interrogate the silhouette rather than the body, ̋ explains Lantink. “I want to challenge the garment itself, to push it to the very limits of its sculptural potential. ̋ Through corsetry and padding, anatomical exaggerations shape and distort silhouettes so much so that many of the looks cannot be fully admired in a simple frontal image.
Marie Antoinette and eighteenth-century fantasy inspire the collections. Prints are rare, yet several motifs draw directly from the interiors of the Château de Versailles. A dress adorned with rinceaux recalls Marie-Antoinette’s Cabinet Doré, while another is embroidered with a floral bouquet inspired by the Queen’s bedchamber.
Lantink draws directly from the house’s fabric archives, such as a striped wool cloth originally from the Fall-Winter 2002–03 Haute Couture collection, which has now been given a second life as a breastplate and tailored suit. Likewise, a long-forgotten biker jacket has been reconstructed into a patchwork piece. House codes are also revisited through corsets, tailored jackets, Aran-knit textures, tulle skirts, and sculptural tailoring.
Robert Wun
Images Courtesy of Robert Wun
For this season, Robert Wun explores child’s play; easy, innocent, unserious, unsophisticated – essentially, the opposite of couture. Yet as a master couturier, Robert Wun is known for his unmatched craft through storytelling, as all great couture should, so if anyone is up for the task of turning this notion into wearable art, it’s Robert Wun.
In the show notes, Robert Wun questions whether when everything is stripped down to its simplest essence is where inspiration forms. The collection starts from a child as ‘plain paper’, to being coloured, to being shaped and formed. Dreams emerge before being redefined, tailored, and embroidered. The closing chapter of the collection features customised balloons, colours exploding from the suited bodies, like the childhood that we all still carry deep within. And just like balloons, beautiful and joyous, yet fragile and not meant to last.
Armani Privé
Images Courtesy of Armani Privé
Silvana Armani explored the intimate atmosphere of a boudoir for the latest Armani Privé collection. Silhouettes are precise, yet fluid, seen through the progression of masculine jackets to the opulent evening gowns. Tailoring is sensual, with relaxed suit trousers that are paired with jackets embellished with iridescent stones. The colour palette is contained with deep, enveloping tones of blacks, greens, browns, amaranth reds, and blues.
Rahul Mishra
Images Courtesy of Rahul Mishra
In the show notes for his Fall 2026 Couture collection, Rahul Mishra referenced Michelangelo and his belief that sculpture was a reductive act. That carving, fragments of marble, revealed a sculptural figure that was there all along. This same philosophy is echoed across the Indian subcontinent, in temples, caves, and monuments. Indian artisans transformed stone into eternal muses and became enduring repositories of memory, preserving the stories, culture, and rhythms of the civilisation. These figures offer some of the most intimate records of how beauty was once imagined and sought to inspire this collection.
Rahul Mishra transformed models into statues. Through crafting garments in skin tones and using ancient embroidery techniques including zardozi and dabka, a trompe-l’œil effect is created that gives the effect that the garments have been carved rather than stitched. The headpieces were the star of the show, designed in collaboration with local artisan Sumant Kumar, and were inspired by the ceremonial crowns depicted in these ancient stone sculptures.
Dior
Images Courtesy of Dior
For Dior Couture Fall Winter 2026, Jonathan Anderson once again proves that he is a master of balancing artistry with wearability. Each look honours the house codes of Dior while still feeling entirely fresh and modern. Signatures of the house are seen in floral motifs and petal-like silhouettes, as well as the return of the iconic Bar Jacket, but Anderson continues to make it his own.
For this collection, Jonathan Anderson looked to the artist Lynda Benglis, known for her work on two-dimensional materials that are transformed through knotting, pleating, or moulding. This collection mimics the technique through hand-plissé on lamé, silk satin, tulle, and denim.
Schiaparelli
Images Courtesy of Schiaparelli
Schiaparelli once again won Couture Fashion Week before it had really begun. Daniel Roseberry’s latest couture offering was a collection titled ‘The Abyss’ – a venture into the unknown and a push back on traditional house codes. As always, the craftsmanship was exquisite and as much a work of art as anything else. The female form was celebrated through sculptural bodices cast from silicone, while a jacket and matching leggings were encrusted with real flowers, fish scales, and ribbons. Alien-like forms were seen with tentacle shapes crafted from black latex and hand-shaped inflatable spikes before contrasting dreamlike gowns were finished with plunging necklines and floral embroidery. And if the collection couldn’t get any more impressive, within hours of the show, Zendaya was spotted wearing the finale look to The Odyssey premiere in London.
Featured Image Courtesy of Adrien Dirand / Dior
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