All the highlights from the spring/summer 2026 shows

Chemena Kamali opened her spring/summer show with dramatic drapery, vivid palettes and retro florals that stood quite apart from the dream-like bohemian sensibilities that had characterised her vision for the French house thus far. "I wanted to explore what the idea of couture could mean in the Chloé context. A paradox for a house founded on the principles of democratic freedom and ease; something that is not part of its core DNA," said Kamali of the collection. "I wanted to push the boundaries of what defines Chloé, expanding its language, taking it into new and unexplored territory."

The creative director achieved what she set out to. The collection unfolded with an unbridled flow, ebbing from voluminous smocks to structured '80s silhouettes, before returning to Chloé's roots of free femininity with dialled up frills and frothed up layers. "The first Chloé collections in the late 1950s were inspired by the silhouette of couture but did not rely on lining, padding or boning. Instead, they were without formality or elitism," Kamali shared. Indeed, the designer showed her talent for taking the everyday to elevated heights, reworking "ordinary" cotton poplins through ruching, drapery and pastry-like pleating, pushing the fabrics to their furthest without compromising on the organic form or movement.

Pieter Mulier continued to honour the legacy of Azzedine Alaïa's unparalleled understanding of the female body and his exceptional explorations of form in the house's spring/summer 26 collection. "I’m fascinated by the idea of tension, which feels relevant for today, " wrote Mulier in the show notes. "A tension between genders, between excess and restraint, covering and revealing, between our history and our future, cultural forces."

Alaïa's singular approach to cut and construction and the way it interacted with his model's body underpinned Mulier's collection, playfully stretching proportions, elongating curves and constructing entrancing illusions through the movement of fabrics. There were strings of macramé pearls, hand-constructed feathers and a glistening blood-red breastplate that sat starkly against the whiteness of a slinking asymmetric dress. "There is a literal tension, a torsion, in the clothes," said Mulier. "The sculpture is pulled against the skin - there is a sense, always, of the woman’s body within, moving, alive."

Pierpaolo Piccioli drew a star-studded crowd for his debut Balenciaga show – Anne Hathaway, Simone Ashley, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and, perhaps, most notably, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex – all as keen as the buyers and editors to see the designer's inaugural collection for the fashion house firsthand.

As with many a fresh start, Piccioli looked to the past as a starting point, and specifically the work of the brand's founder, Cristobal Balenciaga – bringing his vision into the present. This was "not homage, but recalibration", Piccioli explained, and the results drew rapturous applause and a standing ovation for the new designer.

"Traces of the past are redefined for a future," read the accompanying show notes. "Mnemonics of Cristobal Balenciaga’s œuvre trigger instinctive reaction. Recollection rather than tribute, shadows of Balenciaga’s architectonic shapes are embedded in the actuality of today – bold and disruptive volumes applied to clothes that define our modern wardrobe. Leather jackets, chinos, t-shirts, knits, accessories. A vocabulary of contemporaneity, entirely transformed through approach."