A Sunday in demi tones in Paris Fashion Week: A train-wreck debut at Jean-Paul Gaultier; savvy merch at Celine; elegantly fine art at Akris; and the same old, same old by Alessandro Michele at Valentino.

Jean-Paul Gaultier: Train wreck in Jacques Chirac’s basement

Too many debutant designers played safe this season, over respecting codes and brand DNA. Duran Lantink tried to rip up the manual at the house of Gaultier, and the result was an unmitigated fashion disaster.

He certainly played with lots of Gaultier’s icons, but always on his own cheeky and silly terms. Taking some of many examples: Jean-Paul’s innovative printing on chiffon, became body stockings in exact body prints, but with stains and blood included. As they say in New York, “hid'”.
 
Or the opening look which referenced the legendary Madonna silvery conical bra but instead became a squished boobed alien doll in orange. Sad. 

Or JPG’s love of a blue-and-white target, which in Lantink’s hand became an absurd moulded leotard worthy of a co-lab between the Teletubbies and Target department.
 

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The signs were bad as one entered the location. A dark 80-meter corridor where one sat facing the heating and sewer pipes of the Jacque Chirac Museum. How on earth anyone thought that a basement could be a suitable set for a show of Gaultier – a brand noted for its optimism, humor and gutsy irreverence – is hard to imagine.
 
Dutch-born Duran did try a whole series of athletic looks, playing on Jean-Paul’s body beautiful aesthetic. The odd one worked, just about. Barely.
 
One entered and exited the space passing a mock nightclub bar piled with empty bottles, dirty glasses, empty cocktails. Again, a sad entrance into a new era in Gaultier. And, after this absurd show, a symbol that – for the moment – the party is over at Jean-Paul Gaultier.
 

Celine: Sunny days, savvy merch

The sun shone on Celine’s show on Sunday and it would be appear to be shining on the house, where creative director Michael Rider is a hit after just two quick collections.

 
Spruce, sleek and snazzy and crammed full of commercial hits, this felt like the most buyer-friendly collection in Paris.
 
Word has it that Celine’s business cooled after the departure of Rider’s acclaimed predecessor Hedi Slimane, but this spring/summer 2026 collection surely contained lots of consumer-friendly clobber. It almost felt as if the brand didn’t need a merchandiser, so clear and focused was the message.
 
Presented outside in a beautiful tree-lined path in the Parc de Saint Cloud, it created a moment of grace amid the most hectic Paris Fashion Week in living memory – with a debut designer show at major houses every day.
 
Rider’s tailoring was impeccable – blending ’80s power-shoulder jackets with Spanish-style peg-leg pants that flared slightly at the ankle, for both men and women in a co-ed show.
 
His cocktail dresses were short, flared and made of pop-art florals. He draped blouses with sculptural finesse, almost toga like. 
 
Once again, his time at Ralph Lauren was evident with a bright yellow cashmere sweater with a Celine horseman and carriage design.
 

Like in his debut, he sent guests a gift of a silk scarf, and scarves were the leitmotif of the show. Worn as foulards, bracelets, and neckties — or by distinguished writers to Harry’s Bar upstairs, and not in the basement.
 
Footwear flourished, from boxing boots with vertical Celine logos or pointy mock crocodile double CC logo loafers, to minimalist cowboy boots. 
 
This marks two home runs by the American designer at Celine, even if the collection needed a little more soul, and Parisian pizzazz.
 

Akris: Ars longa, vita brevis

Always good to see a collection from Akris, a brand dedicated to the proposition of dressing women, not decorating them.

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Continually renewed by fine art inspiration, this season Akris’ creative director Albert Kriemler summoned up memories of the great painter Leon Polk Smith. 
 
Famed for his geometrically orientated abstract paintings – even if that sounds like a contradiction – Smith’s imagery certainly inspired some great clothes. Where his curving shapes and bright minimalism riffed in a glorious finale of curlicue abstraction of unexpected wit.
 
Presented before a giant reproduction of one of Smith’s panels in the center of a curving runway within Palais de Tokyo, the cast marched out briskly. The Akris client, of course, is a busy gal, a career over-achiever always on the move, and these garments were built for an active life.
 

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Opening with wool vermillion suit – capri pants paired with long jacket cut with polygon panels; or white cotton skirts with bright orange polygon patches or a beautiful panama silk organza parka with matching mini skirt.
 
Albert cut second-skin leather jerkins or shirt jackets in Nappa lamb and paired them with denim capri pants – the sort of look that would flatter any member of the audience. Or most women, for even if Akris is out of many women’s price range, it still represents one of the most empowering fashion labels on the planet in the past two decades. That is not an exaggeration.
 

Valentino: Desire among the darkness 

Alessandro Michele referenced the student days of Pier Paolo Pasolini during WW2 in his latest show, in a collection held in an all-black tent that shuddered during the show as if being bombed. Staged under a low ceiling with twisting fluorescent lights suggesting a nighttime bombing raid, or a Berlin nightclub. Not exactly locales one associates with a Valentino gal, n’est-ce pas? But, there you go.

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Put together, the collection itself can only be described as classic Michele. A blend of retro glamour with skirts cut with high waists and split at the knee, paired with all manner of chiffon blouses with peak shoulders. Collars always came with bows and ties.
 
Impressing with a violet coatdress that looked finished with architectural moulding, and some exquisitely draped jacquard dresses. 
 
For evening, Alessandro played with the new refinement of the season – sexy, largely sheer lace columns and body stockings, the better to reveal lingerie.
 
In a co-ed show, guys sauntered around in notably well-tailored double-breasted blazers, ironed as if just taken out of a suitcase. And both sexes got to wear golden metallic embroidered garments – boleros for the gals, shorts and even bowling shoes for the boys.
 
All told, the cast were attired in clothes that looked ready for a party. Yet they all walked around downcast at the finale, to an orchestral soundtrack worthy of a funeral.

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In his program, Alessandro referenced Pasolini’s 1941 erotic letter and a 1975 essay warning of the resurgence of fascism not through violence but via “the conformism that was ravaging the values, the souls and the languages, a new night so impenetrable to completely devour the differences and the luminous dances of the fireflies seeking love.”
 
Michele is to be applauded for raising the spectre of fascism re-emerging, especially give the scourge of ICE and the attacks on free speech in the U.S. We are not too far from a great democracy slipping into modern day fascism. But as a fashion statement, this was a repetitive resurgence of clothes that looked far, far too familiar.