Paris Haute Couture Week Opens With Dior and Schiaparelli; Chanel and Armani Privé Take the Runway Next

Paris Haute Couture Week Fall/Winter 2026-2027 began on Monday, July 6, with the four-day event continuing through Thursday, July 9. Schiaparelli opened the week at 10:00 under Daniel Roseberry, followed by Dior at 14:30, where Jonathan Anderson presented his second Dior haute couture collection at the Musée Rodin. Chanel and Giorgio Armani Privé both showed in Paris today, Tuesday, July 7.

Thirty maisons are presenting collections across the four days. Houses must be accredited annually by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, which requires an atelier in Paris, a minimum number of skilled staff, and collections made to order for private clients with fittings, shown twice a year in January and July.

Anderson built his Dior show around a pavilion in the sculpture garden at the Musée Rodin, with palm trees shading the runway. The collection drew on the work of American sculptor Lynda Benglis, translating her poured latex and wire mesh techniques into hand-pleated couture. Knotted bows recurred across gowns, and Dior unveiled new bag styles co-designed with Benglis, including a metallic pleated style called the ‘Cigale’ and a sculptural new Bow bag. Anderson also folded in eighteenth-century Indian chintz fragments worked into the Petit Dîner and mini Lady Dior bags, alongside stone necklaces crafted in Jaipur and Rajasthan from mother of pearl, rock crystal and carved green onyx.

Anderson arrived at the show still fielding questions about the wedding gown he designed for Taylor Swift, worn three days earlier at her wedding to NFL player Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden, a commission read across the industry as a coup for the LVMH-owned house. 

The show closed with a bridal look, a gown trailing an ethereal, frond-covered train, a gesture some read as an echo of the Swift commission. The front row mixed pop stars with artists. Sabrina Carpenter and Josh O’Connor sat among guests, including Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Nick Jonas, Naomi Watts, Rebecca Ferguson, Alexa Chung and Parker Posey. Both shows played out under a Paris heatwave, with temperatures climbing above 30 degrees Celsius through the afternoon.

Schiaparelli set an altogether different mood. Daniel Roseberry titled the collection The Bliss of the Abyss, built around the French expression l’appel du vide, the call of the void. He said he had approached the season expecting to engineer a breakthrough, then found that surrendering to uncertainty produced the stronger work. Latex, moulded silicone, seashells and baked fish scales built out that idea across a mirrored runway staged inside the Petit Palais. Real flowers, fed sugar water to preserve them, were embroidered directly onto several gowns, and the season’s colour palette drew on the unsettling imagery of artist Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle.

Backstage, Roseberry spoke about artificial intelligence and its growing presence in fashion education, describing a recent university visit where AI surfaced heavily in senior portfolios, leaving him unsure what he was seeing of the person he might be considering for a job. He still sketches every look himself. On the front row, Bad Bunny wore a custom butter yellow suit covered in brooches drawn from his own album covers, while Emma Corrin arrived in a multicoloured feathered jacket finished with sculptural bird beaks, and Michelle Yeoh chose a black off-the-shoulder dress trimmed in dark feathering. Karlie Kloss, who had attended Swift’s wedding days earlier, returned to the runway itself, walking the collection in a seafoam corset sculpted from glossy latex.

Opening day also illustrated the range of approaches shaping Paris haute couture. Dior rooted its collection in historical references, artisanal textiles and meticulous handwork, while Schiaparelli pursued a more experimental direction through sculptural construction and unconventional materials. Together, the two houses set the tone for a week in which established couture techniques continue to be interpreted through very different creative lenses.

Chanel presented Matthieu Blazy’s second haute couture collection today, across two slots at 10:00 and 12:00. Chanel’s own history describes it as the oldest haute couture house still in operation, tracing its ateliers back to 1915. The show followed Blazy’s January debut at the Grand Palais. Blazy has drawn comparisons to Anderson this season for a similar reason, having designed the wedding dress worn by singer Dua Lipa earlier this month, meaning the two houses opening couture week both carry a celebrity gown the public has yet to see. 

Giorgio Armani Privé also presented Tuesday, under Silvana Armani, who took over as the house’s creative director following Giorgio Armani’s death last September.

Attention now turns to Wednesday, when Balenciaga presents Pierpaolo Piccioli’s first couture collection for the house, alongside Duran Lantink’s debut for Jean Paul Gaultier and a show from Manish Malhotra. Fendi rounds out the week on Thursday, shown in Rome rather than Paris, with Maria Grazia Chiuri presenting her first collection as the house’s chief creative officer.