Haute Couture Fall 2025 was a season of goodbyes and first chapters: Demna closed his decade at Balenciaga, Chanel’s in-house team took a final bow before Matthieu Blazy arrives, and Glenn Martens stormed in with his first Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela. Around them, Armani Privé marked 20 years, Iris van Herpen returned from a year-long hiatus with a dress made of living algae, and Schiaparelli stripped away colour to look back to the future. Here is a quick overview of every show we reviewed, with a short take and a few looks from each. The full reviews are linked under every house.
Want to compare seasons? Read our Haute Couture Spring 2026 overview and Haute Couture Spring 2025 overview, or browse every city in our Fashion Week coverage.
Chanel
This was Chanel’s final bow before Matthieu Blazy takes over as creative director, and the in-house team kept it elegant and intimate. The Grand Palais’s Salon d’Honneur became the original salons of 31 rue Cambon, all white carpet, mirrored walls and beige banquettes. Coco Chanel’s love of the Scottish Highlands shaped the clothes: chunky knits, long-line tweed coats and capes edged in feathery fringe, in ivory, deep green, dark plum and flashes of burnished gold. Tweed came layered with feathers or brushed to look like fur, against light chiffon blouses and shredded tulle skirts. It wasn’t flashy, but it was deeply textured. Without one designer’s vision, though, it occasionally felt like a beautifully curated exhibition rather than a story… Read the full Chanel review
Schiaparelli
Daniel Roseberry’s “Back to the Future” is a masterclass in reinterpreting history for tomorrow. Inspired by Elsa Schiaparelli’s 1930s work and early black-and-white photographs, he stripped away colour, leaving black, white and silver with powerful hints of red and metallics. The corseted, anatomical silhouettes of earlier seasons give way to new forms that still define waist and hips, proof that intensity doesn’t always need constriction. There are sharp-shouldered “Elsa jackets”, bias-cut evening gowns, the “Apollo” cape reimagined in diamanté starbursts and matador jackets encrusted with baroque pearls. The showstopper is a red satin dress moulded to a torso and worn backwards, with a pulsating rhinestone heart necklace, an unsettling nod to Salvador Dalí. Beautiful, wearable and undeniably thought-provoking… Read the full Schiaparelli review
Balenciaga
Demna’s final collection for Balenciaga closes a decade at the house, and it was a closing chapter and a love letter all at once. Staged in the historic salons at 10 Avenue George V, the show ran to a soundtrack of his team’s names read aloud. Kim Kardashian appeared as Elizabeth Taylor in Taylor’s actual diamonds, while Isabelle Huppert swung a lady bag with comic flair. The clothes were calm and stripped back: sculptural gowns standing stiff without boning, suits fitting like second skins, sharp shoulders and twisted satins. A recreated 1967 houndstooth skirt suit, worn by original house model Danielle Slavik, felt like healing, and the men’s looks were peak him. This farewell didn’t scream, it resonated. Never ordinary… Read the full Balenciaga review
Maison Margiela
Glenn Martens stormed in with his first Maison Margiela Artisanal collection, closing Couture Week with a show that was haunting, beautiful, uncomfortable and strangely uplifting. Everything Margiela is supposed to be. It opened in near darkness, in rooms of peeling wallpaper and decaying textures, with masks running from glittering to ghostly. Martens, a proud Belgian like Margiela, dove into the house’s legacy: 17th-century Flemish wallpaper, Dutch nature paintings, punk-era rebellion, clear plastic recalling the ’90s. There were plastic-wrapped gowns, velvet drapes, heelless boots, knit dresses made entirely of beads and tin plates as headpieces. The ghostly jersey gowns were unforgettable. Following John Galliano is no easy feat, but this was reinvention, not nostalgia. Margiela has found a true heir… Read the full Maison Margiela review
Armani Privé
Twenty years of Privé, and “Noir Séduisant” was a quiet lesson in Armani elegance. Armani himself was absent from the Palazzo Armani in Paris, recovering at home in Milan, yet his signature precision and control were everywhere. The argument is simple: black, when done right, is never boring. It was explored through texture, silhouette and shimmer, in velvet trousers, satin blouses, sculptural jackets and delicate crystal embellishments, with accents of emerald, cobalt and sapphire that never break the mood. Feathered coats, beaded berets and military-inspired tailoring were theatrical yet restrained, and a black cashmere coat just works, season after season. The craftsmanship is undeniable, but it leaves us wondering whether these clothes speak to younger generations at all… Read the full Armani Privé review
Giambattista Valli
One word for this collection: dreamy. Giambattista Valli had just been named an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the mood was joyful. The looks stood on mannequins so guests could study every detail, and honestly it was worth the pause. This is Valli’s signature romance in floaty, feminine shapes, with layers of soft tulle, delicate pleats and tiny flowers that look like feathers but are actually silk organza. The palette of peach, periwinkle, rose and apricot is yummy, like the prettiest scoop of gelato, and the whole thing feels more youthful than usual. Fragonard and Watteau are clear influences, and Valli called the vibe “nymphs and muses”. Couture that doesn’t shout but softly says everything… Read the full Giambattista Valli review
Elie Saab
“The New Court” imagines Marie Antoinette living in 2025, with a soft spot for pastels and pop music. Elie Saab took 18th-century codes like panniers, corsets and ruffles and ran them through a youthful, modern lens, inspired by a rewatch of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and its use of “I Want Candy”. At the Pavillon Cambon, Lara Stone, Sasha Pivovarova and Isabeli Fontana opened in corseted black velvet gowns, seductive, sculptural and surprisingly minimal. Then came the sugary explosion: rose pink, mint, pistachio and baby blue across flowing capes, poufed skirts, knotted duchess satin and feathered pyramid gowns, with light padding giving volume without stiffness. Saab dresses for the moments that call for a little magic, not everyday errands… Read the full Elie Saab review
Iris van Herpen
After a year-long hiatus, Iris van Herpen returned with “Sympoiesis”, a near-spiritual show urging us to reconnect with the oceans. Dancer Madoka Kariya opened by re-enacting Loie Fuller’s “Serpentine Dance” amid laser beams. The undeniable highlight was a living look made of 125 million bioluminescent algae, cultivated, not merely constructed. It is a museum piece for now, but its existence speaks volumes. Around it came air fabric lattices mimicking jellyfish, dresses in Spiber Brewed Protein echoing deep-sea forms, and a resin-coated silk gown spiralling like a cresting wave. Rombaut footwear with metal rings like sonar rays kept the aquatic theme going. Watching felt like a mesmerising scuba dive. Powerful, poignant, and a vital call to protect the oceans… Read the full Iris van Herpen review
Viktor & Rolf
At the Salle Wagram, Viktor & Rolf’s “Angry Birds” turned feathers into a philosophy and fashion into performance. The collection is built on duality: 15 mirrored pairs, 30 looks, each design shown once inflated and once stripped back. Same fabric. Same cut. Totally different vibe. The inflated versions screamed drama, with vivid plumes at sleeves, collars and seams, while the pared-back ones whispered. All 11,500 faux feathers were handmade from organza and tulle, and Stephen Jones supplied towering, crown-like headpieces. Padded opera coats, sculptural puffer jackets and feathered sequined gowns, Effie Trinket-level extravagance against stripped-back elegance. It revisits the twin-look concept from the duo’s 1998 debut, so it is more than couture for couture’s sake. Couture at its cleverest… Read the full Viktor & Rolf review
Zuhair Murad
Zuhair Murad’s collection is a love letter to Hollywood’s golden age, blending modern strength with sparkle. Rita Hayworth and Barbara Stanwyck are behind a femme fatale who is not tragic but takes control of her own story. Sculpted power shoulders sit alongside soft, bias-cut gowns in velvety browns, gold-touched ivories, deep burgundies and hints of blush. Embroidery is pushed to baroque extremes, with pearls coiled into constellation-like patterns and gowns that glow like Oscar trophies. Synthetic fur appears for the first time, heavily jewelled, an ethical choice showing glamour need not sacrifice compassion. Richer, deeper evening looks replace the traditional bridal finale. In a couture scene that often leans minimal, Murad leans into drama and dreaminess: intentional, emotional, cinematic… Read the full Zuhair Murad review
Robert Wun
Robert Wun’s “Becoming” was anything but subtle. In the shadowy depths of the Théâtre du Châtelet, it played like a dream or a fevered memory, treating getting dressed as transformation rather than routine. The first look, a white quilted gown stamped with blood-red handprints, was fashion as catharsis. Tailoring came twisted: jackets sprouting extra arms, corsets with blown-up collars, suit jackets carried like rigid ghosts. The accessories were surreal, from bags shaped as tiny tuxedos to gloves with crystal nails and veils dripping like rain, all in inky blacks, bruised purples and flashes of blood and blush. The final blush gown, topped with a doll-like mannequin, was haunting and tender. We found it especially personal: raw, surreal and beautiful… Read the full Robert Wun review
Rahul Mishra
“Becoming Love” is built on the Sufi idea of love’s seven stages: attraction, infatuation, surrender, reverence, devotion, obsession and death. Rahul Mishra’s point is that love is grown into, layer by layer, rather than fallen into. The opening look, a sweeping gold-threaded dress sculpted into a heart, sets the emotional arc, and a sheer bodice covered in pearls shimmers like a final moment of clarity before surrender. Lotus flowers bloom from gowns as living metaphors, while Klimt shows in the gold tones, swirling embroidery and curved forms framing faces like halos. Zardozi, aari and dabka, worked by over 2,000 artisans, blend European art history with Indian handcraft seamlessly. Disciplined, sculptural and grounded, it is a visual love letter… Read the full Rahul Mishra review
Pictures courtesy of Vogue Runway
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