Haute Couture Spring 2026 was a season of firsts: Jonathan Anderson’s first couture collection for Dior, Matthieu Blazy’s first for Chanel and Silvana Armani’s first Armani Privé, plus an Alessandro Michele Valentino show staged days after Valentino Garavani’s death. 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 Fall 2025 overview and Haute Couture Spring 2025 overview, or browse every city in our Fashion Week coverage.
Christian Dior
As a John Galliano devotee, I went into Jonathan Anderson’s first haute couture collection for Dior sceptical. I came out calling it impeccable. Galliano’s presence was felt in the room, the pink flowers read as a moving tribute, and the whole thing reminded me of Raf Simons’s 2012 couture debut, one of my all-time favourites. Cyclamen sat at the ears, orchids rested on shoulders and Vivaldi played. Petals turned into ruffles, feathers and embroidery; there were shingled feather skirts, watery column gowns and mini dresses shaped like blooms, plus one oversized leaf umbrella that was ridiculous and perfect. Nature was built into the structure of the clothes, not stuck on as predictable florals, and after a few seasons of Dior feeling distant to me, that mattered… Read the full Christian Dior review
Chanel
I will admit my bias up front: Chanel, I loved you anyway. Matthieu Blazy’s first couture collection was maybe not quite couture enough, but after being starved for beauty for so long, its softness and restraint felt almost radical. Inside a dreamlike mushroom garden at the Grand Palais, Blazy went back to what Coco wanted in the first place, wearable clothes for real lives instead of red-carpet spectacle. The craft is extreme but it never shouts, it whispers. The opening transparent skirt suit had tiny birds where the seams should be, carried with a 2.55 holding an embroidered love letter. Organza suits, weightless chains and pearls, feathers used for illusion and not excess, and a little black dress that looks simple and is anything but… Read the full Chanel review
Schiaparelli
Daniel Roseberry reset the bar for couture again. This was discipline meeting delirium, with a Sistine Chapel reference that was not a lazy name drop. Silhouettes moved from control to release: scorpion tails curled out of lace jackets, blowfish spikes hardened soft tulle, wings erupted from backs, instinct winning over logic. Hand-cut lace became sculpture, and feathers were painted, dipped and crystallised. The best part is the confidence. This is a collection that asks to be felt, and its strangeness is so refreshing next to all the polite, Instagram-safe fashion around it. Roseberry is the master of couture right now… Read the full Schiaparelli review
Valentino
Alessandro Michele showed Specula Mundi days after Valentino Garavani’s death, and he did not go for hushed reverence. It was homage and declaration at once, built on Garavani’s lifelong love of cinema and Old Hollywood glamour. The references run from the 1920s to the 1980s with Erté’s Art Deco all the way through: dramatic shoulders, elongated shapes, lavish collars built for close-ups. The set was genius, a reimagined Kaiserpanorama where you watch through narrow windows and never see a full look at once. Dense embroidery, heavy sequins, lacquer, feathers, velvet and lamé in deep reds, inky blacks and champagne metallics. This is starlet and goddess dressing, made for grand staircases and not for everyday life. More is more, and he was right… Read the full Valentino review
Armani Privé
Silvana Armani’s first Armani Privé collection did not arrive as a dramatic takeover. After decades at her uncle’s side, it felt like a composed continuation, and in a season full of headline-grabbing debuts that quiet authority stood out. Titled Jade, after the stone’s symbolism of harmony, endurance and spiritual depth, it opened with languid suits softened by sheer organza shirts and ties, and jackets that skim the body instead of sculpting it. The palette stayed in celadon green, powder pink, ivory and inky black, and the glamour stayed controlled: micro-crystal mille-feuille gowns, sequined knits over palazzo trousers. No hats, a tight 60 looks, and then a finale bridal gown designed by Giorgio Armani himself, a goodbye and a blessing… Read the full Armani Privé review
Robert Wun
Robert Wun does not miss. Valor: The Desire to Create, and the Courage to Carry On was staged at the Lido with thunderstorms projected on giant screens, and it had no feathers and no nostalgia, only drama and intention. It unfolded in three acts that felt like therapy in couture form. The opening chapter, Library, was black, white and restrained, with rounded bolero shoulders, flared skirts and a massive circular gown covered in micro glass beads that looked as heavy as a person. Then came luxury as discomfort: bodices moulded like jewellery stands, crystal face masks that erase identity, sharp corsetry. Beautiful, intimidating and slightly unhinged. Couture should be obsessive, excessive and emotionally charged, and this was all three… Read the full Robert Wun review
Gaurav Gupta
Gaurav Gupta called this one The Theory of Everything, built on Advait, the Indian philosophy of non-duality, where masculine and feminine, body and soul, creation and destruction are all one continuum. It could have been abstract or preachy. It wasn’t. The body is treated as a carrier of energy, with web-like threadwork tracing energy points and invisible pathways across it. The show opens with stark, architectural black volumes referencing the Big Bang, then adds texture and emotion: sequins glinting like moving parts, resin skins catching light like deep space. Technical, but never cold. The mogra-laden looks were sacred, deeply desi and a full chef’s kiss, and that yellow saree-esque gown, my god, is instantly iconic. Gupta is fully locked in… Read the full Gaurav Gupta review
Pictures courtesy of Vogue Runway
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