Fashion · Shows

Paris Fashion Week: The Shows and the New Names

In depth: fashion·Paris

Couture, Chanel’s new season and the newcomers: inside the week that closes the collections.

By the ULTIMATE Paris Editorial Team

The entrance to a fashion exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris — Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Azzzelle · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A model on the runway at a haute couture show in Paris, July 2006 — Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Gavin Rajah · CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A model at Chanel during Paris Fashion Week in 2023 — Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Christopher Macsurak · CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

A Chanel window on the rue Cambon in Paris, two figures in Chanel tweed and lace on a day bed — Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Chris Waits · CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A cream Chanel tweed suit of the late 1960s, trimmed in navy, on display — Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Mabalu · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Credit

Image courtesy of © Chanel

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Each season the collections travel from New York to London, Milan and Paris. This series of four follows the shows city by city: the week itself, the big shows and what was written about them, and the new designers each capital is backing.

The week that closes the season

Paris has the last word. Each season the women’s collections travel from New York to London and Milan, and finish here, in the longest of the four weeks: for spring/summer 2027, the ready-to-wear shows ran from 28 September to 6 October 2026.

Behind them stands the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, which coordinates Paris Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week. Its story begins in 1868, and since 1945 “Haute Couture” has been a legally protected name, granted each year to approved houses by a commission under the French Ministry of Industry.

The calendar ahead

The men’s collections for autumn/winter 2027–2028 show from 19 to 24 January 2027, and Haute Couture Week follows from 25 to 28 January. The women’s autumn/winter collections return from 1 to 9 March 2027, and couture again from 5 to 8 July.

The shows themselves are for invited buyers and press. The city is not: the boutiques dress their windows for the new season, and the museums join in. During the September week, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs held an evening for its exhibition LOOK! 40 Years of Fashion at the Museum.

Chanel, spring/summer 2027

The Federation’s own magazine published Chanel’s show and collection notes for spring/summer 2027. Matthieu Blazy, the house’s Artistic Director of Fashion Activities, presents the collection as a conversation with Gabrielle Chanel across her whole life, from the jersey of her beginnings to her post-war work on the suit.

Its newest idea is a “smocked tweed”, a stretch version of the Chanel suit, light and easy to move in. The show opened and closed with the same model, Dyanira Hurbuscher, carrying Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 bag from the house archives.

London has noticed: the British Fashion Council has shortlisted Matthieu Blazy for Chanel for Designer of the Year at The Fashion Awards 2026.

Paris has the last word.

Written about the week

The Federation reports on the season house by house in its Insider magazine, from show notes to interviews. Among its stories this season: Saint Laurent, Zimmermann, and interviews with the labels Litkovska and Ujoh.

The new names

Paris backs its newcomers in several ways. Since January 2020 the Federation has run SPHERE, a showroom for emerging designers chosen for their creativity and potential; for spring/summer 2027 it gathered nine brands at the Palais de Tokyo, among them Act N°1, Matho, Weinsanto, Victoria Valette and Maison J. Simone.

ANDAM, the Association Nationale pour le Développement des Arts de la Mode, named its 2026 winners: Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, Pauline Dujancourt, Anthony Calydon, Phileo, Alphalyr and Pili.

One of them joins two capitals. Pauline Dujancourt, a French designer based in London, works in crochet and hand-knitting, and she is also one of the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN designers, whose story is told in our London guide.

And LVMH’s Prize for Young Fashion Designers, launched in 2013, keeps an international spotlight on the newest names.

Our advice: plan a fashion-week trip for early March or late September and book your hotel well ahead; then walk the avenue Montaigne and the rue Cambon in the evening, when the windows are lit for the new season.