During a spring-summer 2026 fashion week marked by fresh developments, the weekend of October 4 and 5 reached a kind of climax. In Paris, three designers unveiled their debut shows: Pierpaolo Piccioli for Balenciaga, Glenn Martens for Maison Margiela and Duran Lantink for Jean Paul Gaultier.
At Balenciaga, Pierpaolo Piccioli succeeded Demna, one of the most talented designers of his generation, who transformed the house over a decade. Under Demna, Balenciaga became an extravagant creative laboratory, capable of producing both ball gowns and distressed jeans – collections always spiced up by his offbeat sensibility and a certain rawness. Commercially, under his direction, Balenciaga nearly shifted into a streetwear brand that, at the height of its popularity, sold massive quantities of oversized sneakers, subverted-logo T-shirts and distressed sweatshirts.
Balenciaga's leadership likely decided it was time to dial things back after a creative peak that at times felt out of control. In fact, Demna himself seemed to lose some steam in recent years. From this standpoint, Piccioli is a rational choice: The 58-year-old Italian proved himself at Valentino, where he spent 16 years, earning accolades for his elegant, broadly appealing designs, flattering cuts for all body types and bold colors that helped wearers stand out without going overboard.
"I like that I'm starting where Demna left. (...) And I think it's a good way of talking about continuity and transformation," explained Piccioli regarding the show's location: the former Laennec Hospital, now housing the headquarters of Kering (which owns the brand), where an exhibition dedicated to the Georgian designer was held this summer. On October 4, Piccioli broke with Demna's legacy but reconnected with a more distant past – the house's founder, Cristobal Balenciaga (1895-1972).
Cristobal Balenciaga is "one of my heroes," stated Piccioli, who possesses precise knowledge of the models, techniques and even fabrics used by the Spanish couturier – this season, Piccioli developed a new version of gazar, a fabric invented by Cristobal Balenciaga. He drew inspiration from his ample cuts, love of controlled volume and restraint. Cape T-shirts, rounded-leg pants, skirts with trains and bubble jackets all referenced the founder, mixing with disparate elements: a black suit, jeans, sailor pants, a skirt embroidered with fringe. References to Demna (the sunglasses) and his predecessor Nicolas Ghesquière (the City bag) occasionally surfaced, though rarely.
The flaw in this collection was that it brought nothing truly new. If one assumes the role of a creative director is to take elements from the past and create new forms, only the first half of that mission was fulfilled. Watching the show, one saw Cristobal Balenciaga, and also Valentino from the era when Piccioli was at the helm (2008-2024); even then, his collections were influenced by his Spanish "hero." It remains uncertain whether the Italian will inject new creative energy into Balenciaga, but perhaps the commercial appeal of the pieces will ensure financial stability for the label and attract the more classic customers that Demna had driven away.
For Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela, this is his "first" in ready-to-wear, though the designer already showed a haute couture collection in July. That collection stood out for its sophistication and Martens' ability to absorb the house's codes, as if the 42-year-old Belgian had always belonged there.
Martens gathered his guests at the same venue as in the summer, Le Centquatre – a cultural center in a working-class neighborhood of northeastern Paris, where fashion week guests are seldom found. True to the founding spirit of Martin Margiela, who approaches fashion against convention, he invited 61 children and teenagers from a group that provides orchestral music education in schools to play classical standards, from "Swan Lake" to "The Blue Danube." The musical cacophony was offset by the charm of the performers, all wearing suits, sometimes three sizes too large – which surely did not make playing any easier.
On the runway, the message was more abrasive: All the models wore a metallic device in their mouths, pulling back their lips and outlining four small lines in a rectangle – a nod to the Margiela label, which appears on garments with four white stitches. Intended to anonymize the faces in the same way Martin Margiela once used veils, the awkward and likely uncomfortable device mostly encouraged the audience to focus on the clothes.
Margiela trademarks abounded: tape wrapping the torso of a silk dress or the straps of a delicate slip, layered looks (a dark blazer beneath a sheer white dress), or fusion pieces (a scarf integrated into a jacket). At times, the collection felt less inspired than the effort poured into haute couture, particularly with denim looks or suits only slightly altered by low-slung pants. But the essentials were there: Martens's integration at Margiela has worked, and there was a full range of garments into which one could picture oneself.
Wearability was not the chief concern for Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier. The Dutch designer in his 30s, who founded his label in 2019, was chosen to revive the ready-to-wear line, which had been paused for a decade. Since the departure of founder Jean Paul Gaultier in 2020, the brand had focused exclusively on haute couture shows, each produced by a different guest designer each season. That complicated arrangement likely failed to keep the house visible in the world of fashion. And even though financial stability now rests on perfume sales, runway shows remain crucial for maintaining buzz among consumers.
Lantink's debut collection suggests that making actual clothes for sale matters less than making noise. Known for his experiments with volume and his inflated, revealing and surprising designs, Lantink pushed his approach to its limit for Jean Paul Gaultier. In the basement of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, he presented a cartoonish, sculptural and barely-there collection, using small pieces of fabric joined by elastic bands; S-shaped dresses covering only the bust and pubic area; square skirts exposing the buttocks; or sometimes transparent, form-fitting jumpsuits.
Duran explained that he didn't want to look at the archives for this first collection but to work from memory: Gaultier "broke the walls to make sure that people can express themselves and that there is sort of a sexual liberation and freedom and fun. All these things I think have formed me as a human being." That spirit was indeed present, along with specific references to Gaultier – be it the sailor stripes, trompe-l'œil tattoos, fake body hair or sailor's bucket hat. But even if the intent was right and the runway a space for experimentation, it was hard to ignore the idea that clothes are also meant to be worn.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.