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This season in Paris, the conversation extended well beyond the clothes, as it inevitably does during Fashion Week. People talked about the 8:30 a.m. runway shows, the miniature tubes of sunscreen tucked inside invitations, the rows of industrial fans stationed at venue entrances, and editors darting from one show to the next in search of shade. Staged during one of Europe’s hottest Junes on record, Paris Men’s Fashion Week served as a stark reminder that climate change is no longer an abstract talking point but a physical reality shaping the rhythm of the fashion industry. What had long been treated almost like another trend was impossible to ignore.
Rick Owens built his runway over water. Dries Van Noten handed out ice cream to guests. Lemaire turned chilled watermelon juice into part of the show experience, while Dior moved its presentation to the earliest hours of the morning. From editors and content creators to designers and models, everyone seemed to be asking the same question: What should the modern men’s wardrobe look like as the world grows hotter?
The answer, however, wasn’t found in the technical performance wear or futuristic sportswear aesthetic many had predicted only a few years ago. Quite the opposite. Most collections were surprisingly grounded in everyday life. Tailoring became lighter, shirts almost sheer, and fine-gauge knitwear reclaimed its place at the centre of the wardrobe. The shift in silhouette initiated by Prada in Milan had evolved into something of a shared language in Paris. The oversized volumes and exaggerated proportions that had dominated menswear for seasons certainly hadn’t disappeared, but for the first time in years, they no longer felt like the only option.
It’s hardly a coincidence that this evolution arrived just as the industry’s latest wave of creative-director appointments began to settle into place. Presenting his fourth menswear collection for Dior, Jonathan Anderson moved beyond proving how he could interpret Christian Dior’s archives and began establishing a vocabulary distinctly his own. Michael Rider’s debut menswear collection for Celine became one of the week’s defining moments, while Sarah Burton offered the first glimpse of how the romantic precision that defined her womenswear might translate into the male wardrobe at Givenchy. After several seasons at Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams, meanwhile, reached a point where the conversation centred less on the scale of the spectacle than on the clothes themselves.
Dior’s 8:30 a.m. presentation perfectly captured Paris’ new reality. Just a few seasons ago, scheduling one of fashion’s biggest maisons at daybreak would have seemed almost unthinkable. This season, however, no one complained. Staying until midday meant sitting through tailoring presentations in temperatures approaching 40°C.
Set in the gardens of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Jonathan Anderson’s show unfolded to a soundtrack by Fred again.. as models moved deliberately across gravel pathways, while portraits by Giangiacomo Rossetti inside the venue created a quiet dialogue with the collection.
Unlike his earliest outings at Dior, Anderson’s latest menswear offering doesn’t invite viewers to hunt for references. He no longer needs to prove that he understands the house’s archive. That chapter is complete. Now he is translating it into a language of his own.
Tradition is approached from unexpected angles as ideas from different eras are brought into conversation and familiar house codes are reimagined with fresh perspective. A tuxedo is relaxed through a softer cut, houndstooth appears as a print rather than a woven fabric, while polka dots dissolve into uninterrupted fields of sequins. Elsewhere, an embroidered silk shirt revives the trompe-l’œil scarf motif first seen in Dior Haute Couture’s 1979 collection.
The week’s most photographed set almost certainly belonged to Louis Vuitton. Installed at the Cité Internationale Universitaire, its monumental wave, white-sand runway and beached surfboards flooded social media long before the first look appeared. A few seasons ago, the set itself would probably have remained the show’s defining talking point.
This time, Pharrell Williams didn’t allow the spectacle to eclipse the collection.
At first glance, the collection united two seemingly incompatible archetypes: the dandy and the surfer. One embodies impeccable tailoring; the other, an ease shaped by sun, salt and sea air. Pharrell’s proposition is that the distance between them is far smaller than it appears. Both are travellers. Both see clothing as an extension of identity. Both rewrite the conventions of the worlds they inhabit.
As a result, sharp tailoring was paired with washed denim, pearl embellishment met beaded beach bags, and technical fabrics were rendered with surfaces that echoed artisanal craftsmanship, each becoming part of the same contemporary wardrobe.
The loudest applause at Saint Laurent arrived before the first model stepped onto the runway. Within minutes, images of Madonna and Charli XCX sharing a lighter in the front row had spread across social media. Alongside them sat Kate Moss, Joe Alwyn, Rami Malek and Connor Storrie, a guest list that once again underscored Anthony Vaccarello’s unique ability to create not only fashion shows, but cultural moments. Yet once the presentation began, all of that noise dissolved into mist.
Fujiko Nakaya’s ever-shifting cloud installation transformed the courtyard of the Bourse de Commerce into an ethereal landscape where models appeared and disappeared as though drifting between dreams.
Vaccarello built the collection around a simple yet compelling idea: “No one is trying to seduce you. What makes them desirable is precisely that they don’t need to.”
The elegance of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the emotionally restrained protagonists of Marguerite Duras and Tina Chow’s understated glamour all informed the collection. Whisper-thin shirts, high-waisted trousers, gold-toned trench coats and transparent PVC footwear brought the season’s recurring pursuit of lightness into dialogue with Saint Laurent’s unmistakably sensual point of view.
Sarah Burton’s first standalone menswear collection marked one of the season’s most significant debuts.
Presented at Givenchy’s Avenue George V headquarters, the installation occupied three rooms lined with Rachel Whiteread’s casts of wardrobe interiors. The empty spaces inside these never-opened closets immediately distilled Burton’s central idea: building a new men’s wardrobe from the ground up.
Rather than issuing grand manifestos, Burton chooses to reconsider the garments men actually wear. Satin overcoats, embroidered jackets, tapestry-inspired knitwear and refined evening tailoring formed the foundation of a collection where Hubert de Givenchy’s aristocratic elegance met the romantic precision Burton developed during her years at Alexander McQueen. The result felt remarkably effortless.
Looking luxurious without appearing ostentatious has become one of fashion’s most overused clichés. Burton, however, remains among the few designers capable of making that idea feel genuinely convincing.
On the way to Rick Owens, everyone in Paris seemed to be saying the same thing: “Hopefully it cools down a bit.” The bridge built over the pools in front of the Palais de Tokyo technically fulfilled that wish. As models walked beneath monumental water arches, the front row became part of the performance itself, everyone from Michèle Lamy to Gunna willingly getting soaked. Given Europe’s record-breaking heat, Rick Owens’ long-established apocalyptic aesthetic finally felt in sync with the actual weather.
“We are all trying to deal with this threat,” Owens noted in his show notes. The threat, of course, is no longer abstract. Inflated volumes, militaristic silhouettes, oversized boots and new Climacool pieces developed with adidas were no longer mere projections of a dystopian future, but design responses to the present. Owens has long been telling fashion’s darkest stories. This season, those stories felt closer to the daily news cycle than ever before.
Julian Klausner’s new collection for Dries Van Noten felt as though it had been conceived with Paris’s suffocating heat in mind: sheer layering, micro shorts, sequins catching the sunlight, and fabrics so light they almost clung to the body like skin. If so many editors called it one of the strongest shows of the week, it wasn’t only because of the clothes. Klausner demonstrated that Dries Van Noten’s poetic language could continue without imitation.
The starting point was Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem “L’Après-midi d’un faune.” Translating that suspended, dreamlike afternoon into a wardrobe, Klausner softened traditional ideas of masculinity through sheer trench coats, washed silks, lingerie-adjacent detailing and fluid tailoring. Throughout the season, many houses spoke of lightness; Dries Van Noten showed that lightness could also be romantic.
The watermelon juice served before the show was more than a thoughtful gesture, it was a small extension of the lifestyle Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran have been articulating for years. Their collections are not only about clothing, but also about how to move, how to sit, and how to inhabit a city in the heat of summer.
The Spring/Summer 2027 collection continued that philosophy. Wide yet controlled trousers, washed linens, fine cotton shirting and silhouettes that gently drifted away from the body formed one of the most refined interpretations of the season’s broader “lightening” trend. While many houses romanticised summer, Lemaire designed what summer actually feels like.
Michael Rider’s first full menswear collection for Celine did not attempt to resolve the brand’s tensions so much as reveal them more clearly: tension between sharp and soft, polished and undone, bourgeois restraint and almost childlike instinct. The title “Tough & Tender” captured this duality precisely.
On the runway were sharply tailored black coats, striped shirts, ballooning trousers, soft knits, hats, slim belts and small stylistic gestures that felt almost intimately personal. Rather than anchoring the collection in a single era or archive, Rider opens space for the wearer’s own intuition.
The strength of the collection lies here. His guiding phrase, “Risk. Style. Sincerity.”, does not read like a slogan applied to garments, but rather like a proposition about dressing itself. The Celine man here is not a perfected Parisian archetype, but someone who selects good pieces from his wardrobe and wears them slightly incorrectly, instinctively, and entirely on his own terms.
We still use the word “hybrid” when describing Chitose Abe’s language, but perhaps it is time to find another. Much of what the industry now accepts as layered dressing owes a great deal to her vision. Placing a shirt inside a bomber jacket, merging workwear with tailoring, or introducing technical fabrics into the classic wardrobe may no longer feel radical—because Sacai has made it habitual.
In the Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Abe deliberately avoided grand statements. Military parkas met safari jackets, lightweight summer knits were paired with technical outerwear, and voluminous trousers sat alongside fine shirting. The layering felt more refined, the silhouettes more fluid. Sacai continues to explore how functionality can be softened without losing its intelligence.
At Willy Chavarria, Maluma and Haider Ackermann sat in the front row, while Bella Freud appeared on the runway itself. The collection, titled “Comunión,” was built around the idea of family. Rather than grand political declarations, it focused on domestic rituals, inherited habits and the fragile act of staying together through difficult times.
Floral prints, pastel tones, wide-shouldered striped tailoring, low-slung trousers and intentionally visible boxer shorts formed another chapter in Chavarria’s ongoing exploration of Chicano masculinity. Here, the male body is not a site of power display, but a vessel for belonging and emotional openness.
One of the season’s most welcome surprises once again came from Soshi Otsuki. This time, his inspiration was an imagined holiday that never quite happens. In the narrative, a disciplined father who has spent his life in routine finally travels to a seaside town, loosens his collar, unbuckles his belt, and slowly allows his suit to dissolve under the weight of summer heat.
While many designers in Paris spoke about lightness, Soshiotsuki reminded us that lightness is not only about fabric, but also about attitude. Sometimes dressing well is not about perfection, but about knowing when to loosen up, especially when it comes to ties and belts.
Eli Russell Linnetz’s collections can almost always be summarized in a single phrase: endless summer. California sun, skate culture, surfers, teenage romance and young figures lifted from Larry Clark films. ERL has long been one of the brands that romanticizes American youth.
Across the collection, sun-faded denim, relaxed knits, washed cotton shirts and easy silhouettes remained central. Yet this time, the energy of adolescence gave way to something more cinematic and melancholic. Bright colors faded into sun-bleached pastels, and surfaces felt not new, but lived-in—already carrying history.
Linnetz is, above all, an image-maker: photographer, filmmaker, set designer, storyteller. His collections often function as images before they function as clothes. There is always a character, a house, a summer afternoon. The title “The Island” for Spring/Summer 2027 feels particularly fitting. The story is built around Linnetz returning to Martha’s Vineyard and encountering the new owners of a family home that once belonged to relatives who no longer live there.
