These Are the 6 Biggest Trends to Know From Paris Fashion Week

Fashion month has officially come to a close for the spring/summer 2026 collections. The shows concluded at Paris Fashion Week, giving us a preview of the trends that are set to shape the direction fashion will take next year. With more than 15 designers taking over at some of the biggest fashion houses across the industry this season—and most of the debuts in Paris—it has been an unprecedented moment of change that will shift the future of fashion. This includes Jonathan Anderson, who presented his first womenswear collection at Christian Dior; Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga; and Matthieu Blazy, who took the helm at Chanel—some of the most anticipated shows of the fashion month.

We've been deliberating about how these creative-director shifts would materialize all year, and seeing the initial collections, it's giving shape to those conversations and showing us the direction fashion is heading in 2026. At the Paris shows, we saw the return of sex appeal, optimistic colors, and a new wave of preppy-bourgeois style that is already impacting how the fashion set is getting dressed. As newly appointed creative directors showcased their first collections, we saw varying approaches to their debuts. Some closely distilled the house codes, and others broke swiftly into their new visions for the brands. Ahead, read more on the six biggest spring/summer 2026 trends to know from Paris Fashion Week.

Many of the designers who stepped into new creative-director roles this season took a close look at the house codes that have defined the designs of their predecessors. At Dior, Anderson presented the iconic Bar Jacket as cropped and shrunken. At Chanel, Blazy reimagined tweed with frayed-edge jackets and sheer skirts as well as two-tone heels with square-toe versions. At Balenciaga, Piccioli resurrected the elegance of the past alongside its futurism in a renewed way. Many designers pointed out that it was about rethinking the archives rather than looking back in tribute. "The debut collection by Pierpaolo Piccioli as creative director of Balenciaga commemorates … the work of Cristóbal Balenciaga, bringing it into the present," the show notes read. "Not homage, but recalibration."

Despite all of the reflection on the past, there was an undeniable sense of newness on the runways that will usher in a wave of change in fashion in 2026. At Chanel, Blazy took this head-on. "We can go two ways," Blazy told Tim Blanks in an interview for Business of Fashion. "Either we do a clean, modern, by the codes, by the book Chanel show, and it's a first step. Or we do this show as if it was our last. I took the last option." The collection he unveiled was confident and new. Though it infused the heritage and house codes from Coco Chanel, it was distinctly Blazy, from the first look to the finale, and will usher in a new era for the French fashion house and perhaps fashion as a whole. This was mirrored at other shows too, including Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford, Anderson at Dior, and Michael Rider at Celine, who each brought their distinct visions to the runways. In with the new!

A cool, modern preppy-bourgeois aesthetic has been sweeping across fashion. Rider kicked the aesthetic off for spring 2026 at his debut Celine collection in July and doubled down on it for his summer 2026 sophomore show. Rider is distilling Left Bank Parisian prep through a modern eye, making classic pieces like satin scarves, tailored trench coats, and colorful accessories feel cool and covetable once again. At Miu Miu, collared polo shirts were styled with midi skirts and printed scarves. At Loewe, polo shirts were also prevalent, often styled with V-neck sweaters on top in contrasting colors. Polo Ralph Lauren, a brand with Americana prep closely woven into its DNA, brought cool, preppy style to Paris as well. The collection was infused with inventive styling, including subtle pops of bold color, layers of beaded necklaces, and jackets and cardigans fastened in unexpected ways. It's a new lens on prep that is bringing bourgeois dressing back for 2026.

Lightness was a through line this season, often appearing with the use of joyful, optimistic color. At Celine, Rider showcased '60s floral-print minidresses among the opening looks of the show as well as bags and shoes in bold, vibrant shades. At Chloé, Chemena Kamali resurrected '50 florals prints in a range of bright, punchy hues, from lilac to tangerine to teal. At Loewe, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough presented a collection where every single look had a dose of color, whether it was the opening look that sandwiched a red polo underneath a canary-yellow turtleneck and black leather jacket or the black gowns that had bold trains in hues like hot pink and orange. We tracked the rise of color throughout the season and expect it to make one of the biggest impacts on how people will be getting dressed in 2026.

At the Tom Ford show, models provocatively sauntered and slithered onto the runway. "I told them I want them to seduce," Ackermann shared backstage before presenting the collection. It brought an undeniable sense of sex appeal to the show—an attitude that was matched by the clothes, which included sharply cut satin pastel suits worn with exposed bras and backless gowns with the tiniest sleeves. At Schiaparelli, a series of gauzy see-through dresses finished with fuzzy straps closed the show. At Hermès, tight leather corset tops and exposed skin highlighted the sexy undercurrent in Nadège Vanhée's collection.

In her show notes for Givenchy, Sarah Burton explained how "powerful femininity" inspired the collection. "I wanted to explore the strengths of women through feminine archetypes," Burton shared. "It started with peeling back the structure of tailoring to reveal skin and a sense of lightness and ease—and then exploring the female vocabulary of dress and undress." Recently, we've seen designers narrowing in on the archetypes of female dressing. It was a theme in the fall/winter 2025 collections as well, including the Miu Miu show titled Femininities that explored what femininity means today. On the spring/summer runways, designers explored different notions of traditional female attire but added modern twists. At Givenchy, sheer, see-through details were infused into dramatic gowns. At The Row, couture-adjacent skirts ushered in a new era of elegance and eclipsed minimalist, pared-back pieces. At Christian Dior, hourglass-shaped dresses were embellished with oversize bows.