While 101 houses fill the Spring/Summer 2027 runway calendar, the Fédération runs Sphere at the Palais de Tokyo from September 30 to October 6. It is the least photographed part of Paris Fashion Week and the part that decides who is still here in three seasons.
Estimates put the active haute couture clientele at roughly 4,000 to 5,000 people worldwide, down from around 20,000 after the New Look. Pieces run from €30,000 to well past €500,000 and the tier still rarely pays for itself, which is the whole point of it.
Gucci refurbishes and resells its own vintage, Balenciaga, Valentino and Burberry work through partners, and Rolex guarantees a watch it did not sell you. Only one of those is a claim of authority over the resale market rather than a slice of it.
The 37th edition of 080 left Sant Pau for Port Vell in April with 26 brands. The 38th is due in October, applications are open and the dates are not out, which tells you what kind of fashion week this is.
The calendar
Around 70 shows and presentations, opening with Henry Zankov's debut at Diane von Furstenberg and closing with Thom Browne.
London regains McQueen this season after its return from the Paris calendar, a rare reversal in a decade of drift toward France.
Six days that now carry the weight of two of the biggest house transitions in the industry, at Gucci and at Fendi.
The womenswear season closer: 68 shows and 33 presentations, with debuts from Drew Henry at Courrèges and Kai Nesselrath at Carven, and Valentino, Maison Margiela and Sacai back on the calendar.
The second edition at Port Vell after the move from the Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau.
ResaleThe Digital Product Passport must stay readable through resale and end-of-life. That is a line in an environmental regulation and it is also, accidentally, an attack on the one thing the resale platforms own.
Fashion WeeksSpring/Summer 2027 runs September 22 to 28 with 60 shows, 54 of them in person. Camera Moda opens the week with a new Fashion Hub at Palazzo Morando and closes it with Giorgio Armani, and the state is in the credits of both.
CoutureThe Chambre Syndicale runs three tiers: haute couture members, correspondents, and guests. Guests may call their work couture and are barred from calling it haute couture, and they wait two years before the appellation is even on the table.
SustainabilityThe Digital Product Passport was written into the Ecodesign regulation in June 2024. The delegated act for textiles is indicated for 2027 and cannot bite for eighteen months after that, which puts real compliance in 2028 and makes the specification published this May the thing to read now.
Fashion WeeksThe Spring/Summer 2027 schedule runs September 10 to 15 with around 70 shows and presentations. It opens with Henry Zankov's debut at Diane von Furstenberg and closes with Thom Browne, and in between it does something Paris and Milan structurally cannot.
SustainabilityParliament passed the ultra-fast-fashion bill on June 29 after more than two years between the two chambers. Per-item penalties start at €0.25 and are set to climb toward €10 by 2030, alongside an advertising ban that reaches influencers.
BusinessFirst-half sales of €38.6 billion, a 3% second quarter, and a fashion and leather goods business still down 5% across the half. Kering posted its first positive quarter in three years. The recovery is real and it is thin.
HousesJonathan Anderson took all of Dior in 2025 and by July 2026 LVMH was attributing part of its first fashion growth in seven quarters to his effect. What it takes to move an €18 billion division, and what the credit actually proves.
The four-city calendar, the schedules, and the access hierarchy that decides who sees a collection first.
Fashion WeeksNYFW ran February 11 to 16, London 19 to 23, Milan 24 to March 2, Paris closing on October 6 in September. Four cities, four organizing bodies, no shared authority, and a sequence being managed as a single product anyway.
Fashion WeeksDemna's first Gucci runway show and Maria Grazia Chiuri's first Fendi collection landed inside one week, February 24 to March 2. A city that had been losing ground got handed the two most-watched shows of the season.
Fashion WeeksSpring/Summer 2026 was the most consequential fashion month in decades: Anderson's first Dior womenswear on October 1, Blazy's Chanel days later, and a schedule where almost every marquee slot belonged to someone new.
The collections, the debuts, and what the clothes are actually arguing for.
RunwayDemna's first Gucci built each look as a character in the house's family tree, re-proportioned the Bamboo 1947 and put the Horsebit loafer with sheer hosiery. The reviews were warm. The forums were not.
RunwayHis debut ready-to-wear was described as the first real break at the house in more than four decades. Whether the Chanel customer wants a break is the question the ovation could not answer.
RunwayHis first Dior womenswear, October 1, got a standing ovation in the room and a genuine fight everywhere else. The most hyped and most polarizing show of the year, which is exactly what a debut should produce.
Creative directors, appointments, and the strategy behind who gets handed a heritage house.
HousesDior, Chanel, Gucci, Balenciaga, Celine, Maison Margiela, Fendi, Bottega Veneta. Fifteen debuts in the Spring/Summer 2026 season alone. A map of the largest creative reset in modern luxury, and why it happened all at once.
HousesHis September debut in Milan was received as a triumph. He left on December 12, ten days after Prada Group closed its acquisition. Reception had nothing to do with it.
The ateliers, the highest tier, and the economics of clothes nobody needs.
CoutureParis haute couture ran July 6 to 9 with Pierpaolo Piccioli's Balenciaga debut and Duran Lantink's at Jean Paul Gaultier, alongside second outings from Blazy and Anderson. The clothes were sculptural. The subject was handover.
CoutureHis first Balenciaga couture, shown in the July week, answered the question everyone had about the appointment: he was not going to imitate what the house had been for the previous decade.
Group results, deals, and the numbers underneath the shows.
BusinessEurope slowing while the US and Asia lift. Two to five percent growth received as good news. A rebound that keeps getting a reality check, and a sector that has quietly redefined what normal looks like.
BusinessThe acquisition from Capri Holdings completed in early December after signing in April, with a relaunch plan running to 2030. An Italian group buying an Italian house is rarer than it should be.
Standards, regulation, materials, and which requirements have real teeth.
SustainabilityThe CFDA rule covers all official runways and calendar-listed shows from the Spring/Summer 2027 season. What matters is the mechanism: fashion weeks have started using schedule access as regulation.
SustainabilityNineteen documented minimum standards, at least 60% certified, recycled or deadstock materials, virgin fur and wild animal skins banned. Miss them and you are not on the schedule. It is the only sustainability regime in fashion with a real penalty.
Secondhand, authentication, and the market the houses no longer control.
ResaleAI-driven verification and blockchain provenance are where the money is going in secondhand luxury, because in a market of unique used objects the only defensible asset is being believed.
ResaleFrom $37.95 billion in 2025 to $41.61 billion in 2026, on the way to a projected $60 billion by 2030. Handbags are 40% of it, and 62% of buyers give sustainability as their reason.
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