Carven's new start finally looks like Carven, and Piccioli puts couture into a pair of jeans at Balenciaga

Thursday, October 1, gave Paris the second of its two debuts. After Drew Henry at Courrèges on Wednesday, Kai Nesselrath showed his first collection as design director of Carven at 12:30. At 14:00, Pierpaolo Piccioli showed Balenciaga. One was a mid-size house trying, again, to find itself. The other was a giant settling into a designer who is no longer new.

Carven: younger, more wearable, more Carven

Nesselrath worked at Chanel under Karl Lagerfeld and then spent the last decade at Saint Laurent alongside Anthony Vaccarello, as reported by Charles Manning in Daily Front Row. He replaces Mark Thomas, who left after a single year. That makes Nesselrath the latest in a run of short tenures at a house that has struggled to hold a designer.

He went to the archive first. The opening looks riffed on Marie-Louise Carven's wardrobe of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with clean geometric cuts and hemlines high on the thigh, as reported by WWD. The collection then moved into the present: blousons and pullovers in feathery jacquard, slinky knits, long roomy button-down shirts, light coats, neo-cargo trousers and a multipocket jacket with a moleskin collar. Numéro described "vaporous and terribly elegant" looks in satin skirts, flowing trousers and silk shirts, with pencils worn as hair accessories, as reported by Numéro.

Nesselrath told Daily Front Row he wanted "a certain undone quality, an imperfection almost", a sense of the hand and of movement. Manning called the debut "a genuine success overall", and named the misses: empty belt loops meant to read as nostalgia, an oversized navy trench, a green skirt suit. His summary was that the collection felt "younger, more wearable, and simply, more Carven" than his predecessor's work.

That last phrase is the one Carven needs. Madame Carven built the house in 1945 on clothes for real women, petite women in particular, rather than on spectacle, and the house has spent years being handed to designers who wanted it to be something else. A debut whose main virtue is that people will wear it is exactly the right one for a brand of this size. The Saint Laurent decade shows in the tailoring. The question, as at every mid-size house, is whether the owners give him the four or five seasons it takes to build a customer.

Balenciaga: couture as a method

Piccioli showed at the Stade Pierre de Coubertin, a Paris indoor arena, around a ceiling-high coral sculpture by Aude Franjou titled Les Coraux de la Liberté, as reported by The Zoe Report. It was his third ready-to-wear show for the house, as reported by WWD, after his first couture in July.

The argument of the collection was that couture technique belongs in everyday clothes. He cut jeans and unlined wool suits on the bias, a technique Cristóbal Balenciaga himself never used, according to WWD. The first nine looks were white and ivory, as reported by Coveteur, before peplums, high collars, oversized sleeves and ballooning cargo trousers gave way to coral oranges and pinks, lime, red and teal. Three-tier fringed tops looked like sea anemones. Soft leather belt bags worn through trouser loops are the likely commercial hit, and a knowing one: The Zoe Report noted the echo of Demna's 2018 collection.

Piccioli spoke of "freedom of gesture, freedom of movement, freedom of choice", as reported by W Magazine, and of couture as "a laboratory of possibilities" that drives the house, according to The Zoe Report.

This is the collection that makes sense of the appointment. At couture in July, Piccioli showed what he could do with feathers and volume. Here he showed what that skill is for at a house whose revenue comes from denim, T-shirts and bags. Bias-cut jeans are not a headline, but they are the kind of idea a customer can feel, and a fanny pack in soft leather is a nod to the Demna years that does not depend on irony.

Also on Thursday

• Schiaparelli showed in the basement of the Louvre, with leather and linen ruffles drawn from Elsa Schiaparelli's atelier windows, as reported by Numéro.
• Rick Owens showed a collection titled Stone at the Palais de Tokyo.
• Isabel Marant closed the day in the courtyard of the Palais-Royal.

What comes next

The two debuts of the season are done, and both were judged as successes on the same grounds: ease, colour, clothes for actual people. That is a change from a year ago, when Paris debuts were judged on spectacle. Duran Lantink's first ready-to-wear for Jean Paul Gaultier on Sunday and Matthieu Blazy's second Chanel on Monday will show whether the big houses have noticed.

Carven: Nesselrath's background, quotes and the review assessment per Daily Front Row (Charles Manning, October 1, 2026); collection details per WWD and Numéro (October 2, 2026). Balenciaga: venue, sculpture and quotes per The Zoe Report (Brooke Frischer, October 1, 2026) and W Magazine (Ana Colón, October 1, 2026); show count and technique per WWD; colours and opening looks per Coveteur (Ella O'Keeffe, October 2, 2026). Show times per Numéro.