From Chanel to Balenciaga—I Can't Stop Thinking About These Incredible Haute Couture Fashion Week Looks

While the traditional fashion show amasses plenty of excitement—especially from the K-Pop fans swarming to catch a glimpse of their favourite celebrities inside—Haute Couture is where you'll spy the weirdest and most wonderful creations, with the confines of ready-to-wear largely out of the window. And the Autumn/Winter 26 shows did not disappoint.

Jean Paul Gaultier pushed the parameters of Marie Antoinette-inspired styling. Schiaparelli swapped traditional couture-worthy fabrics for synthetic fibres. And Chanel created its own fantasy land, bringing many a favourite fairytale to life, complete with a life-sized scarecrow, fairy-adorned shoes and a Jack and the Beanstalk-printed silk. The inspiration clearly running wild.

Throughout the whimsy, though, a handful of moments have stuck with me—each more than worthy of a deep dive into their design and delicate creation processes. Scroll on to see why.

The Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Moments We Loved:

Pierpaolo Piccioli's Big Balenciaga Couture Debut

The most highly anticipated moment of Couture Week was arguably Pierpaolo Piccioli's Balenciaga Couture debut. Classic couture codes—feathers, tulle, and voluminous fabrics—featured in no short supply, alongside traditional Balenciaga frameworks. He also publicly thanked the team behind the collection, writing, "This collection is the result of the work of the people in the atelier, human beings who are couture—because couture is made by the people who live it. This note is to thank each and every one of them for their time, love, and commitment. This is our collection, this is our work, this is Balenciaga Couture, now."

Matthieu Blazy's Fairytale at Chanel

Blazy's Chanel continues to be a key talking point in the fashion sphere and beyond, and the designer's second haute couture show has done nothing to slow that momentum. "I started to wonder, was Gabrielle Chanel's life a fairy tale? I found a small book in her library, Les Fées, Contes des Contes, and asked myself if, together with the Haute Couture ateliers, we could make garments that tell stories like a book," he wrote, before sending interpretations of some of our favourite children's stories down the runway: Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Scarecrow among them.

Daniel Roseberry Opens Up at Schiaparelli

The press texts accompanying each collection are often overly eloquent stories of inspiration and laborious savoir-faire from the fashion houses as a whole—but Daniel Roseberry took a different approach, writing as though speaking to a close friend about the struggles that actually go into creating a collection. It's one of the best press releases I've ever read. "I'll be honest. Last season's collection, The Agony and the Ecstasy, felt like a kind of breakthrough, a new benchmark for Schiaparelli. Great, I thought: I've cracked the formula," he wrote. But "it didn't work like that." Instead, he turned to synthetic materials, breaking classic couture codes.

Victor & Rolf Does a Double Act

Haute couture is often centred around opulence, with craftspeople using fine fabrics and trims to create incredibly beautiful (and expensive) pieces. Viktor & Rolf, however, sought to challenge that idea. As the label put it, gold and burlap become different expressions of the same human reality—beneath every layer of adornment or discipline lies the same fragile humanity, exposed and enduring. To illustrate the point, two models took to the stage in identical outfits: one crafted from utilitarian burlap, the other from sequins and gold.

Dior's Lynda Benglis Influence

Inspiration comes in many forms, particularly when the constraints of wearable clothing needn't be heeded, as is the case with haute couture. Jonathan Anderson took his from American sculptor Lynda Benglis for Dior's Winter 26/27 Haute Couture collection. Her work places a heavy emphasis on texture, using paper, glitter, metal, and chicken wire to knot, pleat, and mould her creations, and those tactile techniques can easily be spotted throughout the collection. This look is a stunning recreation of part of her Peacock series, with an Armadillo bag adding Anderson's signature sense of fun.

Duran Lantink Takes on the Traditional Train at Jean Paul Gaultier

Who remembers the giant pair of breasts that delighted and horrified fashion fans in equal measure on the Autumn/Winter 2025 runways? Well, Duran Lantink is back to his customary boundary-pushing ways with this Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture collection, taking each garment to the limits of its sculptural potential. Marie Antoinette served as a key reference point, with crinolines, bustiers, and trains all challenging the boundaries of what's considered classic.

Rahul Mishra's Standout Sculptures

"Within temple complexes, cave sanctuaries and monumental carvings hewn from sandstone, granite and basalt, Indian artisans transformed stone into eternal muses, dancers, apsaras, devis, celestial attendants, divine lovers and gods," read the Rahul Mishra Haute Couture show notes. These figures became the designer's source of inspiration, as he saw them as "some of the most intimate records of how beauty was once imagined". Layered necklaces, elaborate girdles, anklets, armlets and headdresses took centre stage before the clothes, with statue-like silhouettes stalking onto the runway.