From Cardi B’s crow to Kim Kardashian’s catwalk cameo: All the viral moments from Paris Haute Couture Week (so far)

No one is having a better time in Paris than the 18-year-old Romy Mars, for whom, in between visits to the capital’s several Brandy Melville stores, Couture Week has presented itself like an unofficial debut into high-fashion society. It helps, of course, that her mother, Sofia Coppola, directed the opening Bal d’Été, and that she later sat front row at Chanel’s autumn/winter 2025 presentation, where there was no shortage of debutante-appropriate looks: fuzzy tweed coat dresses; sensible shifts with feather-trimmed capes of bouclé tweed; crystal-latticed slips with the shock of a lamé skirt; and heavily embellished puff-sleeve blouses with cascading ruffled hems. Inspired by the time Gabrielle Chanel spent in the English and Scottish countryside while courting the Duke of Westminster, this will be the last collection to have been conceived without a creative director at its helm. The house has yet to establish a VIP strategy for when Matthieu Blazy debuts in September, but it would do well to keep Romy – make-a-vodka-sauce-pasta-with-me-because-I-tried-to-charter-a-helicopter-from-New-York-to-Maryland-on-my-dad’s-credit-card-because-I-wanted-to-have-dinner-with-a-camp-friend – Mars on its roster. DR

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Celine

At long last, after a seemingly endless merry-go-round of creative director changes at the helms of fashion’s leading houses, we’re finally getting our first treatises on the industry’s new lay of the land. Following on from Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut during men’s week was another hotly anticipated – though arguably more mysterious – first showing at Celine, where American designer Michael Rider – formerly of Polo Ralph Lauren – presented his vision for the house. Granted, following in the footsteps of Hedi Slimane – who held the top job at the label for seven years – and Phoebe Philo, whose 2010s tenure remains one of the most revered and referenced in contemporary fashion history – was always going to be a tall task, but it’s one that the ’til-now-IYKYK designer fulfilled with aplomb.

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It was, in many senses, a confident synthesis of the hallmarks of his antecedents’ signature aesthetics – Philo’s razor-sharp, whittle-waisted tailoring, yen for elevated jolie laide graphics and chintz, and the emblematic Phantom bag all made appearance; Slimane’s slim-line sensuality and mod-ish flair coloured the menswear offering in particular. More than that, though, it paid homage to an archive that has long been relatively subdued – Celine’s storied equestrian heritage, for example, translated to proudly logo-ed sweatshirts and jodhpur leggings; its patrician bohemianism to the silk carrés and jangling gold charms styled throughout – while also narrating Rider’s own story as a designer. There was a distinct, old-school Ghesquière flair to much of the styling – particularly the contrast-toned tailored silhouettes with oversized, blade-sharp jackets and ballooning pleated pants, while the all-American prep to be expected of a man who literally just came from Ralph Lauren was a notable undercurrent. Never, though, did any single component overpower – this was a collection that was both eclectic and clear-sighted in its invocation of both Celine and Rider’s pasts, hinting towards a promising path ahead for their joint future. Mahoro Seward, acting fashion features editor

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JW Anderson

Whenever Jonathan Anderson’s name has appeared in the fashion news cycle of late, it’s been with respect to his beast of a new job at the helm of Dior. Since the first chapter of what, in many ways, is a three-part debut (we still have womenswear and couture to come!) has now bowed, attentions naturally pivoted to a question that the Irish designer’s fans have been asking since the big announcement first came: what will happen with his namesake label, JW Anderson? Well, at a presentation in Paris at the start of Couture Week, the label’s new guise was unveiled. Rather than continue as a four-collections-a-year fashion line (in the classic sense of the term), the brand will pivot to operate as a lifestyle concept, centred on “things I like and [that] I would like to have around me. And everything has a story,” a line from a press release reads. The whole affair remains overseen by Anderson – and there are plenty of clothes on offer in the first drop, unveiled yesterday in a muted campaign shot by Heikki Kaski: Japanese denim jeans, Scottish argyle knits and sweatshirts bearing slogans lifted from the punchy, textual works of queer, Berlin-based artist Dean Sameshima.

JW Anderson Resort 2026.

GoRunway.com

JW Anderson Resort 2026.

GoRunway.com

These latter pieces give a sense of the broadened, curatorial scope of JW Anderson – beyond fashion, the brand will serve as a platform for the sale of objects, curios and artworks convened by Anderson. In a sense, it feels like a way for fans of the polymathic designer to step into (and shop from) an ever-shifting moodboard – a holistic expression of what’s making him tick – from gardening tools to loafer-inspired satchels; Mary Stephenson paintings to reissued Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs. In many senses, it feels like an analogue approach to what he achieved at Loewe – less because of the remit of the project, more because of the intentional interdisciplinarity at the heart of it. That’s accented by the aforementioned campaign, which features a culture-shaping cast of figures that, ultimately, are all Anderson’s collaborators and friends: curator Bengi Unsal and actor Ben Whishaw; artists Anthea Hamilton and Pol Anglada; designer Bella Freud and director Luca Guadagnino. If they’re all in, you should be, too. MS