Which HW25 shows influence the fashion of the coming seasons?

After Demna Gvasalia’s farewell show for Balenciaga, the Haute Couture Week opened new perspectives in Paris. The autumn/winter collections 2025/2026 showed a fashion that combines craft and technology. Upcycling was cheerfully celebrated by Glenn Martens for Maison Margiela and Germanier. Ronald van der Kemp and Iris van Herpen focused on respect for nature.

Of course, the absences of well -known designers also noticed during this fashion week: inside, which was also caused by the chair in the large fashion houses. For example, Jonathan Anderson shows his first Haute-Couture collection for Dior in January 2026, after he already presented his first menswear collection this month. Duran Lantink starts Beijean Paul Gaultier with the Womenswear collection in September 2026. This marked the end of the guest designer model and the return to Prêt-à-porter collections. Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino as well as French houses such as Alexis Mabille and Julien Fournié were also missing.

Chanel showed a collection, but not under the leadership of the new creative chief matthieu Blazy, who only made his debut in October during the Paris Fashion Week. The current collection was the last of the internal design studio.

Balenciaga: Demna Gvasalia completely before moving to Gucci

Speaking of the last show. Demna Gvasalia’s farewell to Balenciaga took place in the historical salons of the house on Avenue George V in Paris. The rush was great. Numerous stars like Aya Nakamura, Katy Perry, Nicole Kidman, Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Cardi B were in the front row. Kim Kardashian, Isabelle Huppert and Naomi Campbell ran over the catwalk himself.

The show music announced the names of the employees: inside. In the end, the name was called, followed by Sades ‘No Ordinary Love’. A reflection of his extraordinary fashion. The show presented its characteristic designs. These could also be seen in the exhibition dedicated to him: women’s costumes with oversized shoulders, structured couture dresses, oversized men jackets and a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor’s nightgown from the film ‘The cat on the hot tin roof’ for Kim Kardashian.

However, there was a little reference to his streetwear preference that was missing in the show. Gvasalia showed itself in a black hoodie, an extra -wide trousers with a military print and a cap. According to ‘The Cut’, he said backstage: “In hoodie, jeans and baseball cap, I feel like it was out”. A clever hint that everything will change with his position as a designer at Gucci. Its first show has been announced for March 2026.

Maison Margiela and Germanier: The future of fashion is upcycling

Glenn Martens’ first collection ‘Artisanal’, the name of the couture line of the house, embodied the connection between Couture and Street Culture. As a tribute to Martin Margiela, the founder of the brand of the same name, the new creative director presented his collection in the Centquatre in Paris. Martin Margiela had held his last show there.

Martens picked up the DNA of the house: recycling, upcycling, anonymity and misuse of objects. He chose a decor of torn wallpapers. He covered the faces of the models with masks made of crushed metal cans, paint paper and illusion tulle. The looks were created from crumpled plastic bags. An impressive golden dress was made from recycled computer cables.

Glenn Martens showed that Couture can pave the way to develop towards a new, more ecological and ethical fashion production. The future of fashion is the ability of the fashion houses to adapt to the remaining natural resources. The couture plays an important role in this because it is manual, experimentally and artistically oriented.

Recycling is also the strength of the Swiss designer Kevin Germanier. He told fashionunited: “On the day my couture no longer consists of recycled materials, it is no longer worth visiting my shows”. The press release says about his collection ‘Les Joueuses’: “We live in a difficult time: political, socially, economical. My job is to bring light, and that drives my work. This collection is a direct answer. I wanted joy on the catwalk”. In doing so, he sets himself away from a certain listlessness to process the remains of the fabric.

Upgecycled leather silhouettes from the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, its characteristic technique of weaving with regained pearls, a final dress made of recycled Japanese paper and feathers from previous collections. Germanier’s message went through to the stage design, which consisted of plastic balloons. “They were sorted out for sewing errors, but I will use them for my next show,” the designer told fashionunited.

Ronald van der Kemp and Iris van Herpen: when nature, recycled or alive, becomes a couture material

Another important player of change is the Dutch Ronald van der Kemp. It only uses fabric remains and regained luxury materials. He went one step further for his HW26 collection ‘Call of the Wild’. He paid homage to nature, especially the Amazon rainforest, and researched biomimetism. “We are not aware of how many solutions we already have,” said expert Alain Renaudin on the occasion of the Paris Good Fashion.

This return to nature comes with another renowned designer from the Netherlands: Iris van Herpen. She put the relationship between people and the sea in the foreground. With a multi -sensory atmosphere of sound, light and fragrance – in cooperation with the perfumer Francis Kurkdjian – she emphasized the fragility of this vital ecosystem. Van Herpen used textile fibers made from plant -based, biodegradable materials in the laboratory by microbial fermentation. These innovative and luxurious substances are ecological alternatives to silk or cashmere.

The heart of her show entitled ‘Sympoiesis’, which means something like ‘together between species’, was a lively dress of 125 million natural, organic linescenters algae. Cultivated in a nutritional gel, react to movement by radiating a blue light. A sign of the industry, which way a creative fashion can take with heart and future.