8 Buzzy Moments From Haute Couture Week That Had Everyone Talking

While Haute Couture Week’s usual heavy-hitters, including Maison Margiela, Balenciaga, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Iris van Herpen, paused for the Spring/Summer 2026 season, the four-day event, held from Jan. 26 to 29, proved to be a roaring success.

Both Matthieu Blazy and Jonathan Anderson made their highly anticipated couture debuts for Chanel and Dior, respectively, since taking their post as the brands’ head designers. Meanwhile, Valentino’s Alessandro Michele flipped the format of a runway show with a peephole-style model viewing. At Gaurav Gupta, the clothes took center stage, with avant-garde masterpieces that left a bevy of dropped jaws in their wake.

The runways didn’t monopolize headlines, of course. Attendees who showed up in their best looks were all over FYPs. (Hi, Teyana Taylor.) And a few front-row moments even made the rounds on the internet, like Dua Lipa and her Chanel seatmates all singing along to karaoke favorite “Wonderwall.”

Find these and more of Paris Haute Couture Week’s most jaw-dropping moments.

Gaurav Gupta’s Collection

Fashion insiders couldn’t stop talking about Gaurav Gupta’s show, which included some beautifully haunting designs. Exhibits A and B: Taking inspiration from Indian spiritual philosophy, the designer later sent two models walking side by side in intertwined dresses, connected by their fibers. Now, that’s art.

Chanel’s Front-Row Guests

The front row at Matthieu Blazy’s debut couture collection for Chanel was inspired. Penelope Cruz, Dua Lipa, A$AP Rocky, Margaret Qualley, and Nicole Kidman, among other A-list names, were in attendance. The moment that went viral, however, was when they all started singing along to Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” an unexpected choice in the runway soundtrack.

Sheer Crushed Flap Bags At Chanel

Speaking of Chanel, Blazy continued his streak of reinterpreting the label’s flap handbags, aka symbols of the highest elegance and luxury.

During the Spring/Summer 2026 Paris Fashion Week season, Blazy shocked and delighted fashion fans with distressed flap bags made to look intentionally beaten up. Similarly, the Flap Bag got the crushed treatment this season. Instead of tweed bags or quilted leather, however, the arm candy was rendered in flimsy diaphanous fabrics and lined with an embroidered handkerchief.

Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Couture Debut

To say Jonathan Anderson’s Haute Couture Week debut with Dior was a success is an understatement. In fact, it was received with a standing ovation. Sculpted gowns and suits that seemingly bloomed flowers lined the runways.

Honorable mentions were the pairs of pom-pom-style flower earrings tacked onto several models’ lobes. Even Rihanna was sold. She got her hands on a pink pair and wore them out later that night.

Teyana Taylor’s ‘Fit

The “naked dress” was well represented at this season’s couture week. No one, however, outdid Teyana Taylor, who wore a black diaphanous lace midi dress, granny panties, and a tuxedo coat to attend Schiaparelli.

She also wore replicas of the jewels taken from the Louvre heist. Creative director Daniel Roseberry took inspiration from the museum robbery and recreated the stolen pieces, albeit with even more over-the-top embellishments. Iconic.

Victoria Beckham Got Her Flowers

Kicking off the week, Victoria Beckham was honored by the French Ministry of Culture by becoming a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. She was supported by her husband David, sons Cruz and Romeo, and daughter Harper.

Olandria Debuted A Bob

After making a splash at New York Fashion Week last September as both an attendee and model, Love Island USA’s Olandria Carthen cemented her fashion-girl status by also attending couture week. (And those invites are hard to come by.)

Naturally, she commemorated the moment by sharing a new ‘do. Rocking a bixie, aka a cross between a pixie and a bob, Carthen posed in an all-red number at Robert Wun’s Spring/Summer 2026 show.

Valentino’s Peephole-Style Show

Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele upended the structure of a fashion show when he mounted it à la the Kaiserpanorama. Back in the 19th and 20th centuries, guests watched films through tiny peepholes. Michele offered the same experience to fashion insiders when they peeked inside small squares as models moved from one enclosed space to another.