Inside Paris Haute Couture Week 2025, Where Legacy Shifts and Creative Legends Take Their Final Bow
Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 opened in Paris with an air of gravity and transformation. The week is unfolding not simply as a presentation of garments but as a moment of powerful cultural and creative shift. There’s an unspoken awareness circulating through the historic venues and candlelit salons — a recognition that this season is historic. As tradition and transition converge, the city prepares for a farewell, a debut, and a defining crescendo of vision.
One of the most anticipated moments of Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is still to come: the final collection by Denma for Balenciaga. After a decade at the helm of the house, Denma’s upcoming runway show will mark the closing of one of the most controversial and transformative chapters in modern couture. Known for reshaping the very silhouette of fashion — challenging the industry with disruptive forms and dystopian storytelling — Denma’s departure from Balenciaga carries the weight of an era.
In March 2025, it was officially announced that Denma would be taking over as the new Creative Director of Gucci, following the earlier departure of Sabato De Sarno. The announcement sent a ripple across the global fashion landscape, sparking conversations about what the marriage of Denma’s raw, unfiltered vision with Gucci’s heritage house would look like. But here in Paris, Denma remains firmly Balenciaga — and this final show during Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is expected to be a moment of reckoning. A closing statement. A last, profound echo before a new chapter begins.
In contrast to the anticipation surrounding Denma’s finale, Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 opened in unmistakable style with Schiaparelli’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection on Monday morning. Daniel Roseberry, continuing to redefine the codes of surreal couture, unveiled a series of bold black looks that immediately set the tone for the week.
The runway became a living study of volume and shadow — architectural shapes, sculpted velvet, and daring interpretations of femininity. But the real conversation ignited when Cardi B stepped onto the scene. Dressed in a dramatic black Schiaparelli gown, her look featured a sharply beaded shoulder structure that rose like an ornate shrine and, perched on one arm, a live crow — a stunning extension of Roseberry’s surrealist narrative. The moment exploded across media feeds in real time. Couture had once again crossed into cultural mythology.
Hunter Schafer was also spotted in Schiaparelli, wearing a sleek strapless black dress that reflected the house’s elegant provocation. Her quiet power on the front row did not go unnoticed. Celebrities continued to flood the week with head-turning appearances. Jacopo Raule arrived in minimalist noir tailoring, Keira Knightley glowed in pearl-embellished ivory, and Kirsten Dunst wore sheer midnight blue silk with an old-Hollywood wave. Penélope Cruz appeared in classic black with cascading embroidery, while Dua Lipa’s structured ensemble played with volume and punk, and Karol G embraced embellishment in a crystal-slashed silver look. Each presence added a unique note to the visual rhythm of Paris Haute Couture Week 2025.
A key highlight before the shows officially began was Le Bal d’Été, held on Sunday night at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The evening marked a ceremonial beginning to Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 and did so with poetic resonance. The museum, steeped in fashion history, came alive with candlelight and couture. Designers, editors, and muses gathered under gilded ceilings in archival garments, custom creations, and whispering layers of silk and tulle. The Bal was less an event than an atmosphere — an ambient entry into the world that would unfold in the coming days.
Then came a fresh debut that caught the attention of critics and audiences alike. Michael Rider, the American designer long admired for his editorial-ready minimalism, made his first couture presentation for Celine, unveiling the Spring 2026 Collection during Paris Haute Couture Week 2025. It was a significant moment — a young designer stepping into a house known for restraint, and injecting it with quiet momentum.
The collection was spare but deeply emotional. Silhouettes leaned into fluid structure — ivory coats that shifted with movement, hand-pleated skirts shaped like breath, and gowns bearing fine gold thread inspired by handwritten letters. The show was personal, clean, and reverent — a couture debut that prioritized intention over spectacle. Rider’s introduction into the couture space at Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 was received as a confident beginning, one that aligned grace with relevance.
As the days progress, the emotional core of Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 continues to center around Denma’s upcoming Balenciaga farewell. No one yet knows exactly what the show will bring — will it be brutalist minimalism or vulnerable romanticism? Will there be silence, or a crescendo of sound? What kind of final statement does a designer make after ten years of uprooting fashion’s very foundation? The industry waits with reverence.
While the anticipation builds, Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 moves forward with discipline and drama. The schedule is packed, the venues are curated with precision, and every moment feels charged with legacy. There is no room for the superficial this season — the energy is clear. This is couture with something to say.
What unites every event and appearance during Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is the clarity of purpose. No look feels accidental, no show unconsidered. Designers are fully aware that they’re not just dressing bodies — they’re shaping cultural memory. This season, even more than seasons past, feels as if the garments are bearing witness to something closing and something new being born.
The themes of legacy and transformation hover over every runway and echo in the ornate halls of the city’s couture stages. From the grandeur of Schiaparelli’s theatrical statement to the soft rebellion of Rider’s Celine debut, to the elegant ambiance of Le Bal d’Été — Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is delivering more than craft. It’s delivering atmosphere, context, and depth.
Even in the moments between the shows — on sidewalks, in salons, at quiet café tables where stylists whisper predictions — the hum of Denma’s final bow reverberates. And yet, the city is not frozen in nostalgia. Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is moving with forward force, marking history as it’s being made.
With several key shows still ahead and Denma’s Balenciaga finale holding the fashion world in suspense, the week continues to unfold like a live archive — a record of a moment when couture became not only personal but pivotal.
Every detail of Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 so far has reflected that purpose. From the structured silence in Schiaparelli’s opening to the raw elegance of Rider’s debut to the measured glamour of Le Bal d’Été, each offering speaks its own language, yet they all read from the same script — one of transition, of power, of bold vision.
What remains is a sense of clarity: Paris Haute Couture Week 2025 is not about trends or forecasts. It’s about moments. The live crow on Cardi’s hand. The handwritten stitching on Rider’s gowns. The candlelight at the Musée. The footsteps we’re still waiting to hear from Denma’s final collection. These are not fashion notes. They are emotional footprints.
As the final days approach and the industry prepares to witness Denma’s closing chapter at Balenciaga, the eyes of the fashion world remain firmly fixed on Paris. For in these rooms, on these runways, and behind every curtain call, the future of couture is not only being imagined — it is being etched in real time.
