Published
October 5, 2026
On Sunday, Paris Fashion Week opened at Roland-Garros, where Lacoste paid homage to the ochre of the clay courts, before Thierry Mugler unveiled, that evening, the final instalment of its trilogy dedicated to “glorified clichés”, this time exploring the vision of a woman embracing the animal kingdom.
Lacoste celebrates ochre
At Roland-Garros, Pelagia Kolotouros made a triumphant debut on the Philippe-Chatrier centre court upon joining Lacoste. The ‘creative design director’ of the crocodile brand successfully steered the high-end sportswear label into a more creative territory, reinterpreting technical fabrics in contemporary cuts and deftly infusing the collections with luxurious materials, including elements of high-end tailoring. The codes of the 1920s and 1930s, the pleated tennis skirt, and the expansion of leather goods — crowned by the success of its Lenglen bag — have shaped the identity of the French brand, which claims a global turnover in excess of two billion euros.
For Spring 2027, however, Lacoste seems poised at the dawn of a refreshed stylistic proposition. Symbolically, the Lenglen bag — like the pleats — was absent from this show.
Having previously explored the curves of a feminine eveningwear wardrobe for Lacoste and iterated on raincoats and windcheaters for the label, Kolotouros took the plunge — risks and all — into the brand’s materials library to revisit the house’s key silhouettes.
To be sure, L12.12 polo shirts, suits and demure-collared little dresses in cotton piqué or silk, satin bombers and generous windcheaters bloomed against the ochre backdrop rising from the tennis court. These pieces from the Lacoste wardrobe undoubtedly benefit from the house’s styling expertise. The collection was anchored in a predominantly ochre palette.
This palette extended across all the key pieces, as well as the leather goods.
Meanwhile, the polo was recast as a technical second skin with clearly articulated reinforcement and ventilation zones; the sweeping raincoats were cut from ultra-lightweight fabrics with a silky handle; and waterproof jackets in coated ripstop nylon with an intense lustre came with high collars or in sleeveless iterations. In counterpoint to the ochre dominance, Lacoste injected a series of pieces in tennis-ball yellow, and even a dress formed from a mesh of oversized yellow circles.
But the designer raised her game for the final set. She presented a series of white looks comprising polo shirts, skirts, shirts and dresses, each treated differently: the fabrics were crumpled and fixed, almost cracked; an intense wet-look finish was applied to sections; and, like athletes who have taken to the court in their street clothes, the ochre of Roland-Garros was splashed across their pristine outfits.
“At this time, consumers are looking for points of reference. That’s why all brands are returning to the foundations of their identity. At Lacoste, it’s clear. And this season was the right time to introduce ochre, a colour we hadn’t actually worked with in recent years,” remarked Thierry Guibert, managing director of MF Brands, the brand’s owner, at the end of the show.
Although the brand’s European operations are being hampered by a challenging economic climate, according to the Lacoste executive, the brand, buoyed by its business in the United States and, above all, in Asia — where it has recently opened flagship stores in Hong Kong and Seoul — is expected to record growth of around five per cent in its global turnover this year. Beyond its classics, the strengthening of its leather goods and accessories offer, together with the launch of new footwear models, should enable the brand to continue to grow sales.
At Thierry Mugler, a wild finale to the ‘glorified clichés’ arc
Following last season’s show at the Palais de la Porte Dorée, Thierry Mugler this time chose the Palais du Louvre, where the Carrousel hosted a presentation concluding a trilogy of shows exploring “Glorified Clichés”.
A year ago, Miguel Castro Freitas set out to explore the codes associated with the Mugler house, pushing them to the limits of the ‘femme fatale’ concept. For his Autumn–Winter 2026/27 collection, presented in March under the name “The Commander”, the designer continued this exploration by delving into the clichés of martial inspirations to distil an authoritative seduction. The result was highly structured silhouettes, with pronounced shoulders and angular volumes, drawing inspiration from both the 1940s and the 1980s.
For this final event dedicated to clichés, the audience was greeted by an imposing guard of honour formed at the foot of the Carrousel arch, where British rapper Shygirl, stylist Law Roach, and actresses Natasha Lyonne and Catherine Deneuve were among those in attendance.
The audience was ushered into a dark, oval-shaped room, where the sounds of dripping water and birdsong echoed. It was, in fact, a jungle, from which a wardrobe with the air of a bestiary was about to emerge, with Miguel Castro Freitas this time setting out to explore womanhood as a force of nature.
The collection multiplied animal motifs, from leopard to zebra; dresses and skirts became filament-fine, like spiders’ webs; tops were clad in scales; collars were adorned with upstanding feathers; headpieces sharpened into angular horns; and the serpent insinuated itself into trousers, bralettes and, above all, a strapless dress with a provocative derrière cut-out.
As for colours, turquoise blues, oranges and pinks — sometimes appearing only on gloves — were venomously vivid this season. The same goes for the green that punctuated the collection, where the vegetal is not forgotten, with moss and multicoloured flowers overrunning a few sheer tops and dresses.
But the collection also proposed more classic ensembles, such as the pairing of body-skimming leather jackets and tailoring, in black and burgundy, as well as black capes with sculpted shoulders enlivened with pink. Or a purple crop-top ensemble — gloves and hair included — which took Mugler to the edge of cyberpunk attire reminiscent of the 2000s clubbing subculture.
The show closed with a lavender dress trailing a long black train that ended in swirling filaments shifting from apple green to black — a synthesis of the season’s experiments, in which woman asserts her dominion over the animal kingdom.
Copyright © 2026 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
