Theatre, cinema, ballet… From Jeanne Friot to Willy Chavarria, fashion houses pull out all the stops with performances to elevate their runways and tell stories that go beyond clothing.
A fashion show is tedious; we’re much better off in the theatre. Karl Lagerfeld was probably one of the first to understand the value of turning fashion into a spectacle, as when, in 2014, he transformed the Grand Palais into a Chanel supermarket. The buzz was instant, and the show remains a reference for the fashion world. Nine years later, the Catalan singer Rosalia set the Louis Vuitton show alight. This winter, at Paris Men’s Fashion Week (FW 2026/2027), several emerging designers have in turn integrated elements of dance, theatre, and cinema to make their show a spectacle that leaves a lasting impression… and whose images circulate widely on social media.
So We Dance
Jeanne Friot is a regular at buzz-making presentations. Last year, during Paris Fashion Week Men’s Spring/Summer 2026, the Parisian moved us with a 100% trans and non-binary casting embodying the message “Trans Lives Matter” emblazoned on her T-shirt, later worn by Angèle at the Glastonbury festival. For this autumn/winter 2026-27 season, the lesbian designer invited us to the Théâtre du Rond-Point for a dance performance. At the helm: Maud Le Pladec, no less than the choreographer of the Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony, who came with the troupe of the Ballet of Lorraine, which the Breton runs. On the decks: DJ Chloé. Titled “Awake,” the performance invites a waking of consciences in the current political context. On stage, dancers mingle with models and showbiz personalities: the French queen Mami Watta, Daphné Bürki, and DJ Claude Emmanuelle. The show ends with a signature Friot manifest gesture: a lesbian kiss, the image of which, meticulously filmed, instantly goes around the world.
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Pillows That Wake You Up
With graffiti, the Scottish designer Charles Jeffrey Loverboy has taken over the new trendy venue in the Marais: Dover Street Market, which opened in 2024. Here, the entire spectacle lies in attitude. The models wear extravagant wigs, makeup in every color, and layers of ripped garments, in the brand’s punk image. There is no room for a quiet runway: the models, including our Reinvention 2025 holdout Raya Martigny, walk in zig-zags, drop to all fours, and vigorously shake their heads. The musical backdrop, provided by the Dutch trio Baby Berserk, blends punk with garage rock. The whole thing is far from making us sleepy, but the models pull out pillows for… a good old pillowfight, quickly filling the space with feathers. A collision of music, fashion, and rage, mirroring the Scottish punk.
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Broadway on the Catwalk
Willy Chavarria, for his part, invites us to witness a musical, worthy of a Latin American telenovela. Like a real theatre piece, the show unfolds in three acts: first, a song performed by the Italian star Mahmood, our Eurovision repeat favorite, along with the Puerto Rican Lunay and Latin American music icon Mon Laferte, who present the daytime story and the clothes of the collection. The second act, devoted to sport, showcases the designer’s new collaboration with Adidas, whose pieces are worn by the new Latin American boy band Santos Bravos during their performance. The story closes with eveningwear, with more elegant gowns and suits, set to the voice of Colombian rapper Feid and the Latin rock of Latin Mafia. Here, the performance becomes central to the brand’s narrative, turning Chavarria’s garments into true stage costumes.
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Engine, Camera, Action!
At KidSuper, it’s an Inception vibe. As you enter Pavillon Cambon for the brand’s show, you are immediately confronted with a mysterious white cube placed in the middle of the room, prompting a question: where will the models walk? The press release, printed on a popcorn box, points us in the right direction: the experience will be cinematic. The presentation opens with a piercing gaze projected in close-up onto the white box: that of actor Vincent Cassel, no less. Dizzy and disoriented in a Parisian café, his character exits the place to wander the streets of the capital. The film ends with the actor, alone and lost in a stark white space. It is then that the mysterious box opens, revealing the same set as in the mini-film, from which a model dressed as the character emerges, still trying to understand what is happening to him. A gunshot rings out, he collapses, and two orderlies come to fetch him on a stretcher while a recorded voice warns us: “What you are about to see is not real. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the human show.” A fitting summary of this Paris Fashion Week.
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