PFW Trend Forecast: What’s Next for Fashion and Beauty | Ginger Sparks No. 11
First signals worth watching before they catch fire: power tailoring, bold beauty, and a renewed appetite for romance.
After four cities, countless runways, and more than a few espresso-fueled mornings, Fashion Month has reached its final stop. Paris always delivers the most layered narrative of the season. History sits alongside experimentation, heritage houses test new ideas, and beauty direction often reveals the clearest signals of where the industry is heading next. This week, the runways felt confident and expressive. Designers leaned into stronger silhouettes, richer textures, and beauty looks that made a statement. The result was a season that felt grounded in heritage while still pushing forward.
Christian Dior: The Sun King of the Tuileries The sun was certainly shining on Jonathan Anderson (and guests - including Macaulay Culkin) as he staged a very theatrical F/W 2026/27 in the scenic Le Jardin de Tuileries. A park within a park, originally commissioned by Catherine de Medici, and later redesigned by Louis XIV (known as the Sun King), was blessed with warmer temperatures that suited Anderson’s seemingly spring-like collection. Picking up on Dior’s love of flowers, Anderson (fond of anthurium at Loewe), produced his own twist: waterlilies, floating in the Tuileries pond (faux of course). According to reports, Anderson noted that the clothes will be arriving in stores in June. Other reviews noted that Anderson was critical of the industry’s outdated delivery calendar, wanting to offer a more seasonless luxury collection for his second ready-to-wear outing. While plenty of beautiful florals and diaphanous fabrics were on view, what caught our eyes were the sheer plaid pieces, tulip sleeves, and a reimagined curvy Donegal tweed bar jacket. The Anderson dichotomy of feminine vs. masculine and modern denim bottoms kept items from looking too precious. Loosely tied hair by Guido Palau, glowing skin, and minimal makeup courtesy Peter Phillips, provided a wearable contrast to the French court style of pink veils of hair and lilac cheeks seen recently at Dior Couture.
Ginger Spark: Similar to Prada’s layering in Milan, thought starter Jonathan Anderson artfully highlighted fashion’s need to readdress an antiquated calendar. This collection offered investment collectibles that will appeal to many customers year-round.
Saint Laurent: Le Smoking, On Repeat. At first, we did a quiet double-take. The first look walked out in razor-sharp black tailoring, followed by another that looked strikingly similar, then another, and another, until about eight looks in we were quietly asking each other if the show was intentionally opening on repeat? But the repetition was the point. Anthony Vaccarello began the collection with a disciplined study of Le Smoking, the iconic tuxedo Yves Saint Laurent introduced in 1966 that forever changed the language of power dressing for women. By the end of the show, fourteen versions had appeared, each subtly shifting proportion through stronger shoulders, elongated lapels, and sculpted waists that created a long, controlled silhouette. The beauty direction, led by Dame Pat McGrath, sharpened the message with smoky eyes, sculpted skin, and deep glossy lips, while hair was parted dramatically to the side and slicked back into severe styles that felt straight out of the Saint Laurent archive. As the show progressed, the strict tailoring loosened with sheer lace dresses and dramatic drop-waist fur outerwear that felt indulgent and decadent, creating the familiar Saint Laurent tension between masculine structure and unmistakable sensuality. Somewhere around look six, Michelle had quietly started adding every Le Smoking jacket and adjacent Saint Laurent blazer she could find to her The RealReal wish list.
The Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, which houses many of the house’s most important pieces, is currently closed for renovations and scheduled to reopen in autumn 2027, but it is absolutely worth a visit when it returns.
Ginger Spark: After seasons dominated by quiet luxury and softened minimalism, fashion is pivoting back toward a sharper kind of sensuality. At Saint Laurent, that shift appeared through precise tailoring, sheer lace, and the unapologetic confidence of Le Smoking, a reminder that power and seduction have always been part of the same conversation.
Tom Ford: Glamour, Recalibrated Haider Ackermann continues refining his vision for Tom Ford inside a glowing white box that felt more like a stage than a traditional runway. The opening models, several with bleach-blonde buzz cuts, immediately shifted the mood away from predictable glamour toward something sharper and more controlled. Tailoring anchored the collection, with men’s and women’s silhouettes often mirroring one another. Crocodile coats, glossy, clear rainwear that revealed the outfit underneath, and trousers with dramatic waist straps blurred the line between belt and garment construction. Styling introduced moments of looseness. Some models carried structured bags with small leather goods; others walked holding their jackets or sunglasses as if caught mid-gesture; and one memorable look featured a weekender bag with what appeared to be deep-red anthuriums spilling out. Anthuriums happen to be one of Michelle’s favorite flowers and are often considered slightly strange or sculptural, which made the moment feel especially fitting against the collection’s otherwise disciplined tailoring.
Beauty-wise, models wore deep matte lipsticks in shades of red, plum, and eggplant, paired with sleek chignons and sharp hairlines that felt graphic and intentional. The look underscored something Tom Ford has long understood: glamour works best when fashion and beauty move together. It’s possible these shades connect to the brand’s Runway Lip Stylo Matte, positioned as a runway lipstick icon within Tom Ford Beauty. The runway-to-beauty pipeline is especially important since Estée Lauder acquired the Tom Ford brand in 2022 for approximately $2.8 billion, securing full ownership of one of the company’s most powerful luxury beauty franchises, particularly in fragrance. Tom Ford fragrances consistently rank among the top performers in prestige scent globally, reinforcing the brand’s outsized influence across both fashion and beauty.
Ginger Spark: After several seasons where runway beauty leaned toward restraint, bold lip color is quietly reclaiming its place. At Tom Ford, rich matte shades worked alongside sharp tailoring to reintroduce glamour as a deliberate statement rather than an afterthought.
Alaia: Final Bow House Codes Much like Jonathan Anderson’s seasonless thinking, Pieter Mulier did his final collection for Maison Alaïa (before moving to Versace in July) as a Summer-Fall 2026 collection. Raf Simons and Matthieu Blazy cheered on their friend and longtime colleague. Raf even stood on the bench for the standing ovation at the end.
It was stripped back Alaïa, in the pure expression of all Azzedine Alaïa established, leaving a clean slate for whoever takes over next at the Paris-based house. From clinging, sexy tank dresses that opened the show, to near replications of the founder’s crocodile tailcoats, along with form-hugging velvet suits, and densely ruffled skirts that brought the display to a fine finale. Mulier was quoted by WWD saying, “It’s basically a vocabulary of my five years at Alaïa, what I taught and that I’m giving to the next one,” Mulier told reporters after the show. “When you leave a house, you keep it calm, you go back to the roots. And I want to show what I learned also from the house. “I learned precision, I learned editing, and I learned that real luxury is not what we all think. Real luxury is the perfectly cut jacket,” he continued. Mulier said the droning, steady techno-pulsed soundtrack was deliberate. Repetition was supposedly very Alaïa, never straying far from his vocabulary of white shirts, knit dresses, tailoring, and evening columns.
Ginger Spark: While some fashion shows seem more about image and cultural relevance, this one was about the work. Viewed up close, the collection should speak to connoisseurs of Mulier’s and Alaïa’s genius, which included his BFFs (best fashion friends) Raf Simons and Matthieu Blazy.
Chloé: Devotion in Motion Chloé’s Fall 2026 show unfolded in a dreamy fog, where models walked with a noticeable bounce, and the clothes moved right along with them. Flow defined the collection. Swinging braids, fluttering skirts, and airy layers created a sense of motion that felt effortless and romantic. Creative director Chemena Kamali drew inspiration from sources ranging from 19th-century Dutch costume and Lithuanian long-hair traditions to the Karl Lagerfeld era at Chloé, grounding the collection in craft and folklore per WWD. Accent braids, flushed cheeks, and subtle transparency gave the look softness, while studded clogs, jackets over full skirts, and hints of prairie and ’60s silhouettes kept things grounded.
Titled “Devotion,” the collection centered on talismans, lucky charms, and the human touch. Chain details threaded through hair, bags, and jewelry, while one standout belt buckle in look 30 featured three prancing horses, a literal nod to symbolism and mythology. Cape silhouettes balanced Chloé’s femininity with a hint of ruggedness, and dresses with subtle peekaboo cutouts added sensuality without losing the brand’s easy spirit. Toward the end, an all-red look punctuated the softness of the show, while the appearance of Raquel Zimmermann, in her signature Chloé waves, felt like a quiet nod to the house’s past.
Ginger Spark: After years dominated by sharp tailoring and quiet minimalism, designers are rediscovering the power of emotion in clothing. At Chloé, Kamali’s mix of folklore, craft, and movement signals a broader shift in fashion toward a lived-in, personal, and a little bit magical aesthetic.
Phew. Fashion Month may be over, but the signals are just beginning to ripple into retail, beauty counters, and wardrobes everywhere. We’ll keep following how these ideas evolve here at Gingergeist. Which show do you think will have the biggest impact this season?
