By Tamara Pfeiffer
Paris Fashion Week always leaves me with two feelings: completely inspired and slightly overwhelmed. There is so much to see that by the end of the week, I find myself thinking less about individual garments and more about which collections actually made me feel something.
This season, four houses in particular stayed with me: Miu Miu, Balenciaga, Valentino and Stella McCartney. They could not have approached fashion more differently, but together they offered a fascinating snapshot of where luxury is going… from sportswear and tailoring to couture, romance, storytelling and sustainability.
And, naturally, I had some opinions.
Miu Miu leaned into one of the biggest realities of modern dressing: we want to be comfortable, but we still want to look put together.
The collection mixed everyday sportswear with luxury tailoring, pairing track pants and athletic-inspired pieces with structured blazers and more polished silhouettes. It was that familiar “Miu Miu” trick of taking something ordinary and making you look at it differently.
I understand the appeal. There is something very modern about wearing a track pant with a beautiful blazer and treating the two as equals.
Personally, though, I am still NOT sold on the idea of loungewear becoming high fashion.
Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I still believe there is something wonderful about actually getting dressed. We have spent the last few years making pajamas, slippers, sweatpants and athletic wear acceptable almost everywhere, and I am not convinced that luxury fashion needs to continue encouraging us to dress like we are on our way to the sofa.
That said, Miu Miu is usually very good at making even the most ordinary pieces feel intentional. And that, ultimately, is the difference.
The collection wasn’t really telling us to stop dressing up. It was telling us that dressing up can look different now.
That leads me to Balenciaga, which offered almost the complete opposite experience.
Under Pierpaolo Piccioli, the house moved into a much more personal, couture-focused territory. There was drama, craftsmanship and an obvious appreciation for the extraordinary amount of work that goes into creating a truly special garment.
This is the kind of fashion I personally find difficult to resist.
There is something about couture that reminds you why fashion became an art form in the first place. It is not necessarily practical. It does not need to be. It exists to create emotion, fantasy and desire.
And after seeing so much fashion increasingly designed for social media, I appreciated the reminder that a garment can be valuable because of what went into making it, rather than simply because of how quickly it can become a viral image.
Piccioli’s approach felt human.
That matters to me because I think we are entering an interesting period in fashion where craftsmanship itself is becoming more meaningful. When technology can generate an image of almost anything imaginable in seconds, the physical process of actually creating something by hand becomes EVEN more extraordinary.
Balenciaga reminded me that sometimes the most impressive thing a designer can do is simply make something beautiful.
And then there was Valentino.
Alessandro Michele presented his collection inside a 19th-century Paris library, surrounded by books, old-world architecture and the kind of atmosphere that immediately makes you want to put on a beautiful dress and pretend you have somewhere terribly important to be.
This was probably the collection that spoke to my personal taste the most… I love romantic fashion. I love clothes that feel like they belong to a story. And I think storytelling is one of the most important things a luxury brand can offer.
A beautiful dress is wonderful. A beautiful dress that makes you imagine who you could become while wearing it is something else entirely.
That is what Michele does particularly well. He creates worlds.
The library setting made perfect sense because the clothes felt almost literary themselves. There was tailoring, lace, corsetry, dramatic accessories and plenty of references to other eras. It felt intellectual without becoming cold, and romantic without becoming overly precious.
And perhaps that is what I want from luxury fashion most: a little escapism. There is enough practicality in everyday life. I don’t necessarily need my clothes to remind me of it. Sometimes I want fashion to make me feel like the heroine in a novel!
Finally, Stella McCartney is the designer I find myself respecting more and more every season.
Her commitment to creating fashion without relying on animal-derived materials is not new, which is precisely why I find it so impressive. It is one thing for a brand to make sustainability part of a marketing campaign for one season. It is another to build an entire creative philosophy around it and continue challenging yourself to find new materials, new techniques and new ways of making luxury.
Her latest collection continued that conversation, with a focus on the ocean and marine conservation, while remaining committed to her animal-free approach.
And what I particularly appreciate is that the clothes don’t feel like they are asking you to sacrifice fashion for ethics.
They are still glamorous. They are still playful. They are still desirable.
Stella McCartney has spent years proving that you don’t have to contribute to the things you disagree with simply because “that’s how the industry works.” She continues to experiment with alternatives to traditional luxury materials and finds ways to turn those limitations into creative opportunities.
For me, this is where fashion becomes particularly exciting: when the purpose behind the clothing is just as interesting as the clothing itself.
Looking back at these collections, what stands out to me is how different the definitions of luxury have become.
For Miu Miu, luxury is about taking something normal and making it desirable.
For Balenciaga, it is craftsmanship and the extraordinary.
For Valentino, it is romance, culture and storytelling.
For Stella McCartney, it is innovation with a conscience.
And perhaps that is what I love most about fashion week. You can disagree with a collection and still appreciate what it is trying to say.
Personally, I will probably continue to choose a beautifully tailored pair of trousers over track pants, and you are unlikely to convince me that loungewear belongs everywhere simply because it has a luxury label attached to it. I am also still firmly in the romantic-fashion camp, and I will happily take a dramatic dress with a story behind it over something designed solely to become the next viral trend.
But that is the beauty of fashion: It does not have to please everyone. It just has to make us feel something.
And after another Paris Fashion Week, I think that may be the most important thing luxury fashion can still do!
