Runway Rumour

“Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.”

Every season, fashion promises reinvention. And every season, it delivers another circus. Spring/Summer 2026 was no exception, a sensory overload of skin, shock, and spectacle. From Paris to Milan, the runways became theatres of provocation where nudity, gimmicks, and performance art blurred into a single chaotic feed scroll.

Let’s start with the obvious: the cult of exposure. Designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Mugler didn’t just flirt with sensuality this season; they stripped it bare. At Gaultier, the collection played on illusion, with trompe-l’œil naked prints that turned the human body into a living canvas, cheeky, clever, and borderline voyeuristic. Meanwhile, Mugler pushed the envelope further: one look featured a dress suspended from the model’s nipples, an image so deliberately scandalous it was practically engineered for the algorithm. 

It wasn’t about seduction anymore; it was about visibility. Every provocation felt calibrated for virality, every “shocking” reveal designed to trend before the audience could even clap. It’s not fashion for the human eye anymore; it’s fashion for the feed. But what’s more interesting, and arguably more exhausting, is the growing obsession with shock theatre on the runway. Take Maison Margiela, where models sported surreal, lip-shaped mouthpieces referencing the brand’s historic logo. It was meant as a poetic homage, and perhaps it was. But in a season already saturated with theatrics, it risked feeling like another attempt to out-weird the rest. What was once subversive is now strategy, and everyone’s playing the same game. We’ve reached a point where gimmickry is currency. 

A dress catching fire, a model crying on cue, prosthetics that distort the body, they’re all designed to go viral before the audience even leaves their seats. The clothes themselves, ironically, have become secondary. Designers no longer compete on craftsmanship or silhouette; they compete on shareability. And yet, here’s the paradox: beneath all the shock and spectacle, there’s a lingering sense of creative fatigue. When everyone is trying to be the loudest, subtlety becomes the true rebellion. The most radical moment this season wasn’t another display of flesh; it was the quiet minimalism of a few smaller houses that dared to focus on cut, construction, and intimacy rather than chaos. Fashion, at its best, has always been a reflection of cultural tension, desire, and restraint, as well as fantasy and control. However, the current obsession with spectacle feels hollow, a desperate attempt to evoke a sense of emotion, anything, in an age of endless scrolling. The irony is, the more fashion tries to shock, the less shocking it becomes. Perhaps next season, the real statement won’t be a naked body or a screaming gimmick, but a whisper. A well-cut jacket. A silhouette that speaks softly but lingers longer than a viral clip ever could. Until then, we’ll keep watching, equal parts fascinated and fatigued, as the industry confuses spectacle for substance and the runway for a stage.

Runway Rumours, signing off. Because sometimes, the most provocative thing you can wear is mystery.