Paris Fashion Week: The Feather Forecast, Lùchen's Reclaimed Couture Takes Wing in the French Capital

The Lùchen presentation in Paris was the first for the New York designer. Photograph (above) and cover picture by Rahul Rekapalli for DAM 

At Paris Fashion Week, New York-based designer Lu Chen debuted her latest couture collection in the French capital. The presentation focused on sculptural silhouettes, layered textures and innovative surfaces constructed from reclaimed elements. Combining experimental fabrication with disciplined structure, Chen proposed a contemporary vision of couture, highlighting both the creative potential of reused materials and a new generation’s approach to craft and design. Story by Antonio Visconti. Photographs by Rahul Rekapalli

Designer Lu Chen with  

her new pieces in Paris.

AMID the elegant Belle Epoque salons on Boulevard de Courcelles in Paris, designer Lu Chen introduced her most recent work. Models struck poses among the mannequins and demonstrated how the designs challenge conventional ideas of couture. 

Presented during a sunny spring afternoon, the collection unfolded as a quiet study in material experimentation, where editors, journalists, photographers and buyers moved closely around the pieces to observe their intricate surfaces and unusual structures.

Rather than treating clothing as static form, the designer investigates how fabric and unconventional materials react when placed in dialogue with the human body. 

The silhouettes in this collection shift between restriction and release. Some pieces appear suspended around the figure in tight volumes, the body kept in carefully engineered shapes, while others fall into looser draped forms that respond to gravity and movement.

Lu Chen’s new work shows a designer intent on expanding the vocabulary of contemporary couture, with a fusion of recycled materials, delicate skill, and structural innovation

Feather-like materials create

an elegant tromp l'oeil effect.

Central to the collection is an exploration of feather-like textures. Instead of relying solely on natural plumage, Chen constructs elaborate surfaces from fragments of reclaimed textiles and synthetic materials. 

These small pieces are meticulously cut and assembled, creating layered fields that resemble feathers at a distance but reveal their composite origins up close. The resulting effect suggests a new kind of couture embellishment: one formed through accumulation and reconstruction rather than traditional ornament.

This dialogue between authenticity and artifice runs throughout the presentation. Real feathers appear sparingly, introducing a moment of softness and fragility among the denser, constructed surfaces. 

Their presence draws attention to the contrast between organic delicacy and the engineered textures built from reclaimed materials. In doing so, Chen subtly questions the hierarchy of preciousness that has historically defined couture craftsmanship.

Instead of relying on natural plumage, feather-like elements are created from fragments of reclaimed textiles and synthetic material which are central to the collection

Using recycled materials is

central to Lu Chen's ethos.

The material palette extends well beyond fabric. Recycled acrylic forms part of the structural framework in several garments, while unexpected elements, such as crushed shells, fragments resembling eggshell, and small glass spheres, are incorporated as textural accents. These details lend the pieces an almost geological quality, as if the garments had grown through layers of sediment rather than been assembled in an atelier.

Despite this experimental spirit, the collection remains grounded in a finely tailored approach to structure. Chen’s training at Parsons School of Design is evident in the precise manipulation of form. Panels are suspended, layered, and offset to create tension between rigidity and fluidity. In some looks, fabric cascades in weighted folds that shift with each step of the wearer; in others, sculptural shapes appear to hover slightly away from the body, suggesting both protection and distance.

What emerges is a vision of couture where each fragment, seam, and textile acts as evidence of the designer’s investigation into how clothing can evolve. As Paris Fashion Week continues to welcome a new generation of experimental voices, Chen’s presentation signals a designer intent on expanding the vocabulary of contemporary couture. Through its fusion of recycled materials, delicate skill, and structural innovation, Chen evokes a future in which luxury is not defined only by opulence, but by intelligence and imagination.

See more highlights from the Lùchen couture presentation during Paris Fashion Week 

Paris Fashion Week: Ghost Protocol Anrealage’s Futuristic Runway Where Clothing Becomes Code and Identity Becomes Fluid

Anrealage's scintillating designs lit up with lights embedded in the textiles, on the runway at IRCAM in Paris. 

At Paris Fashion Week, Kunihiko Morinaga delivered one of the season’s most intellectually charged shows, exploring unsettling territory between visibility and disappearance. Drawing on the cyberpunk philosophy of Ghost in the Shell, he imagined garments that could merge with their surroundings and dissolve into digital imagery. The result was thought-provoking, transforming fashion into a meditation on identity and the boundary between the real and the virtual. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento

The designs merged with the iridescent

background on the runway in Paris. 

AT a moment when technology is reshaping not only how we communicate but how we perceive ourselves, Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga continues to position fashion at the intersection of philosophy, science and spectacle. His new Autumn-Winter 2026/2027 collection, titled Ghost, is an ambitious exploration of visibility, identity and the increasingly porous boundary between the body and the digital world.

Held at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), where science, architecture and the avant-garde arts regularly intersect, Kunihiko Morinaga staged one of the most intriguing and provocative shows of Paris Fashion Week. The designer’s collection evoked the shifting relationship with the human body in an increasingly digital age.

Founded in 1977 by composer Pierre Boulez, IRCAM has long served as one of the world’s leading laboratories for experimental sound and multimedia research. The complex, which also has spaces underground, has hosted generations of artists exploring the frontier between art and technology. Morinaga’s decision to present his collection here felt especially apt: like IRCAM’s composers and digital pioneers, the designer treats creativity as a form of research, using fashion to test ideas about perception, space and the future of human expression.

Morinaga has long approached fashion as experimental design, using clothing to explore philosophical questions about reality and illusion. This season he turned to the cyberpunk universe of Ghost in the Shell, a cultural touchstone that imagines a future where the boundaries between humans and machines dissolve. Translating that concept into fashion, the designer proposed garments that challenge the very idea of visibility.

The collision of retro glamour and futuristic technology created a visual tension that ran throughout the collection

Seventies references made an 

interesting combination with 

the futuristic designs. 

Yet Morinaga’s collection was not solely a technological demonstration. Beneath the digital spectacle lay a strong sense of form and craft. Many silhouettes were sculptural and protective, their rounded volumes recalling biological forms or futuristic armour. 

Others referenced the exuberant spirit of 1970s fashion, with flared trousers, layered structures and flamboyant ruffles introducing an unexpected note of theatricality. The collision of retro glamour and futuristic technology created a visual tension that ran throughout the collection.

Several looks appeared to merge with their surroundings, their surfaces animated by shifting patterns and projected imagery that responded to the environment around them. Instead of presenting clothing as a static object, Morinaga transformed it into a responsive interface. 

Dresses, coats and tailored pieces seemed to flicker between presence and absence as visual information flowed across their surfaces. At moments, the wearer appeared almost absorbed into the background, as though the body itself were dissolving into a digital landscape.

This illusion was achieved through an ambitious collaboration with Led Tokyo, whose advanced display systems allowed garments to function like moving screens. Thousands of tiny lights embedded within the fabric generated constantly changing imagery, enabling clothing to mimic surrounding patterns or display entirely new ones. The effect suggested a future in which garments operate less like textiles and more like dynamic media platforms.

Thousands of tiny lights embedded in the fabric generated changing imagery, enabling clothing to mimic surrounding patterns or display entirely new ones

The blurred, painterly effects made 

the designs seem out of focus.  

Prints played an equally important role in shaping the narrative. Psychedelic florals appeared alongside motifs reminiscent of circuit boards, digital code and fragmented imagery, evoking the visual overload of contemporary life on multiple screens.

Some fabrics carried painterly effects that seemed almost blurred, as if the images themselves were slipping in and out of focus. 

These textiles were produced using advanced printing methods developed by Kyocera, allowing highly detailed imagery to be rendered while significantly reducing water consumption in the production process.

The setting amplified the conceptual drama. As projections moved across IRCAM’s interior, garments and environment began to interact in unpredictable ways.

Models appeared at times sharply defined, at other moments nearly invisible against the shifting visual backdrop. The runway became a constantly transforming field where clothing, architecture and technology blurred into a single immersive experience.

In a world increasingly mediated by screens, data and digital environments, the collection suggested that the human presence may no longer be fixed 

Romance and history meet in this enchanting

 jacket: futuristic in construction but 16th 

Century in silhouette 

Morinaga founded Anrealage in 2003, combining the words “real,” “unreal” and “age” to describe his vision of contemporary fashion. Over the past two decades he has steadily built a reputation for pushing the boundaries of what clothing can be, frequently merging traditional craftsmanship with experimental technology.

With Ghost, that inquiry reached a new level of sophistication. Rather than simply presenting futuristic garments, Morinaga posed a deeper question about identity itself. 

In a world increasingly mediated by screens, data and digital environments, the collection suggested that the human presence may no longer be fixed or easily defined. Fashion, in this context, becomes a powerful tool for exploring how we appear.  

In the end, the collection lingered as a haunting thought experiment. If clothing can dissolve the body into its surroundings, what remains of the self? 

Morinaga’s answer is deliberately ambiguous. Somewhere between presence and absence, between human and machine, fashion reveals a new territory, one where identity flickers like light across a screen.

See more highlights from Kunihiko Morinaga's Anrealage AW26/27 collection in Paris