Paris Fashion Week: The Beat Goes On - Anrealage’s Heartfelt SS26 Show Reframed Fashion as a Living Organism

In Paris, one of the 'living' creations by Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga. Photograph above and cover picture by Jay Zoo for DAM. 

At Paris Fashion Week, Kunihiko Morinaga once again reminded the industry why his label Anrealage has become a touchstone for fashion that feels both cerebral and visceral. For Spring/Summer 2026, the Japanese designer staged a show that positioned the heartbeat, a universal symbol of life and love, as the collection’s core metaphor. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photography by Jay Zoo

Artistic director of Anrealage.

Kunihiko Morinaga, backstage

in Paris before his show. 

THE runway at the Anrealage show, in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo, unfurled with designs that appeared less like clothes and more like living organisms. Structured dresses expanded and contracted with wired volumes, recalling anatomical forms as much as baroque flourishes. 

Hemlines rippled like tidal waves, while capes and jackets seemed animated, their contours suggesting a presence beyond fabric. Accessories stretched the fantasy further: cat-shaped handbags with gently swishing mechanical tails offered a playful yet uncanny counterpoint, echoing the comfort of companionship in a world increasingly mechanized.

What gave this spectacle depth was the collaboration with Heralbony, a Tokyo- and Paris-based creative company supporting artists with disabilities. Eighteen artists contributed their work, each print translated into textile through Kyocera’s Forearth technology, a sustainable, waterless printing method. The result was garment as gallery, as canvases that displayed personal visual languages while advancing environmental responsibility. 

Sound was integral to the experience. Continuing a partnership with composer Thomas Bangalter, the soundtrack layered rhythmic beats with recordings of everyday noises, many produced by individuals with disabilities. The result felt at once intimate and avant-garde, underscoring Morinaga’s ongoing interrogation of how we perceive difference.

Anrealage has long operated at the intersection of the ordinary and the extraordinary, technology and craft. With this collection, Morinaga not only reaffirmed his reputation as a meticulous innovator but also highlighted a larger cultural shift, one in which inclusivity and creativity are inseparable. The SS26 show was less about theatrics for their own sake and more about shifting perspective: reminding us that beauty is not uniform but plural, and that fashion can serve as a vessel for empathy as much as for aesthetics.

The heartbeat motif ran through every look, not as a literal pulse but as an emotional cadence. In Paris, Anrealage made its case clear: difference does not divide, it can bring us together.

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