Paris might be the city of luxury and heritage houses, but this season it was the independents armed with upcycling techniques, razor-sharp tailoring, and a touch of audacity who are the ones to watch. In many ways, other cities have more space for independent designers because they don’t have to go against the biggest fashion names in the world on the calendar. Except for Sarah Burton showing her sophomore collection at Givenchy since taking over, most of the Creative Directors making their Paris Fashion debut at new houses are men. Roughly four out of five fashion students are women.
Together, these women aren’t just “emerging talents.” They’re showing us a future where sustainability doesn’t kill glamour, independence doesn’t mean obscurity, and fierceness comes stitched into the seams. Almost all of the designers we have listed have circled the LVMH Prize, Fashion Trust Arabia and Andam Award orbit, while others are more established. Their work feels alive, urgent, and refreshingly unpolished in the best way. Paris might still belong to the grandes dames and celebrities flown in, but these ten designers are rewriting the dress code and business rules as well.
Laura Andraschko
Laura Andraschko is an Austrian-born fashion designer raised between Berlin and Vienna. After study and internships, including time at Ann Demeulemeester in Antwerp, she graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2021. Andraschko’s work asks women to embrace complexity and redefine femininity beyond conformity, rejecting ideals of clean living in favor of chaos, imperfection, and restless energy. Known for her immersive storytelling, she stages her collections in spaces that mirror her vision. Set against the red velvet and gothic allure of Raspoutine providing the ideal backdrop for a world where elegance unravels into decadence for her Spring-Summer collection.
“This season, we wanted to move beyond the codes of an emerging label,” stated Laura. “The tailoring is sharper, the fabrics richer, and the overall spirit more mature. Monte Carlo is about indulgence, where beauty meets danger.”
Fidan Novruzova
Fidan Novruzova is a Paris-based fashion designer of Azerbaijani and Moldovan heritage. Since founding her eponymous label in October 2020, she has rapidly gained a devoted following among fashion’s emerging tastemakers and high-profile clients, including Chloë Sevigny, Bella Hadid, and Solange. In 2024, she was named an LVMH Prize semi-finalist and moved her brand’s operations to Paris.
For Spring Summer 2026, Le Début takes cues from the visual richness of the 1920s and 1980s, blending Art Deco glamour, Parisian bourgeois style, and power dressing—hallmarks of the brand since its 2020 debut. Drawing on the designer’s Azerbaijani and Moldovan heritage alongside contemporary Parisian influences, the label has cultivated a bold, evolving aesthetic over the past five years.
Marie Adam-Leenaerdt
Marie Adam-Leenaerdt is a Belgian fashion designer whose self-titled label launched at Paris Fashion Week in 2023. After graduating from La Cambre in Brussels, she gained experience working for major houses including Balenciaga and Givenchy. Her work centers on reimagining everyday garments through transformation, deconstruction, and conceptual twists that make clothes functional, poetic, and surprising.
For Spring Summer 2026, Adam-Leenaerdt continues to blur the lines between garment and ornament, elevating accessories into the same visual weight as clothing and vice versa. She plays with transformation and hybridization as seen in shirts that become skirts, coats that shift into jackets, and knitwear with interchangeable necklines. The collection probes how garments are displayed, worn, and staged, while maintaining a disciplined clarity in silhouette and a purity in material.
Torishéju
Torishéju is a London-born, Nigerian-Portuguese designer whose work merges couture-level craftsmanship with sharp contemporary storytelling. Trained at Central Saint Martins, she established her label in 2021 and quickly drew attention for her sculptural tailoring, bold silhouettes, and a narrative-driven approach that blends cultural references with modern sensuality. Her collections often play with structure and movement, balancing strength and vulnerability, while positioning her as one of the most promising new voices in the international fashion scene.
She made her Paris Fashion Week debut in 2023, and in 2025 she won the Savoir-Faire award presented by Jonathan Anderson LVMH Prize. Uniformity is broken down and reshaped in Dürer, the SS26 collection, by an intellectual flood, a «plague of ideas» that overwhelms, fractures, and distorts. The collection’s central theme is the modern mentality, which is overstimulated, oversaturated, and buried beneath contradictory tales. The show opened with Naomi Campbell, further cementing her status as a rising star in global fashion.
Hodakova
Since its founding in 2021 Hodakova and its creative director Ellen Hodakova Larsson have gained notoriety for their use of reengineered garments in high luxury. Her strong designs often using unconventional and found items was what propelled her into the eyes of many, especially following being awarded the LVMH prize for young fashion designers. Following this award Hodakova again created a show that continues to push boundaries in Conventional Collection 112509.
Hodakova’s Spring Summer 2026 has been crafted for the “impatient, hypercritical, and anarchistic young artists” The collection does so through the reality of a world that doesn’t exist as it has been thrown away, like many of the elements used in the clothing. When we look closer, ultimately, we can see a conversation about tradition, life and its immateriality. This conversation happens through the many pieces that made the garments, that if not for the show would have become waste, ultimately ending their story.
Ruohan
Ruohan Nie is a young Chinese designer (under 30) who launched her eponymous label Ruohan in 2021. Before founding her own brand, she interned or worked with several established fashion houses such as The Row, Melitta Baumeister, Jenny Yoo Collection, Shaina Mote, and served as an assistant at La Garçonne. In 2024, she was nominated as a finalist for the 35th ANDAM Grand Prize, making her one of the youngest designers in that year’s shortlist and marking an important milestone for Chinese representation in the competition. Her vision is one of long term, building a luxury Chinese house that redefines what Made in China means.
Ruohan, is fast emerging as one of the leading voices in the “quiet luxury” and modern minimalism movements. Her Spring Summer 2026 collection, shown at Paris Fashion Week, reinforced her signature aesthetic of sharply tailored yet fluid silhouettes, refined textures, soft neutrals with warm earth tones, and subtle yet deliberate design details that favor sophistication over spectacle. Also in recognition of her influence, Nie was recently inducted into The BoF 500, the list by The Business of Fashion spotlighting people shaping the global fashion industry.
Alice Vaillant
Alice Vaillant is a Paris-born designer and former ballet dancer whose aesthetic bridges the discipline of dance with the elegance of high fashion. Born in 1995, she spent many years at the Paris Opera Ballet School and grew up surrounded by theatre costumes, an experience that deeply shaped her sense of form, movement and texture. After stints working with Jean-Paul Gaultier and Nina Ricci, she launched her own label, Vaillant in 2019. Her Spring Summer 2026 collection, titled “Le Récital”, was a return to her roots. Staged at the Paris Opéra Bastille, it reflected on her childhood in dance with tutus of organza, chiffon, lace trims, and structuring pieces like sharp tailoring draped with ethereal fabrics. The show juxtaposed classic ballet codes and Old Hollywood glamour with sheer slip dresses, embroidered motifs, and deconstructed forms, all to evoke both strength and poise.
Gundi
One of my favourite parts of Paris Fashion Week is discovering designers for the first time. Gundi Studios, a progressive slow-fashion label was a wonderful surprise on our last day. Founder Natasha Sumant presented her collection inspired by Draupdai, an Indian queen and figure of defiance and divine intervention in Mahabharata. Born in Kerala, India, Natasha studied at Parsons and has worked internationally as an art director.
The name Gundi is a Hindi colloquialism meaning “female thug” or “female gangster,” a provocative label appropriated by Sumant to celebrate rebellion and reject passive stereotypes of South Asian women. Pieces are produced in small batches via female-centred supply chains in India. Sumant’s vision for Gundi is not just fashion, but a platform for empowerment, representation, and cultural reclamation.
Barbara Bologna
A visit to Barbara Bologna’s showroom during Paris Fashion Week is always a delight, you never know what she will think of next. The Italian designer and artist known for her avant-garde vision that merges fashion, performance, and visual art. She founded her eponymous label in 2006 after years of working as a sculptor and costume designer, disciplines that continue to inform her experimental approach to clothing. Bologna’s work often explores themes of identity, transformation, and the body, blending raw emotion with theatrical construction into easy to wear fun pieces that usually border hybrid styling. Her collections are marked by deconstructed silhouettes, hand-painted textiles, and a darkly poetic sensibility that challenges traditional ideas of beauty and gender. Over the years, she has built a cult following for her fearless artistry and her ability to turn clothing into a form of emotional expression and rebellion.
Dana Riad
Dana Riad is a Qatar-based Palestinian designer whose work blends cultural storytelling with contemporary edge. After earning dual degrees in Fashion and Interior Design from Virginia Commonwealth University and winning the Golden Needle Award in 2011, she launched her namesake label in 2020. Riad’s designs often juxtapose strength and softness playful references like warrior princesses drawn from pop culture and childhood memories. Her approach celebrates individuality and imagination, redefining femininity through bold forms and rich textures. For Spring Summer 2026, she presented her collection off-schedule at Paris Fashion Week alongside emerging international designers.
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