Saudi label Ashi Studio has celebrated two decades in fashion with a Fall 2026 Couture collection exploring themes of identity, concealment and transformation. The show on Tuesday night, part of Paris Haute Couture Week, concluded with the line, "Behind every mask is another mask."
Inspiration from Renaissance to Venetian Masquerades
Inspiration appeared to have been drawn from elaborate celebrations spanning Renaissance Florence to Carlos de Beistegui's legendary 1951 masked ball at Venice's Palazzo Labia. Feathers, sculptural corsets, shell-like structures, veils, fringe and glossy finishes transformed the models into almost otherworldly figures.
Designer Mohammed Ashi's Vision of Body as Armor
For the new season, designer Mohammed Ashi examined the human body as something that can be reshaped and protected. He presented garments that suggested armor, creating silhouettes that balanced strength with fragility. Narrow waists and exaggerated forms blurred the boundaries between human, bird and insect, lending the collection a dreamlike quality.
Chanel's Enchanted Garden on the Same Evening
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Chanel's starry salon was swallowed by a garden gone wrong: giant beanstalks climbing to the ceiling and huge flowers blooming a little too brightly to be safe. Tilda Swinton, Michelle Yeoh and Catherine Deneuve were among the crowd, the kind the Parisian stalwart summons and few others can. The show looked enchanted and faintly poisoned at the same time, which turned out to be the point.
Designer Matthieu Blazy's Fairy Tale Nods
This was designer Matthieu Blazy reaching for the storybook. The idea came from a small leather-bound book of fairy tales he found on a shelf in house founder Gabrielle Chanel's old apartment. The opening look was a sheer Chanel suit, its grid of embroidery shaped like tiny bean shoots. Vines crept up dresses and curled around the heels of shoes. Butterflies and blossoms turned up where you least expected them.
Playful Details and Hidden Craftsmanship
Little evening bags took the shape of sleeping bears and fat chickens; heels were sculpted into butterflies and golden eggs. There were sly nods to Goldilocks, Puss in Boots and the Ugly Duckling, though Blazy was too clever to spell any of it out. Most of the magic hid inside. Jackets concealed painted linings and mock to-do lists stitched in sheer silk — couture's grandest craft spent on a shopping list. Edges were left deliberately frayed, a nod to Coco Chanel's habit of attacking her own clothes with pins as she fitted them.
Blazy on Haute Couture's Everyday Reality
"Haute Couture at Chanel is not just a fairy tale; in essence it is for women, their realities and their adventures of the everyday," Blazy said.
