Dear Shaded Viewers,
Today I attended the presentation by the students of IFM, my former school, and what better way to congratulate them than through this post. On this occasion, with words by my friend, writer and journalist Reuben Attia:
Twenty-three designers from thirteen nationalities shared one opening stage at Paris Fashion Week before a room hungry for fresh blood, their first collections already caught in that impossible balance between caution and the freedom to dare.
This Paris Fashion Week starts at a moment when we are all on a constant quest for beauty to breathe in. When the first show belongs to the next generation, that search feels full of promise. This Paris Fashion Week starts at a moment when we are all on a constant quest for beauty to breathe in. When the first show belongs to the next generation, that search feels full of promise.
What made this show remarkable was precisely its breadth: sequins and raffia, feminism and artificial intelligence, Parisian couture savoir-faire filtered through thirteen different cultural memories, each collection a deeply personal response to the world. If anything, that continuous flow of silhouettes deserved to be slowed down, one name at a time. So their names are:
Anna-Livia Poupaud, Ryan Treadwell, Maya Young, Yousra Youssoufa, Bérénice Rohrer-Missiaen, Adam Meng Wang, Neža Dapčevič, Dora Kapus, Marina Casey, Maja Lenhard, Alexis Lopez Angeles, Diego Ortega, Caterina Giovanelli Neumair, Paula Lessel, Ella Gödecken, Mingrui He, Patrick Garvey, Rohan Kale Steinmeyer, Théa Lemaire, Jonathan Chang, Nikki Kähr, Borja Fernández García, Gašpar Marinič.
Beginning a career in fashion in 2026 means entering an industry in the middle of questioning everything it thought it knew. The houses are restructuring, luxury is relearning how to justify its own value, creativity is being asked to matter again in ways it perhaps forgot it could. In that context, a generation that has never had to unlearn anything might be exactly what fashion needs right now.
Words by Reuben Attia. Special thanks to Marie Schneier.
Yours digitally,
Pedro
