For Schiaparelli's Fall/Winter 2026/27 Haute Couture show in Paris today, Creative Director Daniel Roseberry shared that he wasn't nervous. After the cultural reset that was his last season's collection at the House, he felt he had hacked the formula, with Step 1 being simple yet effective: "Go on a trip. Be inspired." It seems the trip he decided to take this season was more on a spiritual level, into the abyss.
The collection, which hosted the likes of Bad Bunny, Emma Corrin, and more on its FROW, was reminiscent of an adventure into the deep sea or space, full of strange, alien-esque influences. Schiaparelli has a reputation that dates all the way back to its founder for taking inspiration from animals, and this collection was no exception, it's only difference being that some creatures looked more alien than real.
Roseberry’s newfound confidence in his creative process meant he followed the exact same formula as last season: a three step guide that involves visiting an iconic architectural site. This season, that meant immersing himself in Gaudí's iconic work in Barcelona, and surrendering to what the French call ‘l’appel du vide’, aka 'the call of the void.'
Titled 'The Abyss', the collection took that concept of the void and ran with it, directly into its elusive darkness. What this resulted in was a Haute Couture collection full of looks that felt snatched from a void-like landscape: visions of animals evolved to not just survive, but thrive in that environment.
Looks were alive with glowing lights beneath their surface, bouncing feathers that moved with the wearer, examples of strange SFX beauty on models' ears and backs, and hard exterior shells like reflective exoskeletons made from hardened silicone satin.
To create the silicone satin pieces, Daniel Roseberry took inspiration from the 1996 fantasy film, “Cremaster” by Matthew Barney, which imagines the reproductive organs during the embryonic development process. The newly developed technique takes silicone craftsmanship to its limits to create a bodice moulded to the shape of the woman within.
A question that Daniel Roseberry asked in his show notes this season felt extremely poignant and representative of everything he does at Schiaparelli. The quote asks us to ponder, "does beauty reside in the material itself, or in the imagination capable of reinventing it.” On the House's Haute Couture runway, we saw that both are equally true.
