Sunday , 2nd August 2026 

There’s a particular kind of nothing that happens right before something changes, and that’s been the whole mood this week. Announcements landing weeks before anyone actually arrives. Campaigns shot far from any city, in the middle of a field, like the location itself was the point. A festival that’s still a few Sundays away but already all anyone in the office is talking about. Everything pointed at a version of itself that hasn’t happened yet, and instead of rushing past that, we just sat in it for a while. Here’s what we found there.

Chloé said “field trip” and meant it

The image that stopped me mid-scroll this week was Chloé’s AW campaign, shot by Inez & Vinoodh in an actual field, waist-deep in yellow flowers and long grass gone slightly wild. And it is beautiful, obviously, I’m not going to sit here and pretend it isn’t, but I also think we need to be a little honest about how easy “beautiful” has gotten. Put a woman in a field, put her in good clothes and good light and yeah, you’re probably going to get a good picture. But where is the point of view? What are we actually looking at here? I wanted some tension, some intention, some reason why this particular field, this particular light, this particular image. Instead, it felt like the safest possible version of “back to nature” …… the one brands keep going back to whenever a campaign needs to feel soulful without actually having to take much of a risk. It’s lovely, sure, but I kept looking at it thinking okay… and? At this level, with these resources, I think we’re allowed to want a little more than something that is just nice to look at.

2 New Creative Directors, 2 Completely Different Visions

The couture season gave me a little more to actually chew on, mostly because both houses made choices you could argue with. Matthieu Blazy’s first collection for Chanel has been called a fairytale, and I get why – there’s real whimsy to it, real craft, and obviously the clothes are beautiful. But whimsy is also probably the easiest place to land when you’re new to a house this loaded and you don’t want to pick a fight with the archive just yet. It’s a lovely first sentence. I just want to see if he actually finishes the paragraph next season, or if “fairytale” quietly becomes the permanent excuse for not committing to anything sharper.

Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut interests me more for exactly the opposite reason – it feels like the riskier read. Turning clothing into something closer to sculpture is a real argument about what a garment is even supposed to be, and honestly, arguments are what I want from a debut, not just a mood. Whether it actually holds up as clothes people want to wear, rather than clothes that look incredible standing perfectly still, is the part I’m still reserving judgment on. And I think that’s the real question underneath all of this, and the one we raised last week too – not whether someone respects a house’s history, because that part is easy to perform, but whether they’re actually willing to risk something new inside it instead of just making the old idea more expensive.

Paris plans…lock in ! (Before It’s Too Late)

Last chance to be cultured (for real this time) If you’ve been meaning to see the Lee Miller show at Musée d’Art Moderne, this is genuinely your last chance. The woman was a model, surrealist, war correspondent and photographer who went from Vogue to photographing the liberation of Dachau. Calling her a “muse” really doesn’t cover it. Closes this weekend.

free museums?? say less A little Paris cheat code we keep forgetting about: the first Sunday of the month, a bunch of museums open their doors for free. Orsay, Orangerie, Picasso -pick one and disappear into it for an afternoon. Just book the free slot before you go.

go touch some (very strange) art Richard Calder at Fondation Louis Vuitton. Strange, sculptural, slightly otherworldly work under one roof. The kind of exhibition you probably want to take your time with rather than speed-running in twenty minutes. Until August 16.

canal girl summer L’Été du Canal. Summer in Paris, but slower. Floating concerts, films after dark, picnics by the water, people sitting around the canals with absolutely nowhere else to be. Basically, the city when everyone else has gone to the coast. Go with no plan.

Anyway. go look at something, go somewhere, change your mind about something. or don’t. see you next week.