With the Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week now behind us, a quiet but unmistakable pattern emerged across the most talked-about collections. The designers commanding the most attention weren’t necessarily those pushing minimalism or hyper-modernity, but those invoking a sense of magic. From ethereal silhouettes, otherworldly textures and garments that felt less worn and more enchanted dominated headlines. These were clothes that seemed to belong on screen in a fantasy epic, or between the pages of a novel rather than the reality we inhabit. Flowing gowns resembled spells mid-cast, intricate embellishments evoked armor from imagined kingdoms, sheer layers mimicking mist and moonlight. Haute couture, in this moment, felt less like fashion and more like world-building. This aesthetic shift doesn’t exist in isolation. It mirrors a broader cultural yearning for escapism, particular among the younger generation. And it is something fashion has quietly responded to this season. Fashion houses like Georges Hobeika, Elie Saab, Schiaparelli and Dior leaning heavily into fantasy-driven narratives, presenting collections that felt suspended between reality and myth. Hobeika’s signature opulence taking an almost celestial quality, with gowns that shimmered like they belonged to enchanted courts rather than modern runways.
Elie Saab, continuing his mastery of romantic fantasy, offering ethereal silhouettes drenched in light-catching embroidery. Garments that seemed designed for modern-day goddesses rather than ordinary life. Under Daniel Roseberry, Schiaparelli has mastered the art of surreal spectacle, blurring the boundary between dream and distortion through exaggerated anatomy that was epitomized by Bella Hadid’s iconic Cannes moment. His latest collection revisits this visual language, layering gilded symbolism and mythological references to create a fantasy that feels both opulent and provocatively otherworldly.
Then Dior, under Jonathan Anderson’s direction, continues to revisit history and wonder through a lens of quiet magic. Romanticizing the past without it feeling regressive, reawakening the sense of wonder we once yearned for in childhood. This longing echoed beyond the runway. The ongoing social media trend “What Girls Really Want to Wear” romanticizing medieval corsetry, fantasy-era gowns and silhouettes drawn straight from folklore and fictional worlds. These aren’t merely aesthetic preferences, they’re emotional signals. They reveal a collective desire to step outside the rigidity of modern life and into something softer, slower and imbued with a sense of wonder. Something that fashion, at its most imaginative, has always promised. Here are some of my favorite looks from 2026’s Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week:1. Guarav Gupta, ‘The Theory of Everything’:This piece is breathtaking. It reminded me of ‘flesh and blood’, one that cannot exist without the other. Gupta’s decision to merge these two dresses into one single form is both deliberate and poetic, an artful union that gives tangible shape to his vision.
2. Elie Saab, ‘Golden Summer Nights of ‘71’:Elie Saab brought magic to the runway, as he so often does, but this wedding dress felt especially otherworldly. Its ethereal, head-to-toe lace immediately reminded me of Padmé Amidala’s wedding gown in Attack of the Clones, yet it also evoked fairytales I grew up watching. As a child, this was exactly how I imagined my own wedding dress would look like, if I were marrying an elfish prince, in another world entirely.
3. Georges Hobeika, ‘L’Amour’:It’s the pearls, the way they cascade down the dress with such deliberate restraint, like a forbidden affair. Their lustrous drape and sillhouette that reminded me of the elegance and opulence of the Belle Epoque, a period defined by indulgence, beauty and quiet excess. The dress tells a story of an intimate fantasy, of slipping away to a hushed corner of a soirée with a lover, drunk on life and champagne.
4. Valentino’s ‘Specula Mundi’:This year’s Valentino Fashion Show itself was a genius spectacle, with guests having to view the first collection after he passed, through a hole, creating the very small world of luxury. A blend of celestial Aztec goddess, with the old Hollywood glam from the ‘60s, it’s impossible not to love this piece. The drama of it all.
5. Dior’s ‘In Bloom:This collection was the hardest for me to choose a single look from, because I loved every look. Still, I was drawn to this one for the way the skirt unfurls, reminiscent of trumpet flower in bloom. Anderson brings out the whimsical nature of florals while blending Dior’s rebellious beauty with a softened elegance, creating something quietly enchanted, like a forest fairy moving lightly across fallen petals.
Now that the world becomes increasingly shaped by economic anxiety, digital burnout and constant global unrest, fashion turns into a portal. Through these fantasy-inspired pieces, people aren’t simply dressing up, they’re reclaiming wonder. A wonder that’s rooted in nostalgia, nurtured by the films, shows and the stories that we grew up with. A longing for the childhood belief that magic was real. In this sense, fashion becomes a visual language for remembering what it once felt like to believe. Designers, consciously or not, tap into a shared cultural memory, translating it into fabric and form. Haute couture has always been an exercise in imagination, but now it feels responsive, almost defensive even. A sartorial spell cast against reality itself. In choosing magic, fashion reveals a quiet rebellion against the world as it is, and a collective hope for a world that feels more beautiful, more meaningful and just a little more unreal. Sincerely, Cherie. The Whiffler is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Whiffler that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Sunday, 8 February 2026
Dressed Like a Daydream
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