Alainpaul Spring/Summer 2026 at Paris Fashion Week

Alainpaul Spring/Summer 2026 / SS26 at Paris Fashion Week

The act of dressing is a personal audition. Every day, we get into character by creating a silhouette around our body. With ourselves as jury, we dress and undress, and layer and peel, until the look fits the part. Alainpaul SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026, Alain Paul portrays the audition recurrent in the life of the dancer whose practice continuously informs his expression. Spending the past year participating in fashion awards – and winning the 2025 ANDAM Special Prize – the designer was reminded of his own auditions during his former career in contemporary ballet. With the audience as jury, the collection conveys the transitional and vulnerable nature of the audition process.

Character – the essence to landing a part – is emphasised by underlining the distinguishing individualities of the cast. Expressions accumulated from several versions of the same garment genres echo the tradition of the corps de ballet where an ensemble of dancers enact identical choreography. Applied to dresses, skirts and tops, the pieces demonstrate how similar types of garments can perform differently in a synchronised context and still display individual character. The pieces portray the dancer’s challenge to exhibit diverse techniques and emotions in the course of the same audition, from the soft to the vigorous.

Alainpaul SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026, An inherent part of auditioning, ideas of changing clothes and altering existing silhouettes are interpreted in cuts and constructions. Tops and dresses structured from skewed garments freeze-frame the movements performed when pulling clothes off the physique. Capturing a similar gestural language, the corseted bustiers of evening dresses are architecturally plunged to reveal a minimal vest while trousers suspended from their waistbands expose the body. Shirt collars – worn under tailored basque jackets – appear pulled along the neck. Tops are folded down and transformed into skirts. Blazers spliced with draped shirts convey the transitional state of the audition wardrobe, mirrored in the thrown-on sensibility of a vest garlanded around the neck of coat. Silk polos morph with warm-up tops, denim trousers are set on dance belts, and the versatile elastic bands native to a dancer’s audition kit grace the silhouette. The notion of vulnerability central to the audition process is reflected in dresses and draped jacket inserts emblazoned with motifs of falling poppies or carnations printed on black cloth with translucent overlays for a holographic effect as if in-motion. The image also nods at the flowers thrown on stage by the audience at the end of a dancer’s performance.

In an ongoing exploration of repurposed garments, a leather jacket is crafted from existing leather jackets while a dress and a shirt are assembled using dancer’s tights. In a collaboration with the artist Cécile Feilchenfeldt, a dress, top and skirt – each made to order – are created from elastic bands trapped inside knitted filters, which become sculptural in form. The investigation expands in coats pieced together by hand from fragments of antique historical stage costumes. Draped over the arms of models dressed only in the justaucorps of dance, their presence signifies the in-between state of mind that exists between the audition and the stage.

A new shoe silhouette inspired by the ‘turners’ transform the open-heeled slippers used by dancers to spin in into a leather sling-back with toe dividers and no back panels as well as sandals and flats. The Merce shoe re-emerges as a mule, while the Pina shoe transitions into ballerinas and flats.