Today is Earth Day—there’s no better time to go out and touch grass. Some of fashion’s most treasured pieces, like the hauntingly ephemeral finale dress from McQueen’s spring 2007 show, garnered their beauty from their appreciation of nature, and it proves a constant source of both relief and inspiration well beyond the runways, too.
But the runway is our subject here. The spring 2026 couture season was filled to the brim with organic matters. From bouncing cyclamen on models’ ears at Dior to a fantastical mushroom forest at Chanel, the week demonstrated, quite literally, extreme craft in its most natural habitat. The fall 2026 shows continued this narrative with an abundance of mossy happenings. Among them were Miu Miu’s study in boyish utilitarianism, where the moss-covered runway blended with the grungy fur hems of seemingly disintegrating dresses and jackets, and Nicolas Ghesquière’s examination of “architectural clothing that could express different cultures around the globe” at Louis Vuitton, with its sloping green set crafted by Severance’s surrealist production designer Jeremy Hindle.
Elsewhere this season, LVMH Prize semifinalist Daniel de Valle of THEVXLLEY, a burgeoning self-taught artist and designer, who in his day job works as a London florist, turned his florals and their accoutrements into artwork. Vases were treated as sculptures strapped on the body, and from them came a tumble of artisanal arrangements, some frilly and others leafy, matching the grass and stems that peeked out of the shoes. His collectsion was a reminder that a floral can indeed be ground breaking. See also: Comme des Garçons’s fall 1996 school desk scribble, Balenciaga fall 2008’s fuchsia takeover, and when Martin Margiela taped a bouquet of white roses to a model’s chest for spring 2006.
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