The Art, Architecture, and Inspiration Behind the Season’s Most Extraordinary Runways
Fashion has always understood the power of a grand entrance, but for Spring 2027, some of the season’s most memorable moments happened before the first model even appeared. Across New York, London, Milan, and Paris, designers transformed their runways into extraordinary worlds, drawing inspiration from art, architecture, nature, and personal memories.
At Chanel, Matthieu Blazy filled the Grand Palais with 95 illuminated birds inspired by a migratory sanctuary in southern Italy. Jonathan Anderson created a mist-covered garden of camphor trees for Dior, while Nicolas Ghesquière imagined a futuristic traffic jam of floating automobiles at Louis Vuitton. Elsewhere, Prada explored the beauty of precision, Maison Margiela revisited a legendary floral installation, and Bottega Veneta celebrated the human embrace through sculptural design.
Behind these remarkable fashion show sets were some of the world’s most imaginative artists, architects, and scenographers. Here, The Impression explores 25 of the best runway sets of Spring/Summer 2027, the creative minds who brought them to life, and the stories that made them so unforgettable.
Dior
Creative Director: Jonathan Anderson
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Bassin Octogonal in the Jardin des Tuileries
The Impression Review Score: 9.5
Jonathan Anderson created one of the season’s most moving settings, transforming the Bassin Octogonal in the Jardin des Tuileries into a mist-covered landscape of camphor trees. The installation was dedicated to Mathilde Favier, Dior’s beloved longtime public relations director, who passed away in August, with Anderson promising that the trees would be replanted so they could continue to grow. As mist drifted across the water and the garden emerged in the morning light, the setting became a beautiful expression of memory, renewal, and the enduring presence of someone deeply loved.
Set & Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Chanel
Creative Director: Matthieu Blazy
Scenographer: Richard Peduzzi
Production Design: Arnaud Selve
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Grand Palais
The Impression Review Score: 9.5
For Chanel, Matthieu Blazy found inspiration in a river sanctuary for migrating birds near the village in southern Italy where he spends his holidays. Working with French scenographer Richard Peduzzi, he transformed the Grand Palais into an extraordinary aerial landscape, with 95 illuminated birds suspended in flight above a shimmering resin floor that suggested water viewed from the sky. The birds became a beautiful metaphor for Gabrielle Chanel’s own journey toward independence, celebrating the freedom to move, transform, and ultimately find one’s own direction.
Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Saint Laurent
Creative Director: Anthony Vaccarello
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Fontaine du Trocadéro
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
Anthony Vaccarello delivered one of the season’s most dramatic spectacles, illuminating the Saint Laurent runway with monumental golden chandeliers. Three enormous, ornate fixtures cast a warm theatrical glow across the space, joined by the illuminated Eiffel Tower as a magnificent fourth presence. The installation captured the grandeur, sensuality, and unmistakable Parisian glamour that have become signatures of Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Celine
Creative Director: Michael Rider
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Archives Nationales
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
For his Spring 2027 collection, Michael Rider brought an unexpected sense of escape to the historic gardens of Paris’s Archives Nationales. Rising among the trees, a striking white pavilion with a steeply pitched, thatched roof recalled the traditional shelters of Polynesia, its sculptural geometry creating an intriguing contrast with the natural warmth of the woven interior. Beneath its soaring canopy, guests gathered on long, white benches for a show that celebrated freedom and individuality, opening with the unmistakable voice of Dorian Corey from Paris Is Burning.
Set Photos | Image courtesy of Bureau Betak, photography by Marie Laure Dutel
Valentino
Creative Director: Alessandro Michele
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, France
The Impression Review Score: 9.1
For Valentino’s Spring 2027 show, Alessandro Michele turned to the magnificent Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, where bookshelves, emerald-green reading lamps, and Henri Labrouste’s soaring nineteenth-century iron architecture became the setting for his collection. Titled Antibiblioteca, the presentation drew inspiration from philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s reflections on Umberto Eco’s vast library of unread books, celebrating the infinite possibilities of everything we have yet to discover. In a particularly lovely gesture, Michele invited guests to bring a book from their own shelves to be donated to Parisian public libraries, transforming a fashion show into a celebration of literature, curiosity, and the enduring pleasure of discovery.
Photos | Bureau Betak & Spotlight for The Impression
Louis Vuitton
Creative Director: Nicolas Ghesquière
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Cour Carrée du Louvre
The Impression Review Score: 9
Nicolas Ghesquière imagined the future of urban travel with an extraordinary installation of 34 floating automobiles suspended above the Cour Carrée du Louvre. Created in collaboration with production designer James Chinlund, the futuristic traffic jam hovered over a runway inspired by a motorway, complete with Louis Vuitton’s signature Damier motif. Against the historic architecture of the Louvre, the spectacle brought together technological fantasy, movement, and the house’s enduring fascination with travel.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression & La Mode En Images
Prada
Creative Director: Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons
Production: OMA
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Milan Fashion Week
Location: Foundation Prada
The Impression Review Score: 9.5
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons returned to a fascination with precision, creating a glowing runway that resembled an enormous photographer’s lightbox. Constructed from transparent Perspex and illuminated from beneath, the installation recalled the tools of designers, architects, and image-makers, where light is used to reveal every detail. The almost scientific environment provided a fascinating counterpoint to the collection’s experimentation with proportion and form, suggesting that even fashion’s most unexpected ideas begin with observation.
Loewe
Creative Director: Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Château de Vincennes
The Impression Review Score: 9.1
For their latest Loewe presentation, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez were interested in the extraordinary energy that exists between performers and an audience. Working with architectural studio Casper Mueller Kneer, they transformed a specially constructed pavilion at the Château de Vincennes into a hybrid of theater, gallery, and sporting arena, with seating designed to bring everyone closer to the action. The inspiration came from the collective anticipation of live performance, that wonderful moment when an entire audience experiences something together, giving the runway a sense of immediacy and shared emotion.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression & La Mode En Images
Gucci
Creative Director: Demna
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Milan Fashion Week
Location: Allianz Mi-Co
The Impression Review Score: 9.2
Demna has long understood the theatrical possibilities of fashion, and for Gucci he turned his attention to the very place where luxury is sold: the boutique. Inside Milan’s Allianz Mi-Co, he created an elaborate store seemingly caught between construction and completion, with marble surfaces, classical friezes, plush carpeting, and glimpses of artificial streets through imaginary windows. Inspired by his emerging retail vision for Gucci, the installation played with the seductive illusion of luxury, allowing the audience to see both the fantasy and the machinery behind it.
Photos | La Mode En Images
Bottega Veneta
Creative Director: Louise Trotter
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Milan Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 9.4
For Louise Trotter, the idea of human connection became something wonderfully tangible. Artist Illya Goldman Gubin created bespoke seats from resin-reinforced cardboard, their sculptural forms originating in the physical gesture of an embrace, while each guest discovered a delicate leather flower handmade in Bottega Veneta’s atelier. With a sound installation by Florian Hecker and a soundtrack curated by British artist Mark Leckey, the presentation brought sculpture, craftsmanship, and experimental art together in an intimate celebration of touch and human experience.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Schiaparelli
Creative Director: Daniel Roseberry
Production: Villa Eugénie
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Carrousel du Louvre
The Impression Review Score: 8.9
Daniel Roseberry transformed the basement of Paris’s Carrousel du Louvre into an intimate, after-dark cabaret, where guests gathered around small café tables with glasses of Champagne. Inspired by Barbra Streisand’s legendary 1962 performance at New York’s Bon Soir nightclub, the setting captured the glamour and immediacy of a room where every guest feels part of the performance. For a collection titled Going Clear, the softly lit speakeasy offered a charming return to the intimacy of fashion’s early salon presentations, celebrating the pleasure of beautiful clothes experienced up close.
Set Photos | Villa Eugénie
Hermès
Creative Director: Nadège Vanhée
Production: Villa Eugénie
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Garde Républicaine
The Impression Review Score: 8.6
For Hermès’ Spring 2027 presentation, Nadège Vanhée captured the languid sensation of a summer afternoon, when the heat hangs in the air and even the slightest breeze feels like a luxury. A pristine white runway created an atmosphere of openness and lightness, while the collection’s recurring fan motif suggested the movement of air and the simple pleasure of finding relief from the sun. The restrained setting felt wonderfully Hermès, allowing the ideas of warmth, movement, and effortless summer dressing to come through with quiet elegance.
Set Photos | Villa Eugénie
Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Mugler
Creative Director: Miguel Castro Freitas
Production: Villa Eugénie
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 7.8
For Mugler’s Spring 2027 presentation, titled Naturalia X, creative director Miguel Castro Freitas explored the fascinating collision between the natural world and technology. Working with visual artist Casper Sejersen, he transformed the runway into an immersive landscape of 32 video screens, where abstract imagery, organic textures, and creature-like forms flickered against a powerful soundtrack by Teho Teardo. The fragmented, almost otherworldly environment heightened the collection’s futuristic sensuality, blurring the boundaries between the human body, the natural world, and digital fantasy.
Set Photos | Villa Eugénie
Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Givenchy
Creative Director: Sarah Burton
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Les Invalides
The Impression Review Score: 9.1
Sarah Burton turned to Hollywood production designer James Chinlund, whose work includes The Batman, to create a sculptural labyrinth within the grounds of Les Invalides. Suspended wooden forms and abstract shapes recalled the experimental exhibition environments of the twentieth century, particularly Frederick Kiesler’s pioneering design for Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery in New York and the floating constructions of Alexander Calder. Moving through the installation, the models became part of a constantly shifting composition, bringing Burton’s fascination with structure and silhouette into three dimensions.
Photos | La Mode En Images
Burberry
Creative Director: Daniel Lee
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: London Fashion Week
Location: Chelsea College of Art
The Impression Review Score: 9.1
After the rain-soaked London streets evoked by his previous runway, Daniel Lee welcomed a brighter, more optimistic world for Burberry’s Spring 2027 presentation. At Chelsea College of Art, pale wooden benches and doors were crossed with fine black lines, an almost architectural abstraction of the house’s familiar check. The simplicity of the setting gave the colorful floral designs created in collaboration with legendary British textile artist Celia Birtwell room to flourish, bringing together two distinct expressions of British creativity.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Carolina Herrera
Creative Director: Wes Gordon
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: New York Fashion Week
Location: David H. Koch Theater
The Impression Review Score: 9
Wes Gordon celebrated the house’s 45th anniversary with a spectacular sea of 28,798 yellow tulips stretching the length of New York’s David H. Koch Theater. The vibrant blooms paid tribute to the city’s iconic yellow taxis and the bold colors of Carolina Herrera’s early years, bringing a touch of 1980s Park Avenue glamour to the grand architectural setting. Framed by the theater’s monumental white sculptures, the installation was a joyful love letter to New York and the enduring elegance, optimism, and theatricality that have defined the house since 1981.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Fendi
Creative Director: Maria Grazia Chiuri
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Milan Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
For Fendi’s Spring 2027 presentation, Maria Grazia Chiuri turned to the conceptual world of Italian Arte Povera artist Luciano Fabro, drawing inspiration from his Cubo di specchi (Mirror Cube). An extraordinary labyrinth of mirrored walls and seemingly endless reflections transformed the runway into an optical illusion, where models, guests, and architecture became part of the same constantly shifting image. Beneath a grid of luminous lights, the installation invited everyone to see themselves within the spectacle, beautifully expressing the idea that fashion is as much about those who experience it as those who create it.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Tory Burch
Creative Director: Tory Burch
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: New York Fashion Week
Location: Chase Manhattan Plaza
The Impression Review Score: 9.2
In the heart of Wall Street, Tory Burch found an unexpected oasis in Isamu Noguchi’s celebrated sunken garden at Chase Manhattan Plaza. Created between 1961 and 1964, the Japanese-inspired landscape features seven stones brought from Japan’s Uji River, conceived as a place of contemplation amid the surrounding skyscrapers. Burch surrounded the garden with a vivid burnt-orange runway, allowing the serene beauty of Noguchi’s installation to play against the color, movement, and restless energy of New York.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Chloé
Creative Director: Chemena Kamali
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: L’Observatoire de Paris
The Impression Review Score: 8.7
For Chloé’s Spring 2027 presentation, Chemena Kamali brought a sense of quiet intimacy to the historic Paris Observatory, creating a beautifully restrained setting of warm wood, pale stone, and uninterrupted views of the surrounding gardens. Long, minimalist wooden benches and clean architectural lines framed the lush greenery outside, allowing nature to become part of the runway’s atmosphere. The serene environment complemented Kamali’s Obsession Collection, a deeply personal exploration of Chloé’s archives, where the romantic spirit of the house’s past found a fresh expression in the present.
Photos | Spotlight for The Impression & La Mode En Images
Miu Miu
Creative Director: Miuccia Prada
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
Miuccia Prada has always enjoyed turning familiar conventions upside down, and for Miu Miu she transformed the runway into a sporting arena unlike any other. Bleacher seating surrounded a vivid purple playing field, borrowing the language of athletic competition while replacing its familiar colors with one of Mrs. Prada’s personal favorites. The result was playful, wonderfully peculiar, and entirely in keeping with a collection that explored the unexpected relationship between sportswear, femininity, and the clothes of everyday life.
Photos | Bureau Betak & Spotlight for The Impression
Jil Sander
Creative Director: Simone Bellotti
Production: Bureau Betak
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Milan Fashion Week
Location: Piazza Castello
The Impression Review Score: 9.1
For Jil Sander’s Spring 2027 presentation, Simone Bellotti brought his exploration of precision and imperfection to Milan’s historic Piazza Castello. Against the grandeur of the city’s architecture, the collection unfolded like a wave, moving from disciplined tailoring into softer, more fluid silhouettes before returning to its sharply defined beginnings. The restrained setting allowed Bellotti’s central idea to emerge with quiet clarity: the beauty of a uniform lies in the humanity and vulnerability of the person wearing it.
Photos | Bureau Betak & Spotlight for The Impression
Balenciaga
Creative Director: Pierpaolo Piccioli
Production: La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Tennis Club de Paris
The Impression Review Score: 9.2
For Balenciaga’s Spring 2027 presentation, Pierpaolo Piccioli transformed the Tennis Club de Paris into a striking white gallery dominated by Les Coraux de la Liberté, a monumental sculpture by French artist Aude Franjou. Meticulously crafted from rolled linen, the towering coral formation evoked a living ecosystem, constantly growing, adapting, and responding to its surroundings. Its organic shapes beautifully expressed Piccioli’s vision of freedom and movement, echoing Cristóbal Balenciaga’s belief in liberating the body while bringing the artistry of haute couture into everyday dressing.
Photos | La Mode En Images
Maison Margiela
Creative Director: Glenn Martens
Floral Artist: Mark Colle
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 8.9
For Maison Margiela’s Spring 2027 presentation, floral artist Mark Colle created a hauntingly beautiful installation that explored the passage of time and the fragile nature of beauty. Once-vibrant flowers appeared to wilt, droop, and scatter their petals, transforming an extravagant floral landscape into something wonderfully melancholic. The effect was both romantic and unsettling, finding unexpected poetry in imperfection, fading beauty, and the inevitable transformation of all living things.
Hodakova
Creative Director: Ellen Hodakova Larsson
Production: Villa Eugénie
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Institut Suédois
The Impression Review Score: 7.5
For Hodakova’s Spring 2027 presentation, Ellen Hodakova Larsson transformed the courtyard garden of Paris’s Institut Suédois into a haunting, almost otherworldly landscape. Blanketed entirely in white sea salt and chalk, the setting evoked a shoreline after a storm, where forgotten objects and fragments of clothing might have washed ashore. Small folded paper boats carrying Larsson’s poetry about climate change and the degradation of our oceans awaited guests, bringing a quietly melancholic dimension to a collection that reflected on nature, human consumption, and the fragile beauty of our environment.
Set Photos | Villa Eugénie
Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Dries Van Noten
Creative Director: Julian Klausner
Production: Villa Eugénie
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
For Dries Van Noten’s Spring 2027 presentation, creative director Julian Klausner imagined the moment an actress leaves the magic of a film set and steps back into the everyday world, the movie’s soundtrack still playing in her mind. Produced by Villa Eugénie, the show brought that cinematic transition to life through an evocative soundscape of Parisian street life: heels clicking along the pavement, distant conversations, laughter, and passing car horns recorded near the Quai Malaquais. The atmosphere captured the beautiful tension between fantasy and reality, suggesting that even the most ordinary walk through Paris can feel like a scene from a film.
Runway Photos | Spotlight for The Impression
Tom Ford
Creative Director: Haider Ackermann
Production: Tom Ford + La Mode En Images
Collection: Spring/Summer 2027
Presented: Paris Fashion Week
Location: Place Vendôme
The Impression Review Score: 9.3
For Tom Ford’s Spring 2027 show, Haider Ackermann transformed a space on Paris’s Place Vendôme into a mesmerizing hall of mirrors, where reflections multiplied and silhouettes appeared and disappeared in the darkness. Models moved through towering mirrored panels, sometimes walking in groups, creating the cinematic sensation that something had just happened, or was about to unfold. The installation played beautifully with ideas of identity, perception, and desire, capturing the seductive mystery of Ackermann’s evolving vision for the house.
Photos | La Mode En Images