Paris men’s fashion week in 5 trends: rebuilt tailoring, quiet craft and clothes built to last

By Canadian Press on January 25, 2026.

PARIS (AP) — Paris men’s Fashion Week ended Sunday with two messages that kept coming up on runways: dress sharply, and build clothes to last.

Japanese powerhouse Sacai pushed new shapes by breaking up the usual top-and-bottom silhouette.

Hermès, in an emotional farewell show for longtime designer Véronique Nichanian, made a case for simple lines and long life.

Here are five trends that stood out in the final days of shows, with a nod to each of the big collections.

Coats are back in charge

The season’s key item was the coat — long, tailored and meant to be noticed.

At Hermès, Nichanian closed her last men’s show after 37 years with a dark coat in glossy crocodile leather.

Earlier looks included aviator-style pieces like shearling bombers, earflap caps and stand-up buckle collars, plus shearling dyed a coral-pink.

Accessories stayed strong: boxy overnight bags and boots with bright orange soles.

Junya Watanabe also made coats the center of his show, sending out classic camel and navy styles, then mixing them with sportier parts — like bomber backs, leather jacket fronts and down-jacket quilting — to make formal outerwear feel tougher and more modern.

Tailoring that’s been rebuilt, not just styled

Many designers worked with classic suits and jackets, but changed how they sit on the body.

At Sacai, Chitose Abe added new sections to jackets, trousers and outerwear — extra panels, pockets and quilted inserts — often built around a triangle theme.

The show moved through tailored looks, workwear and strong denim, including collaborations with Levi’s and A.P.C., but the big idea stayed clear: reshape the silhouette without losing wearability.

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus did the opposite with more shock.

Rei Kawakubo cut into black suits and coats — altering lapels and hems — then later sent out white versions of her shapes as the mood shifted from dark to bright.

The styling was intense (wigs and masks), but the clothes still pointed to tailoring as the base.

“Quiet” clothes, with the work hidden inside

Another trend was restraint on the surface, with the craft happening in the cut.

Kiko Kostadinov stripped away decoration and focused on construction: clean coats and jackets with folded panels, curved collars and careful drape, often in black and mineral tones.

Even details were hidden — buttons behind plackets, no obvious hardware — so the shape and movement did the talking.

Dressy, but with a hard edge

A lot of the week leaned formal, but not sweet.

Watanabe’s show felt serious — café-table set, Miles Davis soundtrack, a somber cast — and his black, sharply tailored denim pieces (from an ongoing Levi’s collaboration) were styled like a modern uniform.

Louis Gabriel Nouchi pushed the idea further in an underground car park with loud techno and an “Alien” theme.

He mixed sharp coats and dark tailoring with provocative body-hugging pieces and graphic references, aiming for clothes that can pass in daily life while still carrying a charge.

A push for longevity — and a call to slow down

In a fashion world that moves fast, several moments pointed the other way.

At Hermès, Nichanian said she included designs she first made decades ago to show they still work — and she offered a simple goodbye message: “Slow down.”

White Mountaineering’s Aizawa also treated his final show as a long-view statement: technical outerwear, strong color and careful pattern work, framed as the end of a 20-year chapter rather than a quick trend.

The takeaway

Paris didn’t finish with one single look.

It finished with a mindset: men’s clothes are getting sharper again, but designers are trying to make that sharpness feel modern — through new construction, strong outerwear and pieces built to stay in the closet for years, not months.

Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press