Exhibition: Florals Bloom Beyond Fashion as Paris Unveils a Monumental New Design Experience

Florals are reigning supreme this year, but not in the traditional sense. Across fashion, contemporary art and interior design, flowers are being radically reinterpreted as sculptural, immersive and thought-provoking creations.

Sculptural dress and shoes by Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, for her "18th Century Punk" Haute Couture Collection,  as presented at Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing: The Skills of Fashioning exhibition at Palais Galliera in Paris 
Photo by Lucia Carpio

Fashion designers are moving beyond delicate botanical prints, instead embracing structural 3D appliqués, sheer romantic detailing and bold, contemporary tailoring. Flowers are no longer decorative motifs confined to fabric. They are challenging conventional garment silhouettes through texture, three-dimensional craftsmanship and surrealist forms that transform clothing into wearable works of art.

Chanel evening dress by Karl Lagerfeld, Haute Couture SS 2019
as presented at Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing: The Skills of Fashioning, at
Palais Galliera in Paris 
Photo by Lucia Carpio

The resurgence is also being celebrated institutionally.  Currently at the Palais Galliera in Paris is exploring the enduring influence of the floral motif in haute couture through its landmark exhibition, Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing: The Skills of Fashioning which runs until October 2026. Bringing together more than 350 garments, textile samples, tools and archival materials, the exhibition examined the extraordinary craftsmanship behind weaving, embroidery, lace-making, artificial flowers and decorative embellishment, all united by a single theme: the flower.

Le Grand Bouquet
from Uchronia at Le Grand Palais, Paris

The same creative evolution is taking place in the worlds of art and design. Florals are experiencing a major renaissance, shifting from subtle background decoration to commanding centrepieces. Contemporary artists are using botanical forms to explore themes of climate, identity and material innovation, creating monumental site-specific installations rather than traditional paintings.

This creative movement will take centre stage during Paris Design Week 2026 (10 to 19 September 2026 ), when the Grand Palais becomes home to one of the festival's most anticipated installations. Created by design studio Uchronia, Le Grand Bouquet is a monumental sculptural flower that appears to emerge from the Rotonde d'Antin, transforming the historic setting into an immersive world of colour, form and architecture.

In a recent interview, Uchronia founder Julien Sebban explained that the project was inspired by the architecture itself.

"Discovering the Rotonde d'Antin at the Grand Palais, one thing became clear: to create a work that would not merely fit into this space but would emerge from it," he said. "Le Grand Bouquet was born from this intuition. A monumental flower blooms there, drawing its lines and curves from the surroundings."

Sebban revealed that every architectural detail influenced the design, from the mosaic floors and floral ornamentation to the vegetal mouldings and circular geometry of the rotunda.

Colour, a defining characteristic of Uchronia's work, plays a central role in the installation, while its monumental scale has been carefully conceived to enhance the visitor experience rather than overwhelm it.

Outside the Grand Palais, an inflatable sculptural structure extends the experience before visitors even enter the building.

For Uchronia, Le Grand Bouquet blurs the boundaries between architecture, design, scenography and contemporary art.

The project also celebrates craftsmanship through collaborations with Atelier François Pouenat, Chromatic and PPG, Tréca Paris, Prelle, Tiptoe, Fenix and Material Bank, each contributing specialist expertise to create the layered, immersive installation.

Ultimately, Sebban hopes visitors leave with something simple yet profound.

The experience continues beyond the installation itself, extending into the Grand Palais concept store where Uchronia has created a collection of distinctive design objects inspired by the project.

As Paris Design Week transforms the French capital into a living atlas of contemporary creativity from 10 to 19 September 2026.  While Le Grand Bouquet promises to be one of its defining attractions - a spectacular dialogue between colour, shape, architecture and craftsmanship  - Paris Design Week will transform the Left Bank into a vibrant showcase of creativity, inviting visitors to explore a carefully curated trail of galleries, studios, showrooms and cultural venues around the Luxembourg Gardens. Blending newly opened spaces with long-established design institutions, each destination offers fresh inspiration and unexpected discoveries in the heart of Paris.

Exhibition Review: Palais Galliera of Paris Shines Light on the Hidden Crafts of Fashion

In Paris, the Palais Galliera is drawing attention to the often-unseen artisans of haute couture with its expansive exhibition: Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing: The Skills of Fashioning. 

Voluminous sculptural dress and shoes by Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, for her "18th Century Punk"
Haute Couture Collection.
The Japanese designer reimagined in 2016 how Punk might have seemed during the period of 18th-century revolutions exploding across Europe.

Running until 18 October 2026, the wide-ranging exhibition, dedicated to the technical métiers that underpin the fashion industry, foregrounds craftsmanship rather than celebrity designers, offering visitors a detailed examination of the processes behind some of fashion’s most intricate creations.

The exhibition’s emphasis is on craft rather than on blockbuster-style display of iconic couture pieces.

As digital tools increasingly influence design and marketing, exhibitions such as this underscore the argument that the enduring appeal of haute couture lies in embodied knowledge — the precision of the hand, the trained eye, and the accumulated skill transmitted across generations. 

Mise-en-carte (Point-paper design), 1770 - 1780, France, from an Album showing painters' designs transferring onto hand-drawn graph paper to created instructions for a weaving look.  

By foregrounding these crafts, the Palais Galliera situates fashion’s future resilience in the preservation and valorisation of its most traditional competencies.

Chanel evening dress by Karl Lagerfeld, Haute Couture SS 2019.

In this context, the reaffirmation of artisanal expertise functions not only as cultural homage but as economic positioning. For luxury brands, savoir-faire remains a core differentiator: hand-executed embroidery, heritage weaving techniques and workshop-based production cannot be easily replicated by algorithms or mass automation. 

Cristobal Balenciaga evening dress and bolero ensemble haute couture SS 1947, from the wardrobe of Daisy Fellowes, heiress of the Singer forturne, French socialite and columnist of the American Harper's Bazaar magazine.

"Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing: The Skills of Fashioning" (Tisser, broder, sublimer. Les savoir-faire de la mode) brings together more than 350 works, spanning garments, textile samples, tools and archival materials. 

While spotlighting the myriad of techniques and craftsmanship related to ornamentiation - from weaving, dyeing, printing, embroidery, to artificial flowers, lace-making and decorative embellishment, all are explored through the single unifying theme: the flower. 

Jean Patou by Christian Lacroix Poker d'as Evening Gown
Haute Couture AW 1986 - 1987

The aim is to demonstrate the variety of techniques, embellishments, the interplay of materials, the treatment of colour, volume and so forth - all ingenious and creative variations on the floral motif, which has been ubiquitous in fashion and the decorative arts for over three centuries.   To this, the exhibition showcases the masterful use of artisans' techniques on haute couture designs.  For his final couture collection before his death, Karl Lagerfeld's evening dress inspiration from the 18th century featuring embroidered flowers that imitate Vincennes and Sevres porcelain.  The embroidery took 1,205 hours of work incorporating 3D techniques to sculpt volumes in high-relief.  An evening ensemble from cristobal Balenciaga's Haute Couture SS 1947 collection depicts a floral print that evokes the designs of the Lyon silk maker Duchante.  The embroidered details are the work of Metrl that specialised in high quality mechanical embroidery.

Rather than presenting couture as spectacle alone, the curatorial approach emphasises crafts as disciplines in their own right. Magnification devices and close-up displays allow visitors to examine stitching, beadwork and fabric structures in forensic detail.

Cultural commentators in Paris have praised the exhibition’s balance between visual appeal and technical insight, noting that it avoids overwhelming audiences with specialist terminology while still conveying the complexity of the trades involved. 

One would applaud the curators’ decision to spotlight the “petites mains” — the skilled workshop artisans whose labour sustains the haute couture tradition but who rarely receive public recognition.

Embroidery example from the Maison Beauvais & Cie ca 1830 featuring metallic thread on silk mousseline.  Maison Beauvais was renowned for its fine laminated threads that ensure the lasting brilliance and fluidity essential to First Empire and Restoration of court gowns.

The exhibition is contemplative and intellectually rigorous, paying tribute to intergenerational knowledge and the preservation of craft. Rather than centring on runway glamour, the show positions material technique and artisanal expertise at the heart of fashion’s cultural value.

Being both visually enticing while being elegant and educational, there is a wide diversity of trades represented — from broderie and plumasserie to specialist weaving — and the opportunity to better understand the layered production process behind finished garments.

Its focus on savoir-faire arrives at a moment of strategic significance for the luxury sector. High fashion houses are grappling with slowing global demand, particularly in key markets where aspirational spending has softened. 

At the same time, rapid advances in artificial intelligence — from generative design tools to automated production modelling — are reshaping creative and commercial workflows. While AI promises efficiency and speed, it also intensifies questions about authenticity, originality and the human value embedded in luxury goods.

Images by Lucia Carpio

Exhibition Review: Rick Owens Builds His Temple in Paris, Then Heads to Frieze London

Rick Owens, the avant-garde American designer who has lived and worked in Paris since 2003, has reimagined the Palais Galliera as a sanctum of his uncompromising creativity.   

His retrospective in Paris: Temple of Love, open until January 4, 2026, is more than a fashion exhibition: it is a total environment, where clothing, sculpture, installation and memory converge in a ritualistic display of aesthetic conviction. A short walk from the Palais de Tokyo, which recently hosted his SS26 collection, Owens’s works are clearly at home within the galleries of the Palais Galliera.

Visual: Michèle Lamy
(C) Rick Owen

Rick Owens serves as artistic director in Temple of Love, alongside curator Alexandre Samson and honorary director Miren Arzalluz, ensuring every element carries his aesthetic imprint. 

This marks only the third time the Palais Galliera has devoted a retrospective to a living designer—following Azzedine Alaïa in 2013 and Martin Margiela in 2018. Under Owens’s direction, the museum has been dramatically reconfigured, with its interior, façade and forecourt linked together for the first time since the institution’s founding.

As a follow-up to this exhibition, Rick Owens will extend his creative vision beyond Paris with a special presentation at Frieze London in October, hosted by Carpenters Workshop Gallery. There, Owens will unveil a new series of collectible design pieces exploring the conceptual and aesthetic poetics of rust—a material condition he sees as a symbol of both decay and endurance. Among the centerpiece works is a dramatic reinterpretation of his signature Double Bubble chair, now upholstered in vivid blood-red leather. The exhibition will also feature selections of Owens’s vintage fashion and archival pieces. Complementing his display, Owens’s longtime partner and creative collaborator Michèle Lamy will debut a new sculptural installation, continuing the duo’s shared exploration of prehistoric and natural forms—notably antlers and horns, which they see as primal symbols of brutality and self-protection. 

Together, the London showcase and Temple of Love form a powerful dual reflection on impermanence, intimacy, and radical aesthetics.

Meanwhile, in Temple of Love, the retrospective currently at the Palais Galliera, Rick Owens is presented not merely as a designer but as a myth-maker and philosopher of form. The museum itself becomes less a gallery than a devotional space, bridging fashion, architecture, sculpture and performance.

Visitors are immersed in a world that is sculptural and spiritual, yet persistently provocative—an exhibition that unsettles as much as it captivates. Interwoven are examples of Owens’s furniture alongside quotations from the designer, grounding the experience in both physical form and philosophical reflection.

The journey begins with Owens’s Los Angeles years (1992–2003), illuminated through the cultural references that have shaped him since childhood. His Catholic upbringing instilled discipline, while the shadows of 1930s Hollywood, the drama of Wagnerian opera and the decadent symbolism of À rebours informed his rejection of conventional notions of beauty.

Entering the marble halls, visitors are confronted by a stark, austere mood. Severe, spectral figures loom in Owens’s signature silhouettes—draped in asymmetric cuts, elongated tunics and cocoon-like layers of distressed fabrics. Studded leathers, sweeping capes and monastic hoods intensify the atmosphere, their rigid geometry made all the more haunting against the grandeur of the architecture.

The second act of the exhibition charts Owens’s Paris years, from 2003 to the present day, where fashion shows became both spectacle and social commentary. Here, his uninhibited taste for provocation is given full weight. Over time, raw black-leather drapery evolved into complex architectural forms. His familiar palette of “dust” greys and monastic tones expands into mauve and sudden shocks of colour, garments transforming into wearable sculptures.

The exhibition expands beyond the museum’s interior. Classical statues are veiled in sequins; the gardens are punctuated by brutalist cement sculptures, softened by Californian wildflowers recalling Owens’s early years. Inside, multimedia installations nod to artistic references including Gustave Moreau, Joseph Beuys and Steven Parrino, extending the dialogue between fashion and art.

A reconstructed Hollywood bedroom once shared by Owens and his partner and muse Michèle Lamy offers intimate insight into their creative symbiosis. Books, perfumes and a Ziggy Stardust record become relics within a living installation. In another space, provocative video works—most notoriously Horse (depicting simulated copulation with a stallion)—are presented with disclaimers, underscoring Owens’s refusal to shy from controversy.

Temple of Love marks the first time the Palais Galliera has devoted a retrospective to a living designer in Paris, a gesture that underscores Owens’s influence. More than 100 silhouettes are displayed alongside archival objects, personal artefacts and architectural interventions—a testament to an interdisciplinary practice and an uncompromising vision.

Ultimately, the show reframes fashion as a spiritual, political and philosophical pursuit, a continuation of Owens’s three-decade interrogation of beauty, identity and power. Temple of Love is not simply an exhibition but a reckoning: every garment an altar, every installation a provocation. For the fashion-curious, the conceptually driven and all who believe in beauty that unsettles, this is essential viewing.

Photos by Lucia Carpio at the  Palais Galliera, Paris