Paris Fashion Week SS27: a tights diary

This is not the show diary yet: it is the map for reading it. Paris Fashion Week spring/summer 2027 opens today, 28 September, and closes on 6 October, the final stop of a fashion month in which Milan has already said something specific about legs. Before the runways speak, let's line up the facts: the schedule, the two debuts, what Paris has done with tights in recent seasons, and the questions we will try to answer, show by show.

The schedule: nine days, 68 shows

According to franceinfo, drawing on the official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the week hosts 101 houses: 68 shows and 33 presentations. Casablanca, Christopher Esber, Ester Manas, Maison Margiela, Sacai and Valentino are back on the schedule; Nina Ricci and Rabanne sit this one out, both with creative leadership in transition. South African label Maxhosa Africa joins the runway line-up, and Parisian house Alexandra Golovanoff, founded in 2016, makes its official-calendar debut with a presentation.

The key days, in brief:

• Tuesday 29 September: Jonathan Anderson's Christian Dior and, in the evening, Anthony Vaccarello's Saint Laurent.
• Wednesday 30: Drew Henry's Courrèges debut, then The Row, Balmain, Stella McCartney.
• Thursday 1 October: Kai Nesselrath's Carven debut, Chloé, Balenciaga, Rick Owens, Schiaparelli, Isabel Marant.
• Friday 2: Loewe, Givenchy, Victoria Beckham.
• Saturday 3: Hermès, Comme des Garçons. Alaïa opts for a presentation rather than a show.
• Sunday 4: Miu Miu, Valentino, Jean Paul Gaultier.
• Monday 5: Matthieu Blazy's Chanel, at nightfall.
• Tuesday 6: Nicolas Ghesquière's Louis Vuitton closes the calendar.

What Paris has done with legs lately

To know what to look for, it helps to remember that Paris has already written some important chapters in the story of hosiery. Three recent precedents, all on record.

Valentino, autumn/winter 2022. This is the show many point to as the start of the tights revival. Pierpaolo Piccioli dressed almost the entire collection in a vivid pink, "Pink PP", and in AnOther Alexander Fury described models "with limbs smothered in gloves and stockings" in the same shade, against an all-pink set. Tights stopped being a backdrop and became the look.

Saint Laurent, autumn/winter 2024. Anthony Vaccarello built an entire collection on the sheerness of hosiery. In FashionUnited, Don-Alvin Adegeest pointed out that hosiery is one of the most difficult fabrics to manipulate, and that tights rarely last more than a few wears. Vaccarello, speaking to WWD after the show and quoted by FashionUnited, was unapologetic: "I wanted to do something very fragile. Don't ask me about how we might produce it." It is one reason why the evening show on 29 September is among the most anticipated for anyone watching legs.

The Row, autumn/winter 2026. Last March, the Olsen sisters' label showed, as W Magazine noted, "gray tights with neutral and white shoes and a single strand of pearls worn beneath a sheer top". It is the quietest version of hosiery there is: no colour, no decoration, just a tone that ties the look together.

Three very different registers, then: total colour, sheerness as fabric, neutral as punctuation. Milan, a few days ago, added its own: pink, purple and yellow tights at Jil Sander, a fabric recalling 80-denier tights turned into dresses at Elisabetta Franchi, black opaques under Gucci's mini-skirt suits.

The debuts to watch

According to Luxury.it's guide, there are two debuts this season.

Drew Henry at Courrèges (Wednesday 30 September). The South African designer, formerly senior design director at Burberry and before that at JW Anderson and Phoebe Philo, succeeds Nicolas Di Felice, who left after five years. For anyone who cares about legs, Courrèges is a name heavy with history. André Courrèges was the "Space Age designer" of the spring 1964 collection; he popularised the white calf-high boots that became the go-go boots of the Sixties, and between 1967 and 1971 he pushed rib-knit bodystockings and jumpsuits as foundation pieces, as his Wikipedia entry sets out. The question is whether Henry will look to that archive below the hemline too.

Kai Nesselrath at Carven (Thursday 1 October). Rome-born and German, trained at Polimoda and Central Saint Martins, he was head designer of womenswear at Saint Laurent under Anthony Vaccarello, according to Luxury.it. That is, the very house that turned hosiery into a runway fabric.

Beyond the debuts, the Daily Front Row flags Antonin Tron's second Balmain collection, Chemena Kamali at Chloé and Jean Paul Gaultier's ready-to-wear under Duran Lantink, after his polarising couture debut, as shows to watch.

The questions we are taking to the front row

Without anticipating anything that has not happened yet, here is what we will be watching for:

• Does sheer make it down to the legs? After a Milan built on veiled fabrics and visible lingerie, we will see whether Paris finishes its looks with fine tights or leaves legs bare.
• Does the knee-length skirt bring hosiery with it? Prada put the skirt at the centre of the season; if Paris follows, the question of what goes underneath becomes unavoidable.
• Is colour still in play? After Jil Sander, will anyone else move colour onto the legs?
• Do the debuts change the rules? A first show is when a new creative director sets out a vocabulary, styling included.
• Does sheer travel from Saint Laurent to Carven? Nesselrath comes from the house that made sheer hosiery a signature. It will be interesting to see whether he distances himself from that language or brings it with him.
• Valentino is back: what about the legs? The house where, for many, the tights revival began returns to the schedule, as franceinfo notes. On Sunday 4 October we will see whether the leg is still a playground.

How to read tights on the runway

Over the coming days, as you follow the livestreams and galleries, a few criteria help separate a detail from a trend:

• Styling or product? Many runway tights are the stylist's choice, not items for sale. The signal that matters is repetition: if the same pair recurs across several looks, or several houses, it is an idea headed for the shop floor.
• You can see the denier. According to Fogal's guide, up to 20 denier the leg stays transparent, from 30 to 40 colour is visible but soft, from 50 up it becomes solid. In photos, look at the knee: where the fabric stretches, a sheer pair lightens and an opaque one does not.
• The relationship with the shoe. Tights and shoes in the same colour lengthen the leg; contrast breaks it up. That is often where the intention shows.

How we will use this diary

This piece was written as a preview, on opening day. The answers will come from the galleries and reviews, which we will gather show by show, reporting only the tights actually seen on the runway. Paris has already shown, with Valentino and Saint Laurent, that it can turn a pair of tights into the image of a season. In nine days we will know whether it has done it again, or whether this time the answer is a bare leg. That, in its own way, would be news too.