Shadow Becomes the Garment with Julie Kegels for F/W 26-27, Paris Fashion Week | FashionTV | FTV

Embrace the captivating distortion in the Julie Kegels fall/winter 2026-2027 collection unveiled at Paris Fashion Week! Belgian designer Julie Kegels returnes to Paris to challenge our perceptions of “Face Value.” Her fifth collection is an unsettlingly beautiful game of appearances, where the boundary between an object and a garment – between a person and their shadow – is intentionally blurred. Drawing inspiration from Andy Warhol’s philosophy on the “aura” of strangers, Kegels explores the tension between meticulous control and inherent imperfection. The collection moves with a prancing, confident posture, emphasized by sleeves cut in circular arcs that lift the silhouette and tailoring that shifts the body forward. Yet, this confidence is tempered by a sense of mystery; models navigate the Boulevard des Invalides with faces obscured by leather masks or bonnets, their forms constricted by boiled, shrunken wool that prioritizes the “power of the look” over traditional comfort. Trompe-l’œil silk stickers mimic necklaces, while faux lace motifs, a signature carried over from her previous season, trick the eye. The show reached its conceptual peak with a haunting dialogue between the physical and the digital: pre-recorded shadows from Antwerp were projected behind models, sometimes syncing perfectly and at other times falling out of step, echoing the designer’s fascination with inconsistency. In the final act, the “shadow” literally became the garment, as silhouettes morphed from a model carrying physical bags into dresses with integrated protrusions, ending with prints that captured the contour of the shadow itself.

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