Sébastien Meunier frames Fall Winter 2026.27 through Against Nature, a collection defined by radical sophistication and intellectual restraint. The title references Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1884 novel À rebours, widely cited as a key text of the Decadent movement. Meunier treats the book as a conceptual structure for fashion grounded in artifice, control, and self-determined taste.
FALL WINTER 2026.27 COLLECTIONS
Huysmans’ protagonist, Des Esseintes, withdraws from Paris to build a private environment governed by extreme refinement. He assembles references across eras and cultures, guided by obsession and an absolute rejection of nature. Artifice becomes his highest value. Meunier recognizes a parallel in contemporary life, where individuals remain isolated before screens, scrolling through endless sequences of curated images and personal edits. The collection reflects that condition through clothing that privileges intention over spontaneity and structure over comfort.
Dandy-inflected jackets appear with sharp darts that introduce a restrained medieval note. A cropped jacket references the cut of a Renaissance doublet. A double-breasted coat adopts the bearing of court dress, while its back recalls the slit construction of Belle Époque frock coats. Meunier treats historical reference as a precise tool rather than ornament. Each garment holds a clear function within the whole, allowing combinations that stack cleanly or separate with equal clarity.
Austrian lace meets merino wool sourced from Yorkshire, creating tension between delicacy and weight. Fabric-covered buttons, secured with a single central stitch, establish visual restraint. Structured collars and plastrons rely on horsehair reinforcement, introducing ceremonial rigor without excess. The Napoleon jacket, a recurring element in Meunier’s work, returns with Calais lace appliqué that sharpens its authority. Silk ribbons, grosgrain, and moiré appear alongside gold-printed viscose and denim treated to a burned effect.
Within this structured environment, feminine garments appear as spectral interruptions. Antwerp-based designer Mirjam Van den Akker contributes silk-veil forms shaped through flou techniques. These pieces suggest figures from another time, present yet distant, adding fragility and tension to the collection’s severity.
Oscar Wilde once described Against Nature as a dangerous book, the “yellow book” that leads Dorian Gray toward corruption and transformation. Meunier draws from that idea with precision. Fashion, in his view, holds the power to elevate, provoke, or unsettle. At its most extreme, it disrupts moral comfort. Fall Winter 2026.27 stands as an exercise in cultivated refusal, where clothing asserts discipline, artifice, and intellectual control as active positions within contemporary dress.
