The pavement outside Le
Royal Monceau has become the most reliable fashion venue in Paris
this season, largely because Celine Dion keeps
walking out of it. On September 1 she emerged in a black gown from
Loewe‘s Fall 2026 collection, a look lifted
directly from the March runway with no dilution whatsoever, her
hair pulled into a sleek bun and her fans waiting on the other side
of the door.
Leather as a Mother Tongue
The dress operates in two
entirely different registers. The bodice is sculpted leather,
rippling as it rises into an oversized cowl at the neckline,
holding a shape that owes rather more to armor than to dressmaking.
The skirt then cuts across the hem at a severe asymmetric angle,
trimmed in shearling and trailing into a floor-grazing side train,
so the softness arrives precisely where the structure ends. Loewe
began life in Madrid in 1846 as a cooperative of leather artisans,
which means the house is speaking its first language here rather
than borrowing one. The look belongs to the debut collection by
Jack McCollough and Lazaro
Hernandez, who assumed creative direction following
Jonathan Anderson‘s departure, and it was first
seen on the runway during Paris Fashion Week in March before
Kara Wai wore it in June.
A Quieter Register, Deliberately
Dion completed the outfit with
pointed-toe pumps and the mini Flamenco clutch, keeping everything
else silent so the contrast between leather and shearling could
carry the moment. The restraint is the news. Having reunited with
Annie Horth, the stylist who worked with her long
before the theatrical era that made her a viral fixture, she has
settled into something closer to considered than to spectacular.
The timing explains a great deal. Her Paris residency at the
Défense Arena opens on September 12 with twenty-six sold-out dates
stretching into next May, and more than nine million people entered
the ballot for tickets. A woman about to spend nine months singing
in one city appears to have decided that the walk to the car
deserves the same attention as the stage, which is a proposition
few could sustain and she manages daily.
