I Ran (And Biked) Around Paris Fashion Week So You Didn’t Have To
From a rental-truck showroom in Le Marais to a culture-packed 424 runway show, this is how FW26 unfolded on the ground in Paris.
Words by Madrell Stinney
Photos by Félix Dol Maillot
Presented by Lexus
This season’s Fashion Week coverage is made in partnership with Lexus and the all-electric Lexus RZ. Built on the idea that electrification can be felt as much as it’s engineered, the RZ approaches performance with the same blend of precision and artistry seen across Milan and Paris Fashion Week. Just as designers experiment with material, silhouette, and storytelling, the all-electric Lexus RZ explores how technology can move beyond function into something more expressive.
Paris Fashion Week gets called fashion’s Super Bowl for a reason. In the span of a few breathless days, the world’s most revered designers debut new collections, emerging brands hustle in showrooms hoping to land international stockists, and somewhere in between, presentations blur the line between art performance and product storytelling.
Courtesy of Lexus, I traveled to Europe to take in the full spectrum of Milan and Paris Fashion Week. By the time I reached the French capital, the Fall/Winter 2026 season was in full swing, with a steady rhythm of shows, appointments, and those in-between moments where you actually get to understand what designers are trying to say.
I started my week in Le Marais at Village PM’s pop-up showroom. If you haven’t read our profile on founders Basile Lapray and Bram De Cleen, the brand is rethinking skate shoes through a performance lens, without losing an ounce of style. Their showroom setup says just as much about their mentality as the shoes do.
“As you can tell, we’re in a rental truck,” Bram told me, standing inside the back of a vehicle parked curbside. “We started the first showroom in this truck because we didn’t have the proper budget for a proper space in central Marais.”
“Everyone’s doing the same showroom,” Basile added. What started as a constraint became their signature. The truck is loud, scrappy, and impossible to ignore — very on brand.
This season, the duo introduced the 2PM silhouette alongside new colorways of the 1PM, the more accessible 1:30PM, and the 1PM Mid. “The 2PM is built on a different last, so we changed it up a little bit. It’s a bit broader in the front,” Bram explained. The low-profile shape remains, but the upper is upgraded with lateral perforation and the brand’s patented Rubber Glove Technology wrapping the outside of the lacing system. With its versatile paneling, they’re already thinking ahead to future material swaps and color experiments. The 2PM is slated to drop in September.
A short walk away, I headed to District Vision’s showroom to catch up with founders Max Vallot and Tom Daly. Their approach is almost meditative in contrast. “A lot of what we do is doing it less and doing it better,” Tom said. “We started as an eyewear brand, manufacturing everything in Japan. We really try to go the extra step in developing products and incubating ideas.”
That mindset showed in their Fall/Winter offering. New three-layer, four-way stretch fabrics brought waterproof performance to technical apparel, while outerwear featured a green sleeve label designed to holster your eyewear mid-run. “Eyewear is still the heart of everything we do,” Max reminded me.
This season introduced the Mami Vantage Ti and Miho Windstream Ti, dual-lens, six-base rimless sunglasses built from ultra-light aerospace-grade titanium. Beyond eyewear, the showroom quietly teased an upcoming New Balance collaboration. “The next shoe we’re working on is the 1080,” Tom shared. “It has a rugged trail material story on the upper.” Cold-weather accessories are also in development, including Japanese-made knits and a collaborative glove with a wrist opening designed to reveal your watch — ideally a performance one, not just a flex piece, as Max joked.
My final stop brought me to 424’s third Paris runway show, staged at the Palais de Tokyo, the city’s temple of modern and contemporary art. Fresh off his Spring/Summer 2026 show this past June, which featured a fleet of Porsches, this moment felt like another major chapter for Guillermo Andrade.
Backstage, the energy was different from a typical casting lineup. Familiar internet faces stood in full 424 looks, ready to walk. Bruce Ray, known as BruceDropEmOff. Jason Nguyen, aka JasonTheWeen. Then, mid-rehearsal, Kai Cenat walked in to support Guillermo, drawing a wave of excitement through the room.
That crossover extended into the collection itself through a collaboration with web3 brand Azuki, with several looks inspired by its anime-style NFT characters. “It all kind of happened as naturally as those things could,” Andrade told me. “I met Jason, I met Z, and it was like, is there a way for these things to coexist?”
On the runway, the answer felt clear. The pieces never tipped into costume. Instead, they sharpened 424’s core language. Leather and fur were treated with grit rather than preciousness, distressed and reworked into something tougher. “I focused on the hides that are imperfect. The ones people don’t buy,” Andrade said. “If it’s not beautiful because it’s ruined, let me ruin it some more. Let me give it new life.”
Elsewhere were updated flannels, bombers, and band tees, all filtered through that distinctly Californian 424 lens. And the boots — western, military, heavy with attitude — stomped the point home. In a week that would only get louder, ending the day at 424 was a reminder that subculture still sets the tone.
