August 01, 2026

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On the Quiet Side

Saint-Tropez has long been associated with a certain kind of summer fantasy. Picture glamorous beach clubs, designer boutiques, yachts lining the harbour and a social calendar that stretches well past sunset. But beyond the postcard clichés, the French Riviera destination is quietly evolving, with luxury becoming less about exclusivity and more about experiences that feel personal, immersive, and unhurried. Few properties capture that evolution as effortlessly as Hôtel de Paris Saint-Tropez.Opened in 1931 as the town's first luxury hotel, Hôtel de Paris has witnessed Saint-Tropez's remarkable transformation from a sleepy fishing village and artists' haven into one of Europe's most coveted holiday destinations. Over the decades, it has welcomed cultural

Couture in the Heat

Yes, Paris is beautiful in the rain. And in the golden, buttery embrace of a summer sun.Imagine this town in the '20s, through the rain and the sun. The writers, the artists, the designers. Dreamy? Yes. Now imagine the city in a heatwave.Hundreds of people--city dwellers, office-goers, creatives, tourists, students, lovers--jumping into Canal Saint-Martin to find a moment of respite from the torturous bearings of the sun. Hallowed maisons rescheduling their shows days before their runways, citing the unbearable heat as a reason. Editors queuing outside venues in shorts, tank tops, and fans; their usual stilettos swapped with sliders and ballet f lats. Air-conditioned clothing, the kind you only see in Ridley Scott productions or Rick Owens runways, finally becoming a roadside reality. In short, as Paris burned through a historically hot FANTASY AS MACABRE Ver y few people in today's world of couture and dressmaking know how to tell a story like Daniel Roseberry. His ability to evoke a sense of awe barely stands second to his ability to fearlessly embrace the macabre, often coming up with shapes and forms that provocatively evoke the darkness of our times. This season at Schiaparelli with The Abyss, Roseberry took us into the depths of the ocean, from where fantastical, Ursula-like tentacled creatures emerged onto the runway. Roseberry began his collection with an attempt at imagining what the deeply human act of making couture would look like in a future that currently appears dotted with the replicative possibilities of AI. His ruminations took him to an atelier July, the fashion industry got a fall-winter couture season for the books.First came the larger concerns. Climate change was no longer a headline to scroll past while a faltering global economy raised questions about the relevance of haute couture. And beneath it all lingered the anxiety of artificial intelligence: could four isolated days in Paris, the Mecca of design and creativity, really quiet the insecurities it provoked? As the global fashion community descended upon Paris for sophomore couture outings at Dior and Chanel, and new chapters at Balenciaga and Jean Paul Gaultier, these questions found surprisingly reassuring answers. Sometimes through metallic pleats, often through distortions of material and form, but always saved by finely embroidered sartorial imaginations of seasoned couturiers that seemed far from shy of commenting on the state of affairs that surround us today. outside Paris whose work with silicone and latex led Roseberry to develop swathes of double-sided satin-like fabric that then got translated into distorted jackets and breastplates--sensuous in their construction, yet disturbingly eerie in their sheen.Yet, hope was to be found in his closing looks, which included a homage to Gaudí's iconic architecture through floral embroideries that included thousands of flowers sewn into the fabric and kept alive for days in the atelier with sugar water. The closing look, which paired a silicone breastplate--complete with muscular curvatures and veiny details--with a feathered skirt resembling the spikes of a sea urchin, was Roseberry's plaintive vision of humanity heading towards uncertain atrophy.