Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut reimagines Balenciaga in his own colourful image

Italian designer brings sculptural silhouettes and playful palettes to the storied house, while it is hats off to Giorgio’s niece at her second Armani Privé couture show

The house of Balenciaga takes haute couture very seriously indeed. Cristóbal Balenciaga was so horrified by the rise of mass-produced clothes that, in 1968, he abruptly shuttered his brand and retired to his native Spain, announcing that “high fashion is mortally wounded”.

So Pierpaolo Piccioli, who now helms the house, approached the brief of his first Balenciaga couture collection conscientiously, despite having 25 years of experience at Valentino. At a preview, the haute couture war room where he worked on the show for nine months was plastered with images that ranged from a 1961 Balenciaga dress to Spanish golden age art – Zurbarán’s chic saints, Velázquez’s doll-like infantas – and a monumental Hepworth pierced megalith.

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Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: flip-flops are once again having a fashion moment. But please tread carefully

Love them or hate them, the versatile sandal is back – just choose the right ones and wear them the Copenhagen way

The flip-flop is an essential text of summer style. The Dalai Lama wears flip-flops. Surfers wear flip-flops. They are a beach classic, a staple of campsite shower blocks, non-negotiable after a pedicure. Like a pair of blue jeans or a cloth tote bag, they have a utility that transcends fashion.

But when flip-flops step out of their lane – when they become a fashion shoe, a public-facing shoe – rather than a shoe you leave by the back door – they raise hackles. Every single time we get a heatwave, a lively debate about whether flip-flops are acceptable in the office follows, without ever being resolved. When Jennifer Lawrence wore flip-flops under her Dior gown on the Cannes red carpet in 2023, there was an outcry over the perceived flouting of the film festival’s “elegant footwear” policy.

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Jonathan Anderson delivers high-concept Dior collection that celebrates the sculptural

Hot on heels of creating Taylor Swift’s wedding dress, designer brings his re-energising razzmatazz to Paris catwalk

The one person in the fashion industry who doesn’t want to talk about Taylor Swift’s as-yet-unrevealed wedding dress is the man who actually knows what it looks like. “It was a big honour,” was all that Dior’s Jonathan Anderson would say about dressing America’s de facto royal wedding. “But no, I can’t tell you anything about it. It will all come out in due course. It was a joy to work with her and we became very good friends. It is an emotional thing, doing someone’s wedding.”

Instead, Anderson wanted to talk about a very different American artist, sculptor Lynda Benglis, whose sensual slumped hunks of smelted metal inspired his haute couture collection. A wooden pavilion built for the show in the gardens of the Rodin Museum was soundtracked with the flutter of paper fans along the front row, and the haughty silhouettes of couture seemed liquefied in the city heat. A skirt of silver-foiled petals lapped and shimmered like molten lava. A tailored Bar jacket trailed threads of chiffon at the hem like drips of ice-cream down a cone.

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Polo shirts, Clarks Wallabees, shorts: Burnham has finessed his style. Can he carry it to high office? | Morwenna Ferrier

The likely next prime minister might have to leave his ‘Manchester clothes’ in the cupboard when he gets to No 10

There’s a joke doing the rounds about Andy Burnham. It usually goes something like this: a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. “Hello, Andy, what can I get you?” asks the barman.

The man who would be our next prime minister has been through a few incarnations in his career as a Labour politician. This shape-shifting has been reflected in the jobs he’s done and the policies he’s championed.

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Taylor Swift wears Dior wedding dress for marriage to Travis Kelce

In coup for Dior, couple wear French haute couture designed by Northern Irish creative director, Jonathan Anderson

Your English teacher and your gym teacher wore Dior: Jonathan Anderson, the Northern Irish creative director of Dior, has been revealed as the designer of haute couture wedding looks for Taylor Swift and her new husband, Travis Kelce.

Photographs have not yet been released, with Swift’s team in charge of timing, but a Dior statement confirmed that Swift is the first bride for whom Anderson, who joined Dior last year, has created an haute couture gown.

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