Robert Wun returned to Paris Haute Couture Week this season, and this time he brought shape and colour back with him. At least, that's how it reads through a fashion lens.
Wun’s show today was inspired by the idea of child’s play, he said. As is usual with him, he was literal; dresses in primary colours and simple, easy shapes, echoing the way children first learn to see the world. The collection unfolded like a child growing up; the opening looks arrived in white, marked by colourful embroidery in the form of naïve paint splashes, as if drawn by a child's own hand. From there came shapes recalling wooden building blocks in bold colorblocking, then a menagerie of stuffed-animal silhouettes, crystal skeletons, and ballerinas.
Image Credits: @itsxo
Image Credits: @itsxo
Watching an interview with Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese animator and filmmaker, Wun was struck by his philosophy: “He described why he does things for children…and how we create a world for children as an adult to believe in a better future, and that’s the responsibility of a creator,” he explained. Wun has also spoken about a space program his parents enrolled him in as a child, which resurfaced here as a reference for the transparent helmets that appeared on the runway.
Image Credits: @itsxo
The fairytale references came thick and unbothered by subtlety; One of his hats referenced Cinderella’s glass slipper, another, Maleficent's horns. A dress carried an embroidered skeleton, and another arrived fitted with real, blown-up balloons. It was charming, meticulously made, and unapologetically literal- Wun has been a designer who does not hide the reference under the hem. He shows his hand and dares you to look away.
Image Credits: @itsxo
A run of neon colorblocked looks followed, injecting a jolt of brightness before the palette softened again. But the show's most breathtaking look was a gown that looked mid-theft- two birds appearing to lift it clean off the body, plucked straight out of fairytale logic. Nothing here was accidental. The look was paired with the Bitten Apple earrings, a nod to Snow White: a natural pearl carved with a "forbidden bite," revealing a pigeon blood ruby hidden inside – Ana Belachan designed the piece, and it might be the collection's most poetic detail: jewellery that tells its own tiny story.
Custom jewelry crafted to complement the look.
Image Credits- @anabelachan.
Beauty lies in the details.
Image Credits- @itsxo
Childhood, Wun seemed to say, isn't something you release. It's something you carry.
And yet, watching balloons burst from lapels and stuffed rabbits cradled against bodies, it's fair to ask the question a few critics quietly raised after the show: though it was really a fun show, was it really couture? Haute couture, by definition, is supposed to be the industry's most intricate segment; hand-finished, made-to-order, built for a client who will actually wear it. Some of Wun's harsher critics have pointed out that his work can feel more sculptural than functional, more costume than garment, pieces so specific to the runway moment that it's hard to picture them re-styled, re-worn, or being shown anywhere outside the show space itself. It's a fair critique, and one Wun's work has faced before: spectacular, technically dazzling, but built around a singular vision so total that it leaves little room for a client's own hand in it.
Wun himself has framed the tension directly, saying his intention was "to be inspired by the un-serious, but to create seriously. "Couture, after all, has rules, decades of them, unspoken and otherwise. It's supposed to be quiet where this was loud, restrained where this reached for a stuffed rabbit and numerous balloons. Wun's show felt more committed to feeling than to formality. Whether that's a betrayal of the craft or the most honest thing couture has produced all season depends entirely on what you think couture is actually for.
Image Credits- @itsxo
And maybe that's the real trick of Childsplay: Wun built a collection that argues nostalgia is beside the point, because none of it ever really left. The paint splashes, the stuffed rabbit, the space helmet, the balloon that refuses to float away- they were never childish indulgences to begin with. They were evidence. Proof that imagination doesn't get folded up and put away with age; it just gets better tailored, better lit, and given a runway at Paris to walk down. That is, in the end, the quiet audacity of the whole show: Wun didn't ask the room to look back fondly. He asked it to admit that it never really moved on. Robert Wun is truly the maestro, and the collection is his masterpiece.
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Robert Wun returned to Paris Haute Couture Week this season, and this time he brought shape and colour back with him. At least, that's how it reads through a fashion lens.
Wun’s show today was inspired by the idea of child’s play, he said. As is usual with him, he was literal; dresses in primary colours and simple, easy shapes, echoing the way children first learn to see the world. The collection unfolded like a child growing up; the opening looks arrived in white, marked by colourful embroidery in the form of naïve paint splashes, as if drawn by a child's own hand. From there came shapes recalling wooden building blocks in bold colorblocking, then a menagerie of stuffed-animal silhouettes, crystal skeletons, and ballerinas.
Image Credits: @itsxo
Image Credits: @itsxo
Watching an interview with Hayao Miyazaki, Japanese animator and filmmaker, Wun was struck by his philosophy: “He described why he does things for children…and how we create a world for children as an adult to believe in a better future, and that’s the responsibility of a creator,” he explained. Wun has also spoken about a space program his parents enrolled him in as a child, which resurfaced here as a reference for the transparent helmets that appeared on the runway.
Image Credits: @itsxo
The fairytale references came thick and unbothered by subtlety; One of his hats referenced Cinderella’s glass slipper, another, Maleficent's horns. A dress carried an embroidered skeleton, and another arrived fitted with real, blown-up balloons. It was charming, meticulously made, and unapologetically literal- Wun has been a designer who does not hide the reference under the hem. He shows his hand and dares you to look away.
Image Credits: @itsxo
A run of neon colorblocked looks followed, injecting a jolt of brightness before the palette softened again. But the show's most breathtaking look was a gown that looked mid-theft- two birds appearing to lift it clean off the body, plucked straight out of fairytale logic. Nothing here was accidental. The look was paired with the Bitten Apple earrings, a nod to Snow White: a natural pearl carved with a "forbidden bite," revealing a pigeon blood ruby hidden inside – Ana Belachan designed the piece, and it might be the collection's most poetic detail: jewellery that tells its own tiny story.
Custom jewelry crafted to complement the look.
Image Credits- @anabelachan.
Beauty lies in the details.
Image Credits- @itsxo
Childhood, Wun seemed to say, isn't something you release. It's something you carry.
And yet, watching balloons burst from lapels and stuffed rabbits cradled against bodies, it's fair to ask the question a few critics quietly raised after the show: though it was really a fun show, was it really couture? Haute couture, by definition, is supposed to be the industry's most intricate segment; hand-finished, made-to-order, built for a client who will actually wear it. Some of Wun's harsher critics have pointed out that his work can feel more sculptural than functional, more costume than garment, pieces so specific to the runway moment that it's hard to picture them re-styled, re-worn, or being shown anywhere outside the show space itself. It's a fair critique, and one Wun's work has faced before: spectacular, technically dazzling, but built around a singular vision so total that it leaves little room for a client's own hand in it.
Wun himself has framed the tension directly, saying his intention was "to be inspired by the un-serious, but to create seriously. "Couture, after all, has rules, decades of them, unspoken and otherwise. It's supposed to be quiet where this was loud, restrained where this reached for a stuffed rabbit and numerous balloons. Wun's show felt more committed to feeling than to formality. Whether that's a betrayal of the craft or the most honest thing couture has produced all season depends entirely on what you think couture is actually for.
Image Credits- @itsxo
And maybe that's the real trick of Childsplay: Wun built a collection that argues nostalgia is beside the point, because none of it ever really left. The paint splashes, the stuffed rabbit, the space helmet, the balloon that refuses to float away- they were never childish indulgences to begin with. They were evidence. Proof that imagination doesn't get folded up and put away with age; it just gets better tailored, better lit, and given a runway at Paris to walk down. That is, in the end, the quiet audacity of the whole show: Wun didn't ask the room to look back fondly. He asked it to admit that it never really moved on. Robert Wun is truly the maestro, and the collection is his masterpiece.
TO BE CONTINUED, FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.
This is where the surface ends and the reporting begins.
The complete piece, the full archive, and access to The French Press Circle. Reporting answerable only to its readers.
Already a subscriber ?
Login
Read these on the house, with our compliments.
A selection from the current issue, open to all readers. Read them in full. The rest is one decision away.
