Couture Goes Global: Manish Malhotra, Rahul Mishra and Imane Ayissi

For a discipline historically defined by its Parisian exclusivity, this season's Haute Couture Week made a noticeably international case for itself.

Rahul Mishra opened the week's first day alongside Schiaparelli and Iris Van Herpen, bringing his signature hand-embroidery traditions to the official schedule, while Manish Malhotra closed the third day with his own couture presentation. Cameroonian-French designer Imane Ayissi, a recurring name on the calendar in recent seasons, continued to bring West African textile traditions into direct conversation with French couture technique.

Together with newer names like Standing Ground, their presence reflects a slower but real diversification of an industry that, for most of its history, treated 'couture' and 'Parisian' as functionally interchangeable terms.