Jaden Smith, Heidi Klum and her 16-year-old daughter Lou Sulola Samuel were among guests who made it to the Palais de la Femme for Vivienne Westwood’s spring 2027 show despite the Pride march causing traffic chaos across Paris.

Farida Khelfa opened the show, while punk poet Stuart McKenzie performed. Natasha Lyonne made a playful runway cameo, shaking her shoulders in a bright, open leopard-print jacket. It was a fitting entrance for a collection that reveled in contrast: flowers piled on flowers, vivid prints and beachwear alongside court references and the house’s familiar punk codes.

Andreas Kronthaler said the collection’s color began in Barbès, the multicultural neighborhood in northern Paris, where he visited fabric shops and bought vivid Bazin cottons. He chose different lengths of fabric “very randomly” and started from there.

Another key inspiration was a late-17th-century Cheat Jacket he saw through his connection with a London costume institute. Its fancy fabric appeared only at the front, and the back was pieced together from leftovers.

That humble reverse became a design philosophy for spring 2027. He reworked the silhouette with various material combinations and showed them repeatedly on the runway. “The back is just as important as the front. The collection is all about movement,” he added.

While keeping that Westwood spirit well and alive, Kronthaler is also designing for his own particular pleasures: hunky men in slouchy nightshirts and swimwear, a mischievous case for male seduction. “A man should be as sexy as women. I don’t see that difference,” he said backstage.

The nightshirts had a personal starting point. After a heat-wave-blighted summer, Kronthaler said he had worn one through the day, cycling and shopping in it. “There’s nothing underneath, really. People loved it. Everywhere I went, they were just smiling or greeting me nicely,” he quipped.