Clap For What, Exactly?
everything I hated at Paris Fashion Week
It is so nice to finally step out of the house again, do a little supermarket run in a ratty little outfit, and not run into your Instagram friend from LA or that PR person whose email you probably should’ve responded to in a timely manner or maybe even your Twitter opp. These are my very unique problems during Paris Fashion Week, which thankfully is over.
I took a few days to decompress, but I did do one big thing: I went on the iconic Sandra Bernhard’s Radio Andy show, Sandyland, where I taught her about the influencer ecosystem, Asian KOLs ( key opinion leaders ), fan armies, and the whole circus. She told me that when she was in Paris for the Loewe show, she had no idea who any of these people in attendance were. Relatable.
Anyway, I had a whole list of things I wanted to cover about the internet this week, but me being the hater that I am, I want to talk about everything I hated at Paris Fashion Week. Because girl, what was going on??????
Without a doubt the biggest WTF of fashion month was Marilyn Manson opening for Enfants Riches Déprimés at Paris Fashion Week.
It was truly so bizarre watching the crowd clap, and publications posting clips like “iconic moment,” and a bunch of industry people flooding their stories calling it cool. Meanwhile I’m sitting here like… are we all just pretending the past few years didn’t happen?
This man has a stack of allegations that haven’t gone away. And literally weeks before this show, in late January 2026, a judge revived Ashley Walters’ civil sexual assault lawsuit against him. Her case, filed back in 2021, accuses him of sexual exploitation, manipulation, and abuse from 2010 to 2011, when she was his assistant. It got tossed in December 2025 on statute of limitations grounds, but California’s AB 250 kicked in January 1st, giving a two-year window for older adult sexual assault claims to come back. The judge said yes, it applies—case reopened January 26th. Manson denies it all. No criminal charges ever stuck after the investigation closed in 2025. But the civil case is alive again. And instead of laying low, he’s front and center at a luxury show getting applause.
ERD isn’t new to this either. Their SS25 campaign was shot by Terry Richardson, the same Terry who’s been persona non grata in fashion for years over allegations of sexual misconduct and exploitation from multiple models and assistants. Most major magazines and agencies dropped him long ago, but ERD was like, nah bro, come shoot our stuff. And now Manson as opener.
It’s tired. It’s stale. The brand thrives on this overpriced rage-bait aesthetic—provocative, “countercultural,” priced for the one percent who want to look like they’re sticking it to the system while dropping thousands on a hoodie.
The part that makes me side-eye everyone is how many people in the room, and online, treated this like a fabulous, bold flex instead of the desperate stunt it is. Clapping. Posting. Calling it a highlight. It’s straight-up gross. Deeply embarrassing for everyone involved. Don’t buy into it. Don’t clap for it. Stay fucking alert.
On to something else that had me groaning in front of my phone: I think Pierpaolo Piccioli and Balenciaga grossly underestimated how much people still hate Sam Levinson.
Balenciaga showed their Fall/Winter 2026 collection titled ClairObscur, framed as a big collaboration with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson. He designed the immersive set and video installations, projecting snippets from the upcoming Season 3, featuring Chloe Cherry, Alexa Demie, and new cast like Danielle Deadwyler, mixed with moody landscapes and that signature neon-gritty vibe. Piccioli talked it up as capturing “human fragilities and strengths” through Levinson’s lens. Some deep artistic fusion, apparently.
The collection itself was…not great. But what I really want to talk about is the part meant to hook young online Euphoria fans with discretionary income: a capsule drop right after the show, with limited pieces immediately available at Paris flagships featuring prints pulled directly from the series.
Nobody asked for this crossover. Online reception has been mostly panned, eye-rolls about how it looks, confusion over the connection, and a general “who thought this was a good idea?” Especially because it’s tied to Levinson, who’s been catching heat for years over accusations of misogyny in his work and on set. There’s also the whole thing with photographer Petra Collins, who has said publicly since 2023 that he essentially lifted the entire aesthetic of Euphoria from her, she was originally tapped to direct, built out the visual world and casting, got dropped last-minute for being “too young,” then watched as the show launched looking exactly like her photographs.
This feels like Pierpaolo desperately grasping for cultural credibility he doesn’t quite have. One thing about him: he loves being a celebrity, especially the Hollywood kind. He’s played himself on screen twice, Zoolander 2 and The Morning Show, and those staged pap walks outside Gucci stores back in the day were all part of building that mythos, like Karl or Marc Jacobs. But he’s not Demna. Demna had a cult following where people would buy a literal garbage bag because it was part of his irreverent world. His tribe followed him to Gucci. Pierpaolo wants that gravitas so bad, and attaching himself to a fading cultural peak like Euphoria, a show people have largely moved on from after years of delays, doesn’t build a tribe. It just looks desperate.
That said, the Rosalía print pieces might actually move. Her star power is real, separate from the show drama.
And circling back: amid rumors that HBO is disappointed with Season 3’s marketing, stagnant buzz, whispers of an “emergency plan” to juice engagement before the April drop, this whole thing reads like a clumsy attempt to engineer a viral moment. Pierpaolo assigning deeper meaning to middling clothes by attaching himself to a cultural moment he doesn’t fully understand, with a collaborator most people side-eye hard. It’s a mismatch on every level: fashion house chasing relevance, showrunner with baggage, audience that’s largely over it.
And finally…and maybe I’m being dramatic, but there was something genuinely dark-sided about this fashion month, specifically in who was platformed on the runways: Clavicular at Elena Velez’s NYFW show and Bryan Johnson at Matières Fécales.
