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louis gabriel nouchi ss26 | do androids dream of wet desires?

Louis Gabriel Nouchi’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection arrived with a jolt. The Paris label, renowned for its sharp tailoring and experimental clothing machines, seemingly skipped the runway this season in favour of a dystopian daydream. In this vision, clothes are tactile, electric, and almost alive.

Nouchi’s iconic sculptural coat, with its wide shoulders and clean lines, served as the foundation. However, here, it was meticulously deconstructed and rebuilt, sometimes truncated, other times swollen with volume. Sleeves vanished, seams were torn, and the silhouette felt interrogated, akin to architecture in motion. Frankly, it’s not hard to imagine Pedro Pascal sporting any of these pieces.

Layer by layer, the clothes unravelled expectations. Skirts were attached to structured shirts, while trousers were slashed mid-thigh. Sheer black veils moved over oiled cotton and hand-painted leather. Nouchi described his world as an “erotic dystopia,” and that language feels precise after watching bodies roll, fold, loop, and sweat like warm metal.

The stripped-back yet charged palette of noir black, bone-white, and irradiated sand perfectly captured the Blade Runner mood without feeling derivative. Each texture played against the next, creating a visually striking effect. A dry cotton shirt draped beneath a glossy nylon coat, while transparent underlayers sat beneath heavy tailoring.

Models appeared anonymous, their hair slicked into visor shapes and their faces obscured. The whole presentation was showcased via The Replicant, a Wizz Studio animated short. Metallic figures looped and shimmered; sweat looked like mercury, as structured coats, transparent underwear, and sculptural tailoring materialised in repeating ballet.

By the time the final scene played, those iconic coats had been reconfigured countless ways — jacked, cropped, re-layered, paired with stark micro-shorts or draped over oiled trousers.

In the film, some key pieces appeared again and again: dip-dyed coats, sculpted sand-toned underwear, oversized tailored silhouettes. Nouchi seemed to describe these replicants as sensual, pushing, retracting, and looping. With each sequence, he demonstrates that the clothes aren’t performance pieces, but rather propositions.

This season truly asked, “Do androids dream of wet desires?” and answered with outfits that felt engineered for both precision and heat.

Discover the collection here.

photography. Harry Miller
words. Gennaro Costanzo