For Fall/Winter 2026–2027 at London Fashion Week, Pauline Dujancourt shifted the narrative of the witch away from folklore and toward fellowship. Inspired by In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet, the Paris-born, London-based designer explored the idea of women living and creating collectively, sharing techniques, sustaining knowledge, and historically facing persecution for their autonomy. The reference felt less literary than lived, echoing Dujancourt’s own studio model built on close collaboration with specialist knitters in Peru and France.

The staging carried a restrained theatricality. Crepuscular light pooled across the runway as an eerie dream-pop score reverberated softly through the space. An installation of fragile eggshell sculptures evoked the biomorphic forms of Maria Bartuszová, while scattered plaster fragments cracked audibly beneath each step. The atmosphere was hushed but charged, vulnerability rendered visible.

Opening passages adhered to a shadowed palette. Black dominated, grounding an opulent skirt composed of pleated silk swirls and a lace-front dress offset by knitted bell sleeves. Tulle macramé separates demonstrated Dujancourt’s technical dexterity; pieces that appeared dense were remarkably light. Knitwear became illusion, structure dissolving into air.

Midway, color emerged, lavender, duck-egg blue, and misted green – softening the mood without diluting its intent. The chromatic shift suggested movement from obscurity toward acknowledgment. Dujancourt has spoken of honoring women without monuments; here, the palette became a quiet tribute.

Knit remained the collection’s central language, yet never as an exhibition. Complicated stitches, deciphered from archival diagrams and executed with almost musical precision, carried both discipline and intimacy. Texture and transparency coexisted; ancestral technique was rendered contemporary without spectacle.

What distinguished this season was its refusal to sensationalize. Rather than dramatize the witch as an icon, Dujancourt framed her as an artisan and collaborator, a keeper of inherited skill. Even the fractured eggshells felt less ominous than generative: symbols of fragility, but also emergence.

Fall/Winter 2026–2027 unfolded not as provocation, but as meditation. Through shadow and into light, Pauline Dujancourt affirmed continuity over caricature, positioning craft itself as quiet resistance, stitched, shared, and sustained.