Spring 2026 Haute Couture: Tony Ward’s Facets of Light

Paris Couture Week

2 Feb

Tony Ward presented his Spring–Summer 2026 couture collection, Facets of Light, at the Museum of Mineralogy. The choice felt grounded in the work itself. Surrounded by stone, crystal and glass, the setting sharpened attention on surface and finish — exactly where this collection asks to be read.

Ward has long been drawn to construction and ornament working together, and here that balance felt especially considered. “It’s the diffusion of light through a kaleidoscope,” he says of the starting point. Rather than translating that idea into overt effect, he treats it as a working principle. Light is broken down through layers, redirected across materials, and rebuilt through patient construction.

Much of the work reveals itself only up close. Stones are painted by hand. Plexiglass is laser-cut, hand-painted, and specially treated, then assembled piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle.

Colours are applied gradually, often shifting almost imperceptibly from one tone to another. Some of the most intricate pieces required hundreds of hours in the atelier, particularly those where stones and crystals move through soft degradations rather than contrast.

Colour never feels applied for impact. Pale green eases into white. Coral deepens instead of clashing. Silver appears in several registers at once. As Ward notes, “Even when you’re going in silver, you have different silver and grey coming inside, which means depth.” The palette responds to light rather than overpowering it.

Silhouettes remain close to the body. Many looks are cut on the bias, fitted without stiffness, with volume introduced through structure rather than excess fabric.

Three-dimensional floral elements appear on sleeves and bodices, built from layers of thread and material rather than feathers or surface embellishment. Several pieces were reworked multiple times to find the right balance between clarity and complexity.

Materials, combined with precise construction and painstaking craft, create the collection’s shifting textures and luminosity. Glossy polyamide carries a liquid appearance while holding its shape, developed in different weights to alter movement. “We’ve been able to do it very thin and very flowy, and also thicker,” Ward explains. Hand-painted plexiglass adds another reflective plane, catching light differently as the body moves.

The collection also extends to accessories, with a limited series of clutches developed in collaboration with Tyler Ellis. The pieces apply couture embroidery to structured silhouettes, reinforcing the same attention to finish and craft seen throughout the clothes.

The collection had a playful tactile feel with details that seemed almost to respond to the hand as much as the eye.