As the fashion world descended upon Paris for the Fall/Winter 2025 Haute Couture Week, the air was thick with a sense of refined nostalgia and quiet revolution. While the garments themselves pushed the boundaries of handcrafted luxury, the beauty direction—particularly for Chanel and Schiaparelli—served as a masterclass in architectural restraint. This season, hair was not merely an accessory but a structural extension of the silhouettes themselves. Moving away from the messy textures of previous years, the 2025 couture runways embraced a “Clean Girl 2.0” aesthetic, where every strand was engineered for impact. From Chanel’s sleek, twisted ponytails to Schiaparelli’s surrealist chignons, the message was clear: in the world of high fashion, true power lies in the precision of the polish.
Chanel’s “Clean Girl 2.0” and the Twisted Pony
Under the masterful direction of the in-house team at 31 rue Cambon, Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2025 beauty story was one of “understated refinement.” Models emerged into the Salon d’Honneur at the Grand Palais with a hair look that beauty editors immediately dubbed “Clean Girl 2.0.” The centerpiece was a sleek, low-slung twisted ponytail that mimicked the intricate weave of the House’s iconic tweeds. Each ponytail was pulled back with extreme tension, emphasizing the natural bone structure of the models and allowing the shimmering, wheat-stalk-inspired embroidery of the collection to take center stage.
The “flipped” nature of the ponytail added a modern, athletic edge to the classic Chanel silhouette. By securing the hair at the nape and looping it back through itself, the stylists created a look that felt both traditional and surprisingly contemporary. This “pushed-back slick” aesthetic provided a neutral canvas for the collection’s deeper, autumnal makeup tones—specifically the berry-stained lips and bronzed, smoky eyes—proving that at Chanel, elegance is often found in the most disciplined details.
Schiaparelli’s Conical Chignons and Surrealist Drama
If Chanel was about the polish of the present, Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli was a “meditation on the future of the past.” For the Fall/Winter 2025 Haute Couture show, titled Back to the Future, legendary hair stylist Guido Palau crafted a series of “conical chignons” that defied traditional beauty norms. These weren’t your standard buns; they were sculptural masterpieces that elongated the models’ necks and balanced the house’s signature exaggerated shoulders and trompe-l’oeil busts.
The Schiaparelli hair look served as a vital anchor for a collection conceived entirely in black-and-white. The precision of these chignons echoed the mathematical artistry of the garments, with every hair slicked to a mirror-like shine to match the cinematic “Sunset of Elegance” theme. By deprivations of loose texture and embracing these rigid, surrealist shapes, Roseberry and Palau successfully created a world that felt “born in the future”—a post-technological vision where hair becomes a wearable sculpture.
The Rise of the “Pushed-Back Slick” and Side Part
Beyond the individual statements of the major houses, a broader “minimalist” movement swept through the Fall/Winter 2025 Couture Week. The “Pushed-Back Slick” emerged as the ultimate beauty constant, seen across multiple runways as a way to prioritize dewy, glazed skin. This look, often achieved with high-shine pomades and fine-tooth combs, stripped away the distractions of fringe and face-framing layers, focusing entirely on the “theatricality” of the clothing.
Parallel to the slicked look was a revitalized interest in the “Deep Side Part.” At shows like Elie Saab and Rahul Mishra, the side part was used to inject a sense of 1940s-era “Victory” glamour into the modern wardrobe. Whether paired with “Wavy Bed Hair” or tucked behind the ear for a more severe profile, the side part offered a versatile way to add volume and personality to an otherwise streamlined beauty season. It was a nod to the “Past Meets Present” inspiration that defined the entire 2025 couture cycle.
The Future of Couture Maintenance
As these runway trends translate to the red carpet and high-end salons in 2026, the focus has shifted toward “at-home architectural maintenance.” To achieve the Chanel “flipped pony” or the Schiaparelli shine, consumers are turning to a new generation of high-tech tools—most notably the Dyson Airwrap Coanda2x™—to achieve professional-grade tension and smoothness without the damage of traditional heat. The goal is a “finished” look that appears effortless but is built on a foundation of intensive hair health.
Ultimately, the hair trends of Fall/Winter 2025 Haute Couture were a celebration of the human hand over the digital algorithm. In a world increasingly dominated by screens and AI, the physical labor of a perfectly executed chignon or a hand-twisted ponytail feels revolutionary. As we move into the 2026 season, the “Masters of Light” at Chanel and Schiaparelli have reminded us that sometimes, the most avant-garde thing a woman can wear is a look that is perfectly, beautifully in control.
