Death omens never looked this good at Zuhair Murad couture

8 Jul 26

Share it

The Lebanese designer closed out his Paris week with Love and Dominion, a winter fantasy of frosted brambles, nightjars and wrought iron gone soft.

Every season Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad invents a heroine that survives something terrible and comes out the other side in embroidery. For autumn 2026 couture, shown in Paris on Wednesday evening in one of the last big slots of the week, all of the gowns centre around an ice queen. She’s introduced as if she’s from a fantasy prologue as part fairy, part sorceress, in possession of “enough magic to destroy everything.” The show notes also advise against trying to unsettle her, though it’s hard to imagine this from anyone at a Murad show as his heroine always wins.

Murad’s embroiderers have scattered flocks of nightjars across the black tulle of a ball gown, some stitched flat, others raised and padded so the birds lift off the surface. Nightjars are birds European folklore blames for stolen milk and approaching death. Stitched across a ball gown they’re stripped of their menace. Crystal rose brambles climb a fitted black crepe jacket as if frost caught them mid-growth, spilling over a petal-shaped neckline and winding down the sleeves. Even the wrought iron is on her side, being redrawn in trompe-l’oeil embroidery, the stuff of gates and cage, becoming something she could slip through without snagging a hem.

The fabrics run to velvet, crepe, radzimir and duchesse satin on the structured side and silk chiffon on the soft, with feathers used as stoles, as muffs and within the embroidery. The palette is winter throughout, black, fir green and wine, plus some pale pink tulle.

Murad has spent more than twenty years perfecting a signature with the heavily embroidered, corseted gown built for making an entrance, and it has made him a fixture of red carpets and royal weddings. His couture show now draws some of the biggest social media numbers of the Paris calendar, and the house is growing, with accessories expanding and a flagship due.