Matières Fécales Brings “The 99 Percent” to Paris for Spring 2027
Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran turned Place de la République into a runway where couture, identity and visibility shared equal billing.
Matières Fécales did not come to Paris Fashion Week to simply present another collection.
For Spring 2027, designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran took their work into one of Paris’ most symbolic public spaces: Place de la République. The collection, titled “The 99 Percent,” reversed the idea behind their previous exploration of “The 1%” and redirected the conversation toward people historically given less visibility within luxury fashion.
The scale alone made the intention difficult to ignore.
The show featured 99 models, all people of color, moving through a collection that combined the theatrical world Matières Fécales has become known for with surprisingly intimate ideas about family, motherhood and belonging.
From Exclusivity to Visibility
Luxury has traditionally depended on exclusivity. Matières Fécales questioned what happens when the visual language of couture is opened to a much wider group of people.
The collection began with images of family and maternity. Pregnant bodies, mothers and children appeared alongside white draping, veiled silhouettes and religious references.
For Bhaskaran, those ideas were personal. Members of his own family participated in the show, helping turn an enormous public production into something rooted in memory and community. Then the clothes became increasingly dramatic.
Sculpted tailoring sat beside elongated skirts, corseted eveningwear, monumental gowns and sharply constructed shoulders. White and black established much of the collection’s visual foundation before intense red, metallic finishes and elaborate textures pushed the clothes further into fantasy. It was couture language without couture’s traditional distance.
Craft Beyond Paris
One of the strongest elements of the collection was its approach to craftsmanship.
Sari textiles made in Varanasi, India, were reconstructed into silhouettes referencing the volume of 1950s couture. One creation reportedly required hundreds of meters of tulle.
Handwoven cotton from Burkina Faso was similarly transformed into corseted eveningwear. Rather than treating these textile traditions as decorative inspiration, Matières Fécales placed them within the construction and scale normally associated with European couture.
That choice strengthened the larger point of the collection: fashion’s definition of luxury does not have to begin and end in the same places.
Fashion as a Public Platform
Holding the show at Place de la République gave the clothes another layer of meaning.
The square has long been associated with public gatherings, demonstrations and civic expression. Instead of separating fashion from the city behind an invitation-only door, Matières Fécales placed its message within a space already associated with the public voice.
The runway also attracted a major crowd, with Rihanna among the guests and wearing shoes from the Matières Fécales collaboration with Christian Louboutin. Still, celebrity was not the central story. The people walking the runway were.
What Matières Fécales Is Building
Matières Fécales has always operated on the more confrontational edge of fashion. Dalton and Bhaskaran built their identity through extreme silhouettes, performance, prosthetics and a willingness to question conventional ideas of beauty.
Spring 2027 showed something more developed. The provocation is still there, but it is increasingly connected to serious construction, textile work and a clearer point of view about the industry the designers are entering.
“The 99 Percent” was ultimately about opportunity and visibility. Who gets represented? Whose craftsmanship gets called luxury, and who gets to occupy fashion’s most prestigious spaces? “
At Place de la République, Matières Fécales offered its answer by putting those people directly on the runway. Fashion may still thrive on fantasy. Matières Fécales wants to make sure more people can see themselves inside it.