Dua Lipa, Kendall Jenner fuel animal print revival in haute couture

This week, a wild herd has been on the move. It all began at Schiaparelli’s haute couture show in Paris on Monday, when Demi Moore arrived wearing a tar-black suit with leopard prints and a matching coat designed by the fashion house’s creative director, Daniel Roseberry.

Then, at Chanel’s show on Tuesday, VIP guest Dua Lipa delivered a striking look, seemingly channeling Fran Fine in a sharply tailored short suit paired with a 2.55 flap bag. Every inch of the pop star was covered in a hypnotic swirl of yellow, black, and red that looked like animal print on acid, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

By Wednesday, it was clear the message had spread from the City of Light to New York, when Kendall Jenner stepped out in a beaded tiger-striped midi dress. Both looks came from Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2026 collection, unveiled last December.

It’s a key element of the 1980s — but with a distinctive twist.

Since his debut last October, Matthieu Blazy has consistently made a name for himself by gently reinventing what once felt static — wool tweeds, double-breasted suits and pearls, couture coats — into new, exciting, and fluid garments.

It makes sense, then, that something as familiar as animal print would feel fresh and unique through his lens. Lipa’s and Jenner’s looks are far removed from the typical mob-wife costumes. No slicked-back hair, no stacks of gold jewelry, no Sopranos aesthetic. Instead, Blazy’s vision is livelier — brighter, bolder, and, in the case of Jenner’s tiger dress, featuring textiles that resemble plush toys.

While Moore kept the front row looking more conservative, Schiaparelli has long experimented with the boundaries of animal-inspired fashion (remember Kylie Jenner’s life-size lion head?).

This season, Roseberry continued that mission with a haute couture collection featuring reptilian textures, pronounced split busts, scorpion bustiers, and a sheer two-piece suit crafted from hyper-realistic fish scales.

According to trend analyst @databutmakeitfashion, classic leopard print is already on the rise. Some are calling it fashion’s “Boom Boom era” — where the 1980s doctrine of fur, clashing prints, and a greedy, more-is-more approach to dressing feels like playful cosplay amid an otherwise bleak economic, political, and social reality, CNN writes.

But perhaps this time, designers understand that to stop us from staring at animal prints in 2026, they’ll have to be louder and more scandalous than ever. A completely new species.

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