The Witching Hour

Walking on eggshells is usually reserved for situations ripe with fear and nervousness. Yet an audience of London Fashion week goers took them in their stride into an extremely confident Pauline Dujancourt sophomore runway collection this weekend, dispelling any notion of nerves. And while our feet were firmly on terra firma, her fall/winter 2026 collection was yet again inspired by flight. A recurring motif for Pauline, her delicate knits and crochets frothed at the models’ hips and necks like clusters of feathers on a mid-flight bird. 

Pauline is well known for a sense of movement in her clothes, apparent in each fabric – low slung silks and bouncy pleated chiffons – imbuing every look with a magical lightness. Her signature  approach to construction takes on different themes, and for FW26, Pauline directs us in her show notes to her primary reference: the persecution of witches. In the early modern period, some 50,000 ‘witches’ were accused and executed across Europe and in the English colonies in America. It’s easy now to look back and see them as women whose prosecution is the simply the apogee of historical misogyny and religious paranoia – but how often do we see them as simply normal people? For Pauline, her research into the witch trials revealed to her the inherent witchiness in her medium. Would her community of designers and craftswomen, poring over their elaborate knits and laces, be persecuted in another time or place?

Her collection, aptly named ‘Walking on Eggshells’, is an ode to the women whose skills have seen them mistaken for witches. The title reflects both the precarity of their lives and the triumph of her designs. Despite being very feminine, her designs reject the notions of frailty and defenselessness often associated with such a word. Opening with a series of all-black looks, colour starts to creep in with a tulle macrame sash in eggshell blue; elsewhere, a chiffon silk changeant skirt swishes in a smoky lavender and plush knits are elaborated as hats and bodices in a swampy green. This limited palette is remarkably sensual, sinister, seductive. Witchy, even. 

Pauline is foremost a knitwear designer, and is undoubtedly successful at doing so – for look 20, fluffy knitted lace upon a sheer top is remarkably sexy, even more so with the black crochet millstone of a choker and correspondent macrame skirt. The early modern period is evoked in puffed sleeves, hoods and capes, proving both sinister and regal. Throughout the collection Victorian-inspired Lili Curia shoes stomp on the eggshell-smattered floor. Overall, the collection is an ode to women’s traditional handiwork, a nod to the designer’s spiritual predecessors and a celebration of her own community. 

You can check out Pauline Dujancourt’s collection here.