Paris was in the grip of summer heat when Celia Kritharioti sent models into a couture landscape covered in snow. Yet the most memorable ice was not confined to the set. It appeared on the models' lashes, in their hair and beneath their eyes as crystal-like tears.
Presented July 9 during Paris Haute Couture Week, Kritharioti's Fall/Winter 2026–2027 collection, titled "Frozen Eden," transformed Galerie Vendôme into a white landscape of sculpted walls, frosted pathways and hanging icicles. The setting introduced a fantasy of paradise frozen at the moment innocence gives way to temptation.
The Greek designer imagined the Garden of Eden immediately after the forbidden fruit had been taken. According to the house's collection statement, time stands still as flowers, leaves and forbidden desires become an "empire of white and silver ice." The clothes explored the resulting tension through contrasts between light and shadow, concealment and exposure.
