Five Minutes with Chloé Designer Chemena Kamali

Since taking the helm at Chloé in October 2023, creative director Chemena Kamali has been on a mission to clearly articulate the house’s design DNA. Show after show, Kamali emphasized the codes of the house, harnessing its heritage to create youthful, breezy clothing.

Now, having laid the foundations, Kamali is ready to build. “I don’t want Chloé to be some predetermined idea of one woman or one stereotype,” she told reporters backstage after presenting her summer 2026 collection. “I think there’s room to explore.”

Her starting point was to use design techniques usually reserved for couture clothing. “The idea of draping and pleating and wrapping and knotting, all those classic couture techniques, is something quite personal,” Kamali said. “It’s something in my foundation as a designer. I started off as a flou 3D designer, so draping was, for me, easier than sketching.” In doing so, Kamali is attempting to modify Chloé’s DNA and expand the public perception of the house. 

The first looks were draped dresses with floral prints from the 1950s and ’60s, which had been redrawn and printed onto cotton. “The way we did those dresses or skirts, we made them in a very ordinary, ‘poor’ cotton,” she said. “I loved the tension of [having] this poor fabric but really working it intricately into all these pleats and creating shape –  but without weight.” 

She also drew inspiration from the intricate workmanship of 1950s swimwear and the smocking technique designers used. “The top parts of these dresses were inspired by ’50s bathing suits, and then we flow into this couture gesture, the pleats. When she has her hand in her pocket, it almost looks like her arm is pulling up the pleats to create movement and spontaneity.” The resulting dresses look light and spontaneous but are precisely studied. 

Kamali acknowledged that, in a sense, “Chloé” and “couture” are paradoxical. Gaby Aghion, who founded Chloé in 1952, admired couture yet wanted to create modern clothing that women on the streets would wear. “She was very anti-couture,” said Kamali. “She didn’t want the stiffness, didn’t want the formality and the elitism. She wanted things to be light, so she was inspired by couture silhouettes at the time but she didn’t want all the inner construction. She didn’t want the weight of a couture dress.”

Her mission this season was to retain a light touch while achieving couture effects, which typically require boning or padding – a fitting challenge for a designer intent on changing perceptions.