Some collections tell a story through a silhouette. “Into The Wild,” the new collection from Aelis Couture, instead raises a question of international law: What if nature were no longer property, but a subject?
The Parisian fashion house Aelis Couture, founded by designer Sofia, presents its Fall-Winter 2026-27 collection under a title that might pass for a marketing slogan were it not accompanied by a statement of intent of unusual depth for a fashion press release. Self-awareness, independence, uncertainty, fragility, grace, a spirit of rebellion: the house makes it clear from the outset that it intends to use contrast as a creative driving force rather than merely as a stylistic effect. The resulting dresses evoke a melting iceberg—icy blue mingling with translucent white highlights and a deep petrol black—while the powdery pink, almost ethereal, intensifies in voluminous layers of black tulle interspersed with long fringes that mimic hair, giving the pieces an almost theatrical gravity.
The collection is also structured around a dialogue with heritage institutions. The partnership with the Casting Workshop of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux—Grand Palais allows Sofia to incorporate fragments of the house’s organic silk into trompe-l’œil experiments: working with sculptor Arnaud Briand, she reinterprets the drapery of Roman commanders’ togas, cast in plaster dyed black throughout, evoking concrete. A lead-colored duchesse satin dress, lined with organic hemp, is thus constructed around a fragment of Roman statuary, upon which rests a “fibula” styled after a piece of Brutalist architecture. Through this garment, the project explores the relationships between support and power—a theme rarely addressed with such literalness in contemporary haute couture, where historical references are generally limited to ornamentation rather than structure.
The theme of upcycling runs throughout the entire collection, extended through a collaboration with Les Intéressantes on recycled jewelry that is woven into the models’ hairstyles and drapery, selected by casting director Julie Doidy as true ambassadors of the house’s vision. This season, the exploration of materials focuses on keratin—hair, wool, feathers—in an approach that directly challenges industrial practices. An antique pink silk tulle dress thus envelops long strands of hair—a gift from hairstylist Henry Olivier—embroidered directly onto the delicate fabric by Silvia Barcucci. The press release bluntly points out that faux fur pollutes due to its petroleum-based polymers, while natural materials such as wool or hair increasingly come from the agri-food and mass-production textile industries—a reminder that rejects the simplistic notion of “natural” as a sufficient argument.
But the political heart of the collection lies elsewhere—in a meeting. During the screening of the film “Yintah,” Sofia spoke with Morgane Joffredo of Amnesty International about the struggle of the Wet’suwet’en Indigenous people in Canada against the destruction of their lands for a natural gas pipeline project—a nonviolent struggle that has led to their criminalization. This meeting directed the brand’s focus toward the international rights of nature movement, which advocates for ecosystems to cease being viewed as property and instead become full-fledged legal entities. In June 2026, the small Quebec town of Terrasse-Vaudreuil became the first Canadian municipality to enshrine in its bylaws that a tree possesses, above all else, the right to exist—and the first to sign the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree. That the fashion industry—built on the ephemeral nature of desire—borrows the legal vocabulary of legal personality and permanence raises a question that goes far beyond Aelis: Can fashion convey a political message without merely aestheticizing its symbols?
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