Charlie Le Mindu Turns Hair Into Couture

Back from a decade-long hiatus from runways, Charlie Le Mindu has finally pulled back the curtain on his Spring/Summer ’26 couture collection.

 

Moving hair beyond pure ornament, Le Mindu interrogates the porous boundary where skin meets body hair. In Skins, delicate strands appear to grow directly from the body itself—the gradient blurred, dissolved almost. Sheer bodysuits cling tightly to the skin, and floor-dragging headpieces and braid-lined skirts seem to spill organically from the models’ forms.

 

In a stark runway room nestled in Paris’s Oberkampf neighborhood, nude dancers caked in white clay perform at the center, choreographed by Grace Lyell. Against this unfolding spectacle, models studded in knee-high hair boots and draped hair coats, bringing to mind the statement costumes of Les ballets de Monte-Carlo and Doja Cat’s Coachella performance last year. 

 

These signature sculptural pieces (crafted entirely from real human hair) appear alongside micro bikinis and corsets, while the olive-toned sculptural skirt puckers into a bulbous, skin-like texture. Earthy shades of vivid green and deep browns set against a stark black-and-white palette give the collection a near mythic, Grecian intensity.

 

Revealed in collaboration with Pornhub and Byredo, the collection draws from both worlds: body autonomy from the former, and the sensorial power of hair scent from the latter. Elsewhere, Byredo’s Hair Perfume enveloped each hair piece in lingering sensuality, leaving the sculptural strands with a glistening sheen.