Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu close Paris Fashion Week with competing visions of nature

PARIS (AP) — Louis Vuitton 's Nicolas Ghesquière built a fake mountain range inside the Louvre and sent models climbing through it.

On Tuesday he closed out a starry Paris Fashion Week with folklore treated as high fashion — capes, cowbells, shearling caps and walking sticks draped with handbags.

Ghesquière called the collection “Super Nature” and said he wanted to find what mountain people from the Alps to Central Asia to the Andes all have in common: clothes shaped by weather, altitude and the need to keep moving.

Zendaya, Ana de Armas, Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith sat in the front row.

The set, designed by “Severance” production designer Jeremy Hindle, turned the Louvre's oldest courtyard — the Cour Carrée — into something between a sci-fi landscape and an Alpine postcard.

The show opened with shaggy capes and exaggerated shoulders.

Fur epaulettes swallowed models’ arms and cone-shaped hats recalled the paper sailor hats kids fold for fun. Some models hoisted enormous wicker baskets overhead. Others carried branches.

Wolves, sheep and rabbits appeared embroidered across jackets and skirts.

Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko painted the lambs. Ghesquière reinterpreted a Man Ray parure once worn by Catherine Deneuve, studding it with the nailheads of a Louis Vuitton trunk.

The Noé returned in its original 1932 shape. Mini Malles came in soft new versions. Heels were carved to look like antlers.

Where the clothes pushed toward the conceptual, the accessories pulled everything back to earth.

Tuxedo trousers swapped satin side-stripes for strips of fluff and rain capes in scarlet and baby blue crackled against the earthy palette. Coats were lined in hemp-based faux fur.

The house called its material approach “hyper-craft” — not imitation of nature but sublimation of it.

K-pop stars Felix and Lisa, the band Haim, Phoebe Dynevor, Ava DuVernay, Alicia Vikander, Chase Infiniti, Chloe Grace Moretz, Erin Doherty, Katherine LaNasa and Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu were also in attendance.

Ghesquière has led Louis Vuitton womenswear since 2013, outlasting more than a dozen creative directors at rival houses.

Across town a few hours later, the runway at Miu Miu looked like a churned forest floor.

Staff scattered twigs and moss by hand right up until showtime.

Where Ghesquière built a world, Miuccia Prada took one away.

“You, as a human person, you are enough,” Prada said. “You have your mind. That should be enough against whatever happens.”

The clothes looked like the last things left in someone’s wardrobe. Tiny tank dresses. Shrunken washed-leather jackets. Crinkled cotton blazers soft from wear.

Slim coats worn to a sheen, matched with flared pants that dragged through the dirt.

Cotton poplin, boiled cashmere, linen, embroidered tulle—all pulled tight to the skin. Bows recalled underwear. The garments closest to the body.

No armor. No volume. Just the person inside.

Prada drove the point home with her casting.

Gillian Anderson walked. So did Chloë Sevigny and Kristen McMenamy.

The TXT member Yeonjun appeared alongside Diana Silvers and Gemma Ward.

The lineup spanned generations and gave the stripped-back clothes a weight that a cast of teenagers would not have.

The accessories did the work the clothes refused to. Embellished chapkas, crystallized belts, bedazzled sneakers. One loud element against all that quiet fabric.

After a month of shows that armored the body, padded it and buried it in texture, Prada ended the season arguing the opposite.

The body is already enough. The clothes just need to get out of its way.

A model wears a creation from the Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Tom Nicholson)

Models wear creations from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Models wear creations from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection presented in Paris, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday commuted the death sentence of a 75-year-old inmate who was set to be executed this week even though he was not in the building when the victim was killed during a 1991 robbery.

Ivey reduced Charles “Sonny” Burton’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, marking just the second time the Republican governor has granted clemency to a death row inmate since taking office in 2017.

Burton was sentenced to death for the shooting death of a customer, Doug Battle, during the robbery of an AutoZone auto parts store in Talladega. Though he had left the store before another man, Derrick DeBruce, killed Battle, Burton was convicted as an accomplice, with prosecutors portraying Burton as a leader of the robbery.

Both DeBruce and Burton were convicted of capital murder, but DeBruce’s sentence was overturned on appeal. DeBruce was resentenced to life in prison and died in prison.

Ivey, who has presided over 25 executions, said she firmly believes in the death penalty as "just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders," but said it also must be administered fairly and proportionately. The Republican governor said she “cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances.”

“I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not,” Ivey said in a statement. “To be clear, Mr. Burton will not be eligible for parole and will rightfully spend the remainder of his life behind bars for his role in the robbery that led to the murder of Doug Battle. He will now receive the same punishment as the triggerman."

Burton was scheduled to be executed Thursday night by nitrogen gas, a new execution method the state began using in 2024.

Burton’s supporters and family members had urged Ivey to consider clemency for the inmate, who is sometimes confined to a wheelchair. Multiple jurors from Burton’s 1992 trial were among those urging his life be spared. Battle’s daughter sent a letter to Ivey urging clemency, asking “how does it legally make sense” to execute Burton.

“I’m just so happy, so happy. It’s just tears of joy,” Burton’s daughter, Lois Harris, said through sobs during a telephone interview.

Alice Marie Johnson, whom President Donald Trump had tapped last year as his “pardon czar” after commuting her sentence for federal drug and money laundering charges, praised Ivey. She said the governor “showed what courageous and common sense leadership looks like.”

“By commuting the death sentence of Charles “Sonny” Burton, she ensured that justice — not technicalities — guides the most serious decision a state can make,” Johnson wrote on social media.

But Attorney General Steve Marshall slammed the move, saying, “There has never been any doubt that Sonny Burton has Douglas Battle’s blood on his hands.”

Burton organized the armed robbery and “held a gun to the store manager’s head” before dividing up the proceeds, Marshall said in a statement.

Burton received the news at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore as the state was making preparations for his execution on Thursday. In a statement issued through his attorneys, Burton thanked the governor. “Just saying thank you doesn’t seem like much. But it’s what I can give her,” Burton said.

Matt Schulz, an assistant federal defender who represented Burton said clemency powers were "created for situations exactly like these: where a disproportionately unjust result has slipped through the cracks.”

Burton told The Associated Press last month that no one was supposed to be injured in the robbery and that he didn't know until later that DeBruce had shot anyone.

“I didn’t know anything about nobody getting hurt until we were on the way back. No, nobody supposed to get hurt,” Burton said in a telephone interview from Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility

Burton said he wants to apologize to Battle’s family. “I’m so sorry. If I had the power to bring him back, I would," Burton said.

People gather outside the Alabama Governor's Mansion in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 16, 2026, to urge Gov. Kay Ivey to grant clemency to Sonny Burton, who is scheduled to be executed on March 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)