A historic heat wave catches Europe's fashion industry unprepared

PARIS (AP) — As a historic heat wave gripped Paris this week, fashion houses tried to keep their guests cool with ice packs, mist machines and iced Evian on silver platters.

It wasn’t enough: some venues still sweltered, water ran short and air conditioning was absent or inadequate.

Then they sent their models down the runway in leather, neoprene and wool.

That was the contradiction at Paris Fashion Week Men’s, where a heat wave turned spring-summer fashion into a test of whether luxury can dress — or act — for the warming world it claims to address.

“I honestly thought I was going to pass out,” said Ben Freeman, a London-based fashion critic from Australia.

Some in the front row said Paris may have to consider moving fashion week away from the height of summer if climate change keeps bringing more frequent and intense heat waves.

“I don’t know how the models did it this week in some of the leather and knit coats,” said fashion student Thomas Levy, 24, outside one show.

“The heat rarely seems to make it into the clothes. It shows up in the sets like at waterfalls and mist machines and ice packs.”

Across the week, designers treated heat as a hospitality problem, a staging problem and a scheduling problem — rarely as a design problem.

Guests got ice packs, cold towels and water. Sets got waves, fog and mist. Schedules moved earlier, and punctuality became a heat precaution.

Dior moved its show Wednesday from 2:30 p.m. to 9 a.m., but the heat pressed in. Water was limited, there was no air conditioning, and some guests appeared unwell.

Jonathan Anderson’s most elegant answer was sheer silk-chiffon tailoring — but elsewhere came heavy knits, made less for Paris in June than for a global calendar out of sync with the weather.

“The calendar does not make any sense,” Anderson told reporters. He cited fractured delivery cycles and a changing business, suggesting the fashion calendar no longer lines up with actual weather or with how luxury clothes are sold.

These are spring-summer shows, but not simply summer clothes.

Luxury collections are made for global markets, staggered deliveries and customers who pass the hottest months in refrigerated air.

For many, a wool coat in June is not a seasonal contradiction; it’s a desired purchase.

At Saint Laurent, models walked through clouds of vapor from a Fujiko Nakaya fog installation inside the Bourse de Commerce, turning heat into atmosphere rather than escape.

Anthony Vaccarello stripped his tailoring to unlined jackets and soft, pale silhouettes — light, he told reporters, for the heat — then ran the temperature back up with leather briefs, choker scarves, bare legs and transparent shoes clouded with perspiration.

The result was not a surrender to summer, but a Saint Laurent version of it: cooler construction, hotter attitude.

At Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams' models emerged from a giant artificial wave onto sand. Yet the wetsuits were neoprene, the coats cashmere and fur.

Issey Miyake’s IM Men offered one of the week’s clearer practical answers.

Its show, “In Praise of Bamboo Shadows,” handed out ice packs at the door, then sent out bamboo-thread fabrics woven with organic cotton, light nylon and shadowy prints.

The silhouettes moved away from the body, treating air as part of the design rather than something supplied only by the venue.

At Ami, Alexandre Mattiussi said the obvious from beside an industrial fan — “Paris is burning” — and dressed it like a Parisian living in it: loose shorts, washed trenches and “I Love Paris” T-shirts.

Rick Owens came closest to making heat the subject. He moved his Thursday show earlier because of the heat, then sent models through mist at the Palais de Tokyo in garments with fans whirring inside.

One prominent fashion critic called the show “a metaphor for climate catastrophe.”

Pascal Morand, head of France’s Haute Couture and Fashion Federation, said organizers were following the French government’s heat-wave plan.

“We are conscious of the challenges and very attentive to preserving the Fashion Week experience in this context of structural change,” he told The Associated Press.

Fashion was not the only Paris institution straining. As the Louvre shortened its hours during the heat wave, the museum said its historic building “remains vulnerable and is not sufficiently adapted to climate change.”

That change feeds a French argument over air conditioning, still distrusted by many in much of Europe — dismissed as wasteful or unecological.

Fashion week became a glamorous version of the problem facing France itself: how to keep public life, work and spectacle running in heat the country was not built for, without turning every room into an air-conditioned box.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government has leaned, like much of France, toward shade, insulation and trees instead.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, its cities built of stone and short on air conditioning.

“Paris Fashion Week is the canary in the mine,” Freeman said.

From sport to tourism to construction, industries built around fixed calendars and outdoor crowds are being forced to adapt to heat that comes earlier, lasts longer and climbs higher.

Paris Fashion Week — outdoor, fixed and watched by the world — became a visible test.

Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

Models wear creations as part of the Dior Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Models wear creations as part of the Issey Miyake Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Models wear creations as part of the Issey Miyake Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation as part of the Louis Vuitton men's Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Designer Pharrell Williams accepts applause afte the Louis Vuitton men's Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A father holds the hand of his daughter dressed as a fairy. A 24-year-old man in a pilot uniform stares proudly at the camera. A family embraces on a soccer field.

They are among the images posted by relatives within Venezuela and abroad desperately searching for their missing loved ones following two powerful, back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday evening.

Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said late Thursday that the death toll had risen to around 235, with at least 4,300 people injured. The number of casualties is expected to climb after the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes that caused widespread damage and were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century.

With communication patchy, social media and online registries have become a crucial tool for many Venezuelans seeking information and resources beyond sparse government statistics. Independent online registries documenting up to 40,000 people missing far surpass the official government account.

While some rushed to search beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings, others created digital flyers on WhatsApp, Facebook and X with their relatives’ details.

Among them was Vanesa Marcano, 31, who posted photos from Madrid of her uncle and aunt, who live in La Guaira state, north of the capital Caracas, which suffered some of the heaviest damage and casualties.

Marcano posted the images in the hopes that they were only unreachable due to damaged communication lines. Her uncle’s daughter and his 7-year-old grandson were visiting from the United States and also are missing.

“It’s a feeling of impotence and uncertainty,” Marcano said by phone. “I know you must stay calm and focus on the actions you can take. But it’s very easy to fall into despair.”

Jhoyser Concalves, a Venezuelan from the northern coastal city of Catia La Mar, was talking to his partner and her daughter just minutes before the shaking. It was the last he heard from them.

When the earthquake stopped, Concalves ran out of his house to their apartment building, where they lived on the sixth floor. There was only debris and people desperately trying to rescue neighbors from the rubble.

Concalves posted a flyer reading “MISSING” on X and Facebook in a desperate attempt to find them.

“They are pulling people out of the building alive. So I still have hope that they are in there alive,” he said.

The search was complicated by the country's restrictions on social media and messaging platforms.

On Thursday, the U.N. human rights mission in Venezuela issued a statement calling on the government to lift local restrictions on social media and saying timely access to reliable information can save lives.

Sites including X and messaging app Signal were blocked in August 2024 by then-President Nicolás Maduro in an attempt to suppress communication among those who rejected his claim of victory in the presidential election. Former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez became the acting president in January after the U.S. captured and removed Maduro from power.

Shortly after the U.N.’s request Thursday, Venezuelans in the country were able to access X.

Outside the country, such sites have become even more important for many of the 8 million people who have migrated from Venezuela in recent years and were unable to check on their loved ones.

Elibel Tovar Lanas, 38, was planning to travel Saturday from Chile, where he has lived for 23 years, for the first visit in a decade with his 70-year-old father, who lives in Brazil but was in La Guaira for business. Lanas has not heard from his dad, Félix Ramón Tovar Hernández.

“I feel powerless because I don’t know how this is affecting him: the shock, the decisions he’s having to make, whether he is physically okay, or even whether he is still alive,” said Lanas, who registered his father on the website for the missing.

“Being in Chile makes it very difficult to get information, and everything we see feels confusing,” Lanas said via WhatsApp.

In Madrid, Marcano said she was trying to stay calm for the sake of her 1-year-old daughter.

“You keep hoping someone will organize a fundraiser or some kind of initiative where you can help,” Marcano said. “But the truth is, from far away, there is very little you can do.”

Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Residents search through the rubble of a building that collapsed in an earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

A man looks at covered bodies in front of a damaged building the day after earthquakes and several aftershocks struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

Neighbors carry a man rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building the day after earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

Damaged buildings stand in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, a day after an earthquake and several aftershocks struck the city, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Jonathan Lanza)

Rescue workers search through the rubble of a collapsed building after earthquake in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)