LONDON  –  This week, a pack has been circling. It began at the Schiaparelli haute couture show in Paris on Thursday, when Demi Moore arrived in a cheetah print catsuit and matching coat designed by the house’s creative director Daniel Roseberry. Then at the Chanel show, a scene-stealing look from VIP guest Dua Lipa as she seemingly channeled Fran Fine in a brash, tailored skirt suit and 2.55 flap bag. Every inch of the pop star was covered in a mesmeric yellow, black and red swirl that looked like animal print on acid. By Wednesday, it was clear the memo had spread from the city of lights all the way to New York when Kendall Jenner promptly stepped out in a beaded tiger stripe midi dress. Both outfits were from Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2026 collection, presented in December last year.  Since his debut last October, Mattieu Blazy is steadily making a name for himself, gently reinventing what once felt static — tweed, twin sets and pearls, dress coats — into clothes that are new, exciting and fluid. Lipa and Jenner’s looks are far from your typical mob-wife costumes. There is no coiffed hair, no stacks of gold jewelry, no Soprano’s styling. Instead Blazy’s take is more playful — brighter, brasher and, in the case of Jenner’s tiger dress, in textiles that look like toy pieces. While Moore kept her front row look more conservative, Schiaparelli has long been experimenting with the boundaries of animal-inspired fashion (remember Kylie Jenner’s lifesize lionhead?) This season, Roseberry continued his mission with a haute couture collection that featured replica reptilian textures, protruding tusk breasts, scorpion bustiers and a translucent two-piece skirt suit rendered in hyperreal blowfish scales. According to trend analyst @databutmakeitfashion, standard leopard print is already on the rise. Some are calling it the Boom Boom era of fashion — where the ‘80s doctrine of fur, clashing prints and a greedy, more-is-more approach to dressing feels like a fun cosplay opportunity during an otherwise bleak economic, political and social reality.

But maybe this time around, designers understand that to stop us doomscrolling the animal prints of 2026 need to be louder and more outrageous than ever. A new species entirely.