Drew Henry showed his first collection as artistic director of Courrèges at Paris Fashion Week in late September, presenting the house’s Spring/Summer 2027 season. It is the first time the South African designer, who is 38, has led a fashion house. The show was watched closely in Paris as a statement of where he means to take a label with a very particular history.
The collection looked back to the house’s founding years. According to ELLE Brasil, the palette returned to the bright colours of the 1960s: reds, limes, yellows and blues. The Impression described a base of cream, white, navy and black that opened out into cobalt, red, orange, yellow, lime, sky blue and pastel shades. Henry kept the A-line cut on which the house built its name, and carried it into menswear, but he loosened the silhouettes so that the clothes sit further from the body.
The pieces included textured Bermuda shorts, leather jackets, relaxed trousers and midi skirts. Corset-like side ties and cut-out microshorts, details from the time of his predecessor Nicolas Di Felice, were still there. ELLE Brasil noted that they carried over into his first show.
The staging used chairs from different decades and settings, and the show notes framed the collection around motion, happiness, play and the freedom to wear what one loves. One review was measured. The Impression gave the show 8.3 and called it promising, though closer to an opening proposition than a fully resolved new direction.
A career in other people’s studios
Henry was born in Mpumalanga, according to V Magazine, and began his career in Johannesburg. He then moved to London for an MA in fashion at Central Saint Martins, graduating in 2014.
His working life since then reads like a tour of some of the most respected design rooms in fashion. He worked at Céline under Phoebe Philo, and then at JW Anderson, where V Magazine says he was design director for ready-to-wear. He later rejoined Philo for the launch of her own label. Most recently he was senior design director at Burberry under Daniel Lee.
These are jobs of a particular kind. A design director sits close to the creative lead and turns a vision into a full collection, with the fabrics, fittings and decisions that involves. The role rarely carries the name on the door. Courrèges, Numéro notes, is the first house Henry has led.
Inheriting a house
Courrèges announced his appointment on 30 March 2026. He replaced Nicolas Di Felice, who left after five years. The house is controlled by Artémis, the holding company of the Pinault family.
François-Henri Pinault of Artémis said, in remarks reported by La Libre in French, that Henry has real talent and a confident creative vision. Henry, in the house’s release as La Libre printed it, said that he has always been committed to designing pieces that are modern, functional and straightforward. V Magazine renders his own description of clothes in similar terms: modern, useful and direct. The English wording here is a translation from the French.
About six months separated the announcement from the runway, a short interval in which to design a first collection for a house that had just changed hands creatively. The September show was therefore the first public test of the handover from Di Felice, and the audience was judging both the designer and the choice of designer.
The brief is not a simple one. Courrèges was founded in Paris in 1961 by André Courrèges, and the house remains tied to the optimistic, space-age look of that decade, with its clean lines, strong colour and A-line shapes. A new director has to respect that language without repeating it. By returning to the founding palette and loosening the cut, Henry has chosen to answer the archive directly rather than step around it.
Reading the debut
A first show tells an audience what a designer values before it tells them what the designer can do over time. In this case, the signals are consistent with his own description of his work. Colour is plentiful, but the clothes are relaxed and wearable: jackets, trousers, skirts and shorts, rather than sculptural occasion pieces. The decision to take the A-line into menswear widens the house’s reach beyond its womenswear identity.
The more cautious reviews are worth taking seriously. A collection that sets out its themes clearly, and leaves room to develop them, is a sensible start for someone stepping into a house with a loyal following and a long memory. The question for the next seasons is whether the freedom and play named in the show notes can become a recognisable Courrèges of the 2020s, and not only a tribute to the 1960s.
What to watch
Henry now has the first thing his earlier jobs did not give him: a name on the door and a house of his own to direct. He arrives from some of the best-regarded studios in fashion, and he comes to a house known for bold colour and clean geometry. How those two backgrounds meet will be the story of his next collections.
For readers following Paris fashion from the Gulf, this is a debut worth tracking through the coming seasons. Each following show will say more about whether this first proposal becomes a settled direction for the house.
Sources: ELLE Brasil, The Impression, Numéro, V Magazine, La Libre