Marie Adam-Leenaerdt

Marie Adam-Leenaerdt

MARIE ADAM-LEENAERDT presents her closely watched Belgian label, now heading into one of the Paris schedule’s most consistently inventive runway slots. A 2020 graduate of La Cambre in Brussels, Adam-Leenaerdt worked briefly at Balenciaga and Givenchy — under Demna Gvasalia, among others — before launching her eponymous label in 2023 at just 27, debuting with a deliberately unglamorous show staged in a conference room at a Crowne Plaza hotel near République, with stacked chairs forming the catwalk.

Adam-Leenaerdt designs by hand and in Photoshop rather than sketching, transforming everyday objects and situations — tablecloths, airport terminals, furniture showrooms — into the starting point for each collection. Her signature sloping shoulder shapes and multifunctional garments, including reversible coats, dresses with back zips that change silhouette, and knitwear with swappable collars, reflect her stated obsession with functionality and frugality: pieces built to be worn many ways rather than discarded after one season. An LVMH Prize finalist, she has staged shows everywhere from a commuter brasserie by Gare du Nord to a furniture gallery, treating each venue as an extension of the collection’s conceptual premise rather than mere backdrop.

For S/S 2027, MARIE ADAM-LEENAERDT continues her practice of finding surrealist possibility in the utterly mundane — a designer, per her own account, who now shows up to her own runway in Birkenstocks rather than the heels she designs for everyone else.

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