“Don’t be afraid to lay out ambitions  and assets bare.”

“I felt that I should tackle something I hadn’t done before, which is sensuality,” said Paris-based designer Ashi, who only goes by his last name.

“Mistress of her own destiny” with aspirations to be a bourgeois is how he described the woman he imagined this spring. Each of the 20-odd sketches had classically French first names. These were a nod to notorious brothel keeper Madame Claude, whose sophisticated “girls” allegedly went on to become princesses, actresses or society wives.

But the woman in Ashi’s mind is not a saucy minx. She’s one of the hieratic characters from the works of polymath image-maker and perfumer Serge Lutens, whose work featured prominently on a board backstage.

She’s witty, too, if sequined decals of cigarettes placed on the leg like garters — and dogs matching the looks (in reality sculpted feather accessories) — were anything to go by.

Ashi spun a fantasy of upward social mobility, balancing overt sensuality in the materials — velvet, barely-there Chantilly lace, duchesse satin — with cocooning shapes that telegraphed a “look but don’t touch” impression.

Opening with corseted looks, their structure made all the more salient by whisper-thin lace, the show progressed to more covered sensuality. One highlight was a slinky velvet gown that espoused the body before arching up into a gravity-defying train.

By the finale, the collection echoed the trappings of a well-to-do French home, translating curio items such as Coromandel screens and marquetry furniture into intricately embroidered mother-of-pearl incrustations on corsets.

Ashi Studio Spring 2026 Couture