“One of my early trips to Paris was in 2008, the first time I had shown my collection there. It was September Fashion Week, when Paris is at its most magical. The weather was 70 degrees during the day, and I remember keeping the windows open in my hotel room at Le Meurice all night long. I was traveling with my sales director, Ewa—back then we did everything [together], and I loved to dress her up in the collection’s tulles. One day I needed flowers for the showroom, but the florists were too expensive, so we went to a flower market in the 8th arrondissement. We had to get there early for the good stuff. It was wet and dewy when we arrived, and there were only three vendors next to each other. The women running them, who seemed as though they’d been there forever, were yelling passionately at us in French about which flowers to pick. I missed being in a place where I understood what people were saying, but then I started paying attention to everything else. When you don’t speak the language, you become aware of all your other senses, and I found that I tuned out [what was being said] and started focusing on what was in sight instead. Flowers are very inspiring to my collections; I’ve always used them as a kind of textile, so for me it became almost like shopping for fabric. I bought hydrangeas the size of my head, and peonies and tulips because they were the freshest. Paris can be a very gray city, with a lot of stone and old buildings, but the flower [markets] there feel very alive: like a countryside in the middle of the city. Ever since, visiting them has become something I do every time I return; it makes me feel like I belong there. I even have a place in Paris now, but I make the short walk to the same little corner market to fill my whole apartment with flowers.”
Christian Siriano is a CFDA fashion designer and the founder of the recently launched skincare line Runway. His Spring-Summer 2027 collection will show during New York Fashion Week in September. This article appeared in the September/October 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.