Hailey Bieber Fronted Alaïa’s Summer ’26 Campaign Without Pants
Our take
There is something quietly commanding about a woman who can remove half her wardrobe and still hold the frame entirely. Hailey Bieber did exactly that for Alaïa's Summer 2026 campaign, posing without pants in a collection that has always understood the architecture of the body better than most. The images feel less like a campaign and more like a state of being — composed, unhurried, utterly sure of itself. It is the kind of visual language that does not ask for your approval. It simply assumes you understand.
This was also Pieter Mulier's final creative chapter with the maison, and knowing that changes the way you read every frame. There is a finality here that elevates the work beyond seasonal imagery. It carries the weight of someone who understood what Alaïa could be and chose to leave it in a moment of clarity rather than drag it through compromise. If you followed Mulier's trajectory through Hailey Bieber Takes On Alaïa Minimalism for Summer, you already sensed this was a creative partnership operating on a frequency most fashion houses rarely reach — one where restraint is the statement and the silhouette does all the speaking. That editorial instinct has now culminated in something that feels like both a closing chapter and a definitive signature.
What makes this campaign matter, beyond its visual elegance, is what it signals about the shifting nature of influence. Hailey Bieber is no longer simply a face. She is a cultural position — someone who moves between the Met Gala in custom gold breastplates, the cover of Time's Most Influential Companies issue, and an Alaïa campaign with the same quiet fluency. She does not translate herself for each context. She simply exists in a lane so defined that every door she opens feels inevitable rather than strategic. That is not celebrity. That is presence. And in fashion, presence is the rarest currency.
For the broader conversation around fashion campaigns and who gets to embody luxury in 2026 and beyond, this moment raises a question worth sitting with. As creative directors come and go, as houses search for voices that can carry legacy without mimicking it, the real marker of success may no longer be the collection itself but the feeling it leaves behind. Mulier's final act with Alaïa does not scream legacy. It whispers it. And perhaps that whisper is exactly what fashion needs more of — a reminder that confidence does not require volume, and that the most enduring images are the ones that let you project yourself into them without instruction.
The question now is not what Alaïa does next. It is whether anyone stepping into that creative role will understand that the standard was never about the clothes. It was about the silence around them.
Just when you thought Hailey Bieber had already done it all, she proves over and over why she’s just that girl. Days after walking the 2026 Met Gala red carpet in a custom gold and royal blue breastplate design and gracing the cover of Time Magazine’s Most Influential Companies issue, the Rhode founder was selected to close out a significant chapter with Alaïa. After announcing his exit from the Maison back in January, creative director Pieter Mulier’s final contribution was officially revealed on May 7, which was fronted by Bieber.
For their Summer/Fall ’26 Archetypes campaign captured by Tyrone Lebon in February, Bieber posed in his Grace Mews London gallery wearing a total of eight looks. In five of them, she appeared without any bottoms — one even consisted of a pair of Alaïa’s viral mesh ballet flats and nothing else. The shoot, which took place in a minimal, near-monochrome space, was meant to highlight Alaïa’s the long-lasting relationship between design and the label’s house codes, with Bieber’s presence being the main event. And oh, how it was.
The brand commented on Bieber in a press release, “Without artifice, her magnetism alone evokes the Alaïa woman — a combination of sensuality and empowered beauty.” Who better than the one who has captured the world’s attention with nothing but her skincare routine to star in a campaign all about empowered beauty? Exactly.
In one of the images, Bieber posed, boldly, in a suede blue trench coat with a thigh high slit and nothing underneath — another intentional creative choice by the brand. “Here Hailey Bieber embodies the timeless design philosophy of the Maison and the power found in simplicity,” the release continued. In another shot, Bieber sits on a glass chair wearing a floral printed leotard and a pair of black patent thong heeled sandals.
Mulier even shared one of the images to his own personal Instagram grid with the caption, “LAST ONE,” in reference to his departure. The image that he chose was one picturing Bieber wearing a black leotard, no pants, and a pair of fringed thigh socks in pink (the originals debuted on his Spring 2026 runway in October in other color ways).
Although bittersweet, they couldn’t have picked a better muse to help Mulier end his remarkable five year run at the helm of the Parisian label.
After his final runway show back in March, this campaign felt like one more surprise Mulier goodbye.
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