How Willy Chavarria turned his Paris runway show into a protest against migrant detention

Time of India

8 hours ago

Source: X/@Fashionography
Art has always found ways to quietly yet assertively challenge authority and express dissent. From Picasso's
Guernica
confronting the horrors of war, to Oskar Rabin and the Bulldozer Exhibition defying Soviet censorship, creative expression has long served as a powerful response to injustice.
On Friday, that spirit of protest lived on — not in a gallery or street mural, but on the red-carpeted runway of the Spring/Summer 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week.
Willy Chavarria, the Mexican-American designer known for infusing activism into fashion, opened his show with a moment that was less about spectacle and more about reckoning.
As reported by
Vogue
, 35 men walked solemnly down the runway in white T-shirts and shorts designed in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), then knelt with heads bowed — a deliberate reference to the posture forced upon inmates at El Salvador's mega-prison and migrants held in U.S.
detention.
The runway's silence was deafening. Each model — still, kneeling, expressionless — became a living sculpture of the voiceless. The garments, stark in their simplicity, held more than fabric; they carried a message. Inside the label of each T-shirt read a striking line:
'THE ACLU DARES TO CREATE A MORE PERFECT UNION – BEYOND ONE PERSON, PARTY, OR SIDE.'
This wasn't just fashion — it was a public reckoning. Chavarria, whose past collections have explored themes of masculinity, immigration, and identity, used this show to directly comment on the systemic criminalization of migrants.
The opening tableau drew direct parallels to the Salvadoran mega-prisons, where thousands are incarcerated under mass arrests with little due process.
Source: Getty Images
Speaking to
Vogue
, Chavarria tied the performance to real-time horrors: 'Today and as of yesterday, ICE is attacking the town of Huron. There are tanks rolling through the streets, and there are armed militia surrounding homes. So it's a state of horror,' he said.
He added that the opening scene was intended 'to contrast against the beauty of the people that are actually being kidnapped and shipped away, broken away from their families. The chaos that we're seeing right now.'
Source: X
Even the show's invitation carried the weight of resistance. Guests received a replica of a legal summons, similar in design to the documents many migrants receive from U.S. immigration authorities. But Chavarria's version had a quiet defiance etched into it: the top read 'NOTICE OF RIGHT TO EXIST' — a radical, humanizing declaration in a world where migration is too often treated as a crime.
The invitation also featured a mock Social Security card, replacing government-issued numbers with the attendee's seat assignment.
Willy Chavarria has long been known for blurring the line between politics and fashion, but this time, the message was not embedded subtly in form or tailoring — it was stark, spoken aloud, unmissable. In a time when spectacle often overshadows sincerity, he used the runway to restore purpose.