Toulouse Fashion Week in France offers a distinctive vision of fashion

It's not uncommon to see fashion weeks spring up in cities beyond Milan or Paris. However, few are as established or as distinctive as Toulouse Fashion Week (TFW). Organized by the Institut des arts et de la mode association, since 2019, it brings together several hundred visitors and a dozen designers from all over the world in emblematic places of the Pink City, celebrating fashion and live entertainment.

The 2025 edition will take place on November 28 and 29 under the theme “Heritage,” a nod to the stylistic diversity of countries around the world. Held at the highly anticipated Interférence – Balma venue, Toulouse Fashion Week seems to have reached a new milestone, according to its president, Fabrice Sauriat. “It's a culmination,” he explains. “I didn't realize it, but people couldn't believe it!” The venue offers 1,000 square meters and a 45-meter U-shaped walkway, as well as a discount on rent. The room, with capacity for between 400 and 600 people, is expected to sell out: “Last year we received 500 people every night. This year we should reach 600,” says Fabrice Sauriat.

Participate for pleasure

To organize the event, the Institute of Arts and Fashion relies on the work of 300 volunteers, from models, photographers and makeup artists to hairdressers and communication specialists. Toulouse Fashion Week is also supported by international fashion weeks (Poland, Berlin, French Guiana, Brazil and Central Africa). This communications-focused support has driven designers from all continents to reach out to TFW. “Designers now contact us,” says Fabrice Sauriat. “But they participate for pleasure, not for economic benefit.” The president estimates that around 20% of the designers scheduled to participate do so not to sell, but to present an artistic expression of their work.

This is where the distinctive character of the event really shows. The shows are sometimes accompanied by dance, music and decoration, immersing the public in the universe of each designer. The result is a live show and an approach to fashion different from that of the catwalks of the capitals, “where only heads move”, in the words of Fabrice Sauriat. Attracted by this multidisciplinary dimension, TFW's audience is diverse. The curious can become buyers for one night, after applauding a suit they like, with affordable prices.

Constant and organic growth

In fact, it is the public that almost entirely finances the artistic meeting, paying for tickets that cost between ten and fifty euros. The designers, for their part, pay modest fees (from one hundred euros), since many of them are amateurs forced to work at the same time. The goal of Toulouse Fashion Week is to show creatives who “don't have the means to make a name for themselves” and offer them some visibility. “Three quarters of the designers will sell their collections in a month,” says the president of the association.

What began as a dance and fashion gala for brands Fabos and Swarovski in 2016 became Toulouse Fashion Week in 2019. One hundred and fifty people reserved seats for its first edition, organized at the Cépière racecourse with the support of Toulouse City Hall. Titled “Nuit d'Orient”, it brought together designers from Toulouse, Montpellier and Perpignan, as well as Morocco, Uganda, Algeria and Tunisia, for an evening of fashion and artistic performances. Edition after edition, the association and its event have grown. Today, Fabrice Sauriat compares TFW to the Victoria's Secret show, where models and the audience interact in a cabaret atmosphere.

TFW grows

Among the creative figures of Toulouse Fashion Week is Tonye Aka, patron of this 2025 edition and master craftsman. A TFW participant since 2020, the designer is behind the Tonye's Fashion brand and Tonye's Fashion Academy, a fashion training center based in Toulouse. The event also shed light on Charlotte Bardou and her recycled bag brand Bi Ethic, as well as Jenia Gala and her eponymous brand, which has set up two sewing workshops in Toulouse.

In just a few years, Toulouse Fashion Week has earned a local reputation that is now expanding. It has even caught the attention of Serge Carreira, director of emerging brands at the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. But the Institut des arts et de la mode now wants to look beyond TFW and is working on new projects combining international fashion and performing arts, some of which could be launched as early as 2026.