A quieter men’s season allowed fashion to ease into 2026, with a handful of standouts shining through an otherwise pared-back schedule. At Pitti Uomo 109, Hed Mayner took the coveted guest designer slot with an intriguing show that revelled in ‘wrongness’, then two hours north in Milan, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada transformed Fondazione Prada into the ruins of an Italian palazzo to backdrop a collection that grappled with the past. Paris, which now makes up the bulk of the menswear schedule, had a renewed sense of energy, seeing Jonathan Anderson stage an expressive sophomore menswear collection for Dior, and Pharrell Williams debut an unusual architectural project with a Tokyo-based vacation rental company Not a Hotel.
Still, a number of collections may have slipped under the radar – particularly from brands that chose to unveil their new collections off the official calendar, or via lookbook rather than a show. Here, we highlight the best collections you might have missed from the A/W 2026 menswear season.
JW Anderson
What links pop queen Kylie Minogue, fashion editor Tim Blanks, screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes (Challengers, Queer) and creative director Mark Kalman? They are all, apparently, friends of Jonathan Anderson. It's no secret that the Irish designer has been incredibly busy over the past year with his landmark appointment as Dior’s new creative director – he is the first to oversee menswear, womenswear and haute couture – so runways at his eponymous brand have paused for now. Instead, Anderson has cleverly leaned into his rich visual world through imagery, tapping up a ‘close-knit circle of friends, long-time collaborators, and acquaintances‘ to star in playful lookbooks.
The latest of these was released last week, its series of impulsive portraits by Heikki Kaski comprising perfect internet fodder, seeing the unlikely crew of creatives pose in Anderson’s A/W 2026 designs, laughing and climbing out of baskets. The collection itself is typically witty and idiosyncratic – from a tote bag reading ‘Porn’ to motifs of cars and botanics – with several pieces riffing on previous greatest hits. Or, in the brand’s words, ‘the deranged, twisted classics JW Anderson stands for’.
Wales Bonner
Grace Wales Bonner has long favoured a beautiful shoot over a runway, though she did make an exception last season, staging a special Paris presentation to mark ten years of her brand. Titled ‘Jewel’, it explored the figure of the Black dandy through an eclectic, emotionally charged wardrobe rooted in British sartorial traditions – essentially, the language that has defined a decade of her celebrated work.
Released this week, a new series of serene visuals shot by Malick Bodian sees her return to an image-first format. Set within sun-strewn modernist buildings, the collection takes cues from the ‘elemental simplicity’ of modernist architect Balkrishna Doshi. Always balancing the ‘practical and the sensual’, the collection also channels the meditative rhythms of ragas (spiritually charged Indian compositions designed to evoke particular moods and moments of day), specifically those written for the morning. Alongside fresh iterations of her ongoing Adidas collaboration, the clothes this season move fluidly between cultural touchpoints – Bengal-stripe shirting and fine merino knits made with John Smedley, brooches of panga panga wood crafted in Botswana by Beullah Serema and Peter Mabeo, and indigo linen tuxedos from Savile Row.
Using modernist design as a framework to share ‘optimism across cultures’, the collection is ultimately one of ease – something Wales Bonner may very well be seeking in the lead-up to her anticipated debut as Hermès’ new men’s creative director, which the designer has over a year to prepare for (indeed, as the morning raga reminds its listener, there’s no need to rush).
Our Legacy
Leaning into the brand’s less-is-more Scandinavian genre of cool, Our Legacy’s latest collection is dryly titled ‘Just Clothes’. The brand has long avoided the circus of fashion week and, as it does every season, has elected to unveil the new offering through a series of sharp, studio-shot images. Subtly reworking the staples that have made Our Legacy a global cult, the design team started by asking themselves, ‘What makes a pure garment?’ Removing the fizz of trends, their answer is meticulously refined uniform that can be layered and reconfigured in manifold ways: clean-cut outerwear, insulating bomber jackets, elevated denim, workwear-inflected shirting, timeless knits and leather goods embellished with the brand’s ubiquitous silver hardware. In a statement released alongside the visuals, Our Legacy describes it as ‘a necessary retreat from fashion’s ever-amplifying noise’.
Av Vattev
The fluid dress codes of British rock stars – from Mick Jagger’s romantic pirate shirts to Roxy Music’s eclectic tailoring – have fed the moodboards of Italian-born designer Antonio Vattev since he founded his namesake brand in 2018. Since then, he has not only built a cult following but dressed a new generation of pop icons, including creating tour looks for Charli XCX and Troye Sivan in 2024. This season, though, he looked from music to dance, and the figure of Soviet-born ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who defected to the West in 1961. Vattev drew on the dancer’s ‘liberation, sensuality, and understated chic’ both on and off the stage (his rehearsal wear inspired wrapped polos and beanie hats with the lace-up closure inspired by his viral ‘Viper’ cardigan). New for this season was a greater focus on craft: a newly developed ‘python’ textile was crafted from leather petals, each one hand-applied in a process taking hours of work. The starting point for the unique textile was an appearance by Nureyev on The Dick Cavett Show, wearing a python-pattened outfit.
Kartik Research
Marking his sophomore show on the Paris Fashion Week calendar, New York–based designer Kartik Kumra presented his latest collection for Kartik Research in a stately Paris hôtel particulier. Twisting a couturier’s salon-style display through a South Asian lens, seats were wrapped in Kantha fabric and rooms lined with handmade Jaipur rugs, while Kartik’s signature neroli scent filled the space. The collection looked to the refined dress codes of Ahmedabad in the 1970s, a city known as a site of artistic gathering in India. Handwoven textiles – some ornately embroidered, others expressively patchworked – formed silhouettes that merged traditional dress with Western tailoring. Rather than elaborate on the dreamlike narratives of the clothes themselves, the designer used the show notes to address the realities of trade in India at the present moment.
‘The US administration’s decision to impose a 50 per cent tariff on India a few months ago has rippled through the ecosystem in ways that are both abstract and brutally specific,’ he said. ‘We have the relative privilege of being a brand. We can follow the money, shift focus, and try to sell more in Asia to cushion a slowdown in the US. But these are fabric vendors, embroiderers, loom artists, dyers. Their access is narrow, their margins thinner […] Sitting with this reality has crystallised something for me. We need to build something back home with its own gravity. Something not permanently tethered to Western demand cycles, policy swings, or distant administrations. Something that pulls people in rather than constantly reaching out.’
For the runway highlights of men's fashion month A/W 2026, see our reports from Paris, Milan and Pitti Uomo.