The best shows of New York Fashion Week A/W 2026

Marking the opening act of fashion month, which will make subsequent layovers in London, Milan and Paris over the coming days – we broke down all the standout moments to look out for here – New York Fashion Week took place in the American city this week. Editors braced the winter chill for a reshuffled schedule, which saw a handful of the city’s defining names – including Coach, Michael Kors, Tory Burch and Proenza Schouler – showing across the first two days.

The latter, which opened proceedings on Thursday, marked perhaps the week’s most anticipated moment: the debut of Diotima designer Rachel Scott as creative director of the New York-based label. She showed an astute collection which played off founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s signature style – an intellectual, art-inflected wardrobe for the polished urbanite – while embracing imperfection. ‘It was really important for me to respect the legacy of Proenza Schouler, and that’s this really strong love of the New York woman,’ she said. ‘But I wanted to find a way to get closer to her, to have more complexity and texture – she can be erotic, she can be angry. Sometimes she’s not quite so perfect.’

This front-loaded approach did not mean that there was not plenty elsewhere to draw attention: buzzy young labels LII and Ashyln both impressed, Nicholas Aburn presented his sophomore collection for Area, and shows from Calvin Klein, Eckhaus Latta and Khaite brought big-name buzz. Here, Wallpaper* picks the best shows and collections of the week, reported from New York by Wallpaper’s US Editor Anna Fixsen. Jack Moss

Diotima

New York Fashion week began with a Rachel Scott collection, and, fittingly, it ended with one too. Rather than work within the confines of existing signatures, as Scott did with her inaugural collection as creative director of Proenza Schouler, she was able to give way to something innate, or as she described it, ‘an ancestral pull,’ with her own label, Diotima on Sunday.

Scott, who was born in Jamaica, found a creative counterpart in the work of Cuban painter Wifredo Lam (1902-1982), whose surrealist work (now on view at MoMA) was inspired by Afro-Caribbean culture and mythology. Specifically, the designer looked to Lam’s depictions of the Femme Cheval, a formidable horse-woman central to Afro-Cuban spirituality. ‘A counter-image to colonial fantasy, she transforms the object of desire into a figure of spiritual and cultural power,’ Scott explained in her A/W 2026 show notes.

Scott worked directly with Lam’s estate to translate the artist’s motifs and visual language to garments. A painterly, A-line gown, for instance, was covered in delicate organza appliqué, colour-blocked in shades of brown, ochre and black to evoke Lam’s abstract shapes. Other looks took on a more equestrian theme, a nod to the Femme Cheval, as with riding-inspired jackets and dresses, and accessories that evoked whips. Shaggy coats with looped yarn fringe reminded of tousled manes.

For Scott, history and cultural memory are acts of resistance in and of themselves. But she used the collection as a platform in more ways than one: she worked with local organization Refugee Atelier, an organisation that empowers refugee women by teaching them artisanal textile skills. Also present in the front row was the First Lady of New York, Rama Duwaji, who made a rare Fashion Week appearance. ‘This collection takes shape in a political and cultural moment marked by exhaustion and division, where resilience, identity and memory become acts of resistance,’ Scott acknowledged. ‘It is about a woman who moves through it with radiance, force, and radical self- definition.’ Anna Fixsen

Khaite

Of all the US fashion brands that have sprung to life in the last decade, few have had allure, or commercial success, quite like Khaite. The venue for Khaite’s A/W 2026 collection seemed to mirror the label’s ambitions: the 55,000 sq ft drill hall inside the Park Avenue Armory. The audience, sitting in three rows on polished-brass benches, faced a towering LED screen that displayed a subliminal message: Why are you here? No matter how you interpreted these enigmatic words, creative director Catherine Holstein gave a show that proved why everyone dropped their Valentine’s Day plans to attend.

Silhouettes started severe, all broad-shouldered jackets and suiting paired with leather cigarette pants and high heels. That edge continued, via military-style frogging down the fronts of leather jackets, gowns and blouses. Softness was introduced as the show progressed – as with a series of luxurious wool draped dresses, luxe shearling coats and gossamer blouses, some embroidered with whimsical monkeys – and reached its apex at the show’s finale via a collection of lace-appliqué slip dresses, some of which featured delicate draped panniers at the hips.

Accessories, a category that’s helped propel Khaite to success, were another highlight. Gold brooches in the shape of monkeys – just like the embroidered blouses that appeared earlier – fastened blouses and clung to lapels, while delicate gold chains with crosses dangled like rosaries off of leather blazers and velvet jackets. There were quirkier accessories too, like surreal papillon-shaped bowties (one of several design moves that felt like a strong reference to Yves Saint Laurent), pink, flower-shaped boutonnieres; and high, detachable lace collars that tied in the back and trailed like a scarf. Anna Fixsen

LII

Zane Li, whose New York-based label LII is marrying minimalism with architectural construction and a vivid use of colour, proved today why he is one of the most exciting names to know in American fashion.

The designer’s A/W 2026 collection, presented in a classic cast-iron building Soho, ‘reveals as much as it conceals,’ according to show notes. The looks presented played with varying degrees of display and discretion via sportswear-inspired garments that hung just-so off the body. Brightly-hued funnelneck track jackets were paired with bubble hem skirts; elegant fur-trimmed shrugs revealed just a hint of skin; and a duo of swingy dresses featured v-neck backs in elegant origami-like folds.

Playful accessories brought everything together, as with primary-coloured ski gloves and custom Nike Air Force 1 sneakers, which had neoprene flaps attached to the back, creating a sense of dynamism as the models walked. ‘This year is about working into our identity and making the brand efficient,’ he told us in December. ‘Everything feels new.’ Anna Fixsen

Eckhaus Latta

Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta have been designing together for 15 years now, and – despite their veteran status – their clothing remains some of the coolest and most authentic around. In the days leading up to their Eckhaus Latta show, the duo teased a series of food images on Instagram – a citrus fruit being peeled, an egg about to be cracked, and, finally, a torch browning a baked Alaska, as if preparing for a grand dinner party. As such, the presentation, held within a series of rooms in a Tribeca loft Saturday afternoon, felt more like a gathering for friends, rather than your average fashion show.

The clothing on display embodied that familiar ease. Model Paloma Elsesser opened the show, donning a sleeveless striped turtleneck with a zip-up lambskin skirt. What followed were riffs on basics – oversize polo shirts, slip dresses and bomber jackets – with kinky twists. Unisex denim trousers featured chaps-style detailing, grommeted onto micro shorts beneath; menswear featured leather ‘cruising’ aprons; and gauzy dresses featured peekaboo slits at hip creases. Rather than citing specific inspirations in their show notes, Eckhaus Latta included Dada-esque snippets of phrases overheard throughout the week, proof that their continued success hinges on a simple exercise: tuning into what surrounds them. Anna Fixsen

Area

‘I long to be seen!’ an imagined woman exclaims in the show notes for Area’s A/W 2026 show. Indeed, the collection that creative director Nicholas Aburn presented Friday isn’t one for shrinking violets.

The presentation, held at a performance space just north of Hudson Yards, felt like an homage to the label’s namesake, the legendary 1980s nightclub, Area. Highlights included denim looks that featured sashes reminiscent of Japanese obi, exhibited on micro-minis and trousers; sequined skirt sets, featuring a Marilyn Minter-esque lip print; and slouchy-yet-chic interpretations of hoodies and rugby-striped shirts.

Glitz was another undercurrent, in keeping with Aburn’s past collections. Fringes of diamantés cascaded off of drop-waist dresses and skirts, and ruffles festooned ‘80s-inspired flounces, blouses and collars. While some of the looks felt unresolved, most will achieve what Aburn set out to do: to make you look. Anna Fixsen

Fforme

Like Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein Collection, Frances Howie is rounding out just one year since debuting as the creative director of the New York-based luxury womenswear brand Fforme. Her predecessor, Paul Helbers, told Wallpaper* that the double f’s in Fforme could be understood as two adjectives: foundational and fundamental. In Howie’s hands, though, you could swap those terms in for two new ones: functional and feminine.

Her A/W 2026 collection was, above all, a celebration of feminine power. Confident tailoring, like oversized coats paired with fur trapper hats, was juxtaposed with cinched waists and figure-accentuating panniers, as seen on one crushed-velvet hourglass-shaped gown. Meanwhile, heavy natural materials like shearling (shown in blonde and black) and leather were contrasted with gauzy knits and heavy satin. Most captivating was Howie’s use of jewellery. Sculptural bronze botanical motifs appeared everywhere, from a low-hanging necklace that resembled dried flowers to a delicate palm frond, fastened at the hip. Fforme, it seems, is in very fine shape. Anna Fixsen

Calvin Klein Collection

It’s been exactly a year since Veronica Leoni took the helm of Calvin Klein Collection. Back then, the designer promised to bring a bit of ‘sexitude’ back to the label, which sat dormant for six years after Raf Simons’ tenure abruptly ended in 2018. Leoni’s first two collections brought back Calvin Klein Collection’s signature minimalism, with a rigour and ease honed while at The Row, Jil Sander and Phoebe Philo-era Céline. Thursday, however, some that sexitude began to come through via an exploration of what the designer termed in the show notes, ‘hedonistic elegance’.

Like the show’s setting, The Shed, whose skin is made up of pillowy ethylene tetrafluoroethylene cushions, Leoni played with varying degrees of coverage and exposure, opacity and translucency, heft and lightness. The backs of a few women’s suit jackets and dresses were left almost entirely bare, save for a microscopic strap and ties that came together at the lumbar. A pair of leather trenchcoats were so thin that they resembled coloured parchment, while huge triangle-shaped shearling collars lay heavily across swinging coats.

Some of the sexiness was more overt, as with one model who donned a set of cream-coloured Calvin Klein longjohns, over which was tossed a matching double-layered trenchcoat. Arms and legs were wrapped in thin leather via knee-high sock boots and matching opera gloves, while sleeveless men’s and women’s suiting exposed bulging biceps.

The collection also aimed to hark back to Calvin Klein’s roots in the 1970s and early 1980s. This was seen in looks ranging from a balloon-sleeve merlot-coloured jacket, paired with matching slim-fit trousers; a denim-on-denim ensemble, draped in a long wool coat; and hair swooped back from the forehead. The biggest ‘80s reference of all? Brooke Shields, Calvin Klein’s most infamous model, was seated in the front row. Anna Fixsen

READ: Veronica Leoni channels ‘hedonistic elegance’ at Calvin Klein – with a touch of kink

Michael Kors

For his 45th anniversary collection, Michael Kors threw quite possibly the most glamorous party of them all: a night at the Metropolitan Opera. The audience sat on the periphery of the grand, modernist lobby, completed by Wallace K Harrison in 1966, and watched as models drifted down the opera house’s sweeping cantilevered stairway.

The A/W 2026 Michael Kors collection, according to the designer, was a celebration of New York and all of its glamour and resilience. Here, he focused on different interpretations of eveningwear. ‘Everyone in New York has their own way of looking at how they dress at night. For some people, it's a gown. For some people, it's a suit, and for other people, it's a man's shirt and grey trousers,’ Kors explained at a pre-show press conference.

That range was very present on the runway and embodied by a rock opera soundtrack that blended strains of Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Rihanna. Highlights included relaxed trousers that featured dramatic overskirts that trailed on the red-carpeted stairs; puff-ball shearling jackets in white and crimson; and tailored gowns, worn with opera-length leather gloves. Ostrich feathers were ever-present, bobbing on skirts, sleeves, hats, bags and shoes. Notable was Kors’s moratorium on spiked heels: ‘There's not a stiletto in sight,’ he said. ‘I can't stand going to parties and seeing women have to take their shoes off. It's awful.’ Indeed, over the course of the show, heels started as chunky blocks and got progressively lower until models walked in minimalist square-toed flats.

Kors saved the biggest birthday surprise for last: closing out the show was model Christy Turlington, dressed in a glittering gown overlaid with a sweeping, floor-length cape. Anna Fixsen

Ashlyn

Though Seoul-born designer Ashlynn Park is a veteran of the fashion industry (her impressive resume includes stints with Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander Wang and Raf Simons), she’s become one of the buzziest ‘emerging’ names in the business since launching her eponymous womenswear label in 2020. But Park’s still open to evolution, as she’s told Wallpaper*, ‘every season I’m building another chapter’. This latest chapter began Thursday with a poem that the designer distributed at her A/W 2026 presentation, a meditation on the craft and collaboration that underpin Ashlyn’s unique ‘sartorial vernacular.’

Part and parcel to Ashlyn’s visual language is structure, a skill honed during her years spent under Yamamoto as a pattern maker and manifested in her architectural blouses, coats, knits and gowns (not to mention the rough-hewn benches that the audience perched on). The show’s first look was a layered ensemble, featuring a lime green peplum turtleneck layered with a cashmere jacket and loose black trousers that also featured a flowing peplum waist. From there, the looks continued to play with volume and scale, as with a loose lambskin jacket paired with oversized trousers, elegant, figure-hugging gowns made from ruched jersey or a breezy poplin blouse defined by meticulous pleated seams. Even the fabrics felt architectural, as with nubby white boucles and handsome tweeds featuring hits of bright yellow.

The collection was proof that Park is a master at striking that rare balance between rigour and ease, attributes that made each look feel like an instant and utterly wearable wardrobe staple. Anna Fixsen

Zankov

After a weeks-long cold snap, New York’s streetscape has been transformed into a landscape of icy snowbanks. Which is why, amid all frozen grey lumps, Zankov’s colourful A/W 2026 collection was a welcome dose of Vitamin D.

Designer Henry Zankov, the recipient of the 2024 CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year award, has told Wallpaper* he’s a knitwear geek, and plenty of free-spirited stretchy looks demonstrated his expertise with the fabric. There were fuzzy mohair skirts and tops, and modern takes on argyle, presented in unexpected hues like chartreuse and merlot. Some knit skirts and dresses were slashed into broad ribbons, revealing legs beneath. Shine was another through-line, and a concept Zankov has been playing with for a while, notably with glittering pailettes. A long asymmetrical tunic was covered in round, Paco Rabanne-esque silver sequins, while many models were accessorised with glittering scarves. If you looked closely, you would have also spotted jet-black beaded fringe dangling from the wrists of a diaphanous plum-hued dress.

It may come as a surprise that the presentation marked designer Zankov’s sophomore runway show after founding the label in the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it had all the confidence of a creative who has been doing this for a much longer time. Anna Fixsen

Tory Burch

‘I don't want to live in a house which was in vogue 20 years ago,’ modernist architect Marcel Breuer once said. He would have found a kindred spirit in Tory Burch, who not only staged her A/W 2026 collection in Breuer’s famed Madison Avenue building (recently transformed into Sotheby’s global headquarters) but also returned to evergreen silhouettes for inspiration. ‘Classics shaped by history and utility, made personal through our own stories and experiences – [that’s] where true style originates,’ the designer said in her show notes.

Throughout, Burch investigated what makes classic garments stand the test of time – corduroy trousers, trench coats, sweaters – while giving them a fresh twist. Ensembles that would otherwise be relegated to prep, like a pencil skirt topped with a crewneck knit, got smart upgrades with materials like patent leather and a vibrant colour palette, which included tomato, chartreuse and saffron. Cardigans received a Midas touch with metallic embroidery, stitched by Indian artisans. A handful of easy yet elegant silk dresses had dropped waists and were apparently tossed in the wash for a perfectly worn-in finish.

Burch also proved that classics could be fun: as a set of models clad in breezy ‘80s-inflected dresses glided past, the driving rhythm of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 filled the room, causing A-List guests (including Pamela Anderson, Amanda Seyfried and Tessa Thompson) to bop along in their seats. Anna Fixsen

Coach

Attendees of Coach’s A/W 2026 show found a hint of what was to come in the setting: the Cunard Building in lower Manhattan, once the headquarters of the luxury British steamship company. Indeed, guests, clustered beneath the 65-foot frescoed ceiling, were in for something of a voyage – a journey through youth fashion history.

Set to LCD Soundsystem’s starry American Dream, models showcased looks that spanned decades and, in some cases, centuries. Some ensembles drew from vintage sportswear, as with unisex long-sleeve shirts inspired by 70s-era football jerseys. Womenswear reached further back, to the Victorian era, with flowy shift dresses and blouses with high pie-crust collars and pussy bows. And viewers of a certain age certainly took note of the voluminous denim shorts, skinny ties, messenger bags and low-slung belts – combinations that felt plucked from the crowd of Warped Tour circa 2002. Of course, Coach especially excelled in the accessories department, which included silver pins in the shape of moons and stars, as well as distressed suede sneakers that featured the brand’s signature brass clasps in lieu of laces.

In the show notes, creative director Stuart Vevers said he wanted to appeal to Coach’s next generation of customers. ‘We embrace the continuous reinvention of what it means to be young and forward-looking, resourceful and creative,’ said the British designer. Anna Fixsen

Proenza Schouler

The official start of New York Fashion Week kicked off Wednesday with, appropriately, a highly anticipated debut: Rachel Scott’s inaugural collection for Proenza Schouler. Scott took the helm last fall after the brand’s founders, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, decamped for Loewe, one of many switch-ups amid fashion’s great reset. While McCollough and Hernandez grew the brand from a humble Parsons thesis project into one of the most reliable names in American womenswear, Scott promised to introduce audiences to a ‘new Proenza Schouler woman.’ Her A/W 2026 show certainly provided a warm introduction.

From the upper floor of an office building at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, models strode across a tonal blue carpet to a percussive soundtrack. Proenza Schouler signatures were close at hand – grommets, clever button closures, a certain uptown polish – but those hallmarks became looser, a bit more undone, in Scott’s handling. There were demure suit jackets with wide lapels and cropped, trumpet-shaped hems; fluid, legs-for-days trousers; and dark, drapey gowns covered in an abstract orchid pattern. There were also craft-centric details that will feel familiar to fans of Scott’s own award-winning line, Diotima, notably the fringe that sprouted from the edges of sleeves, hems, and heels.

It’s all, according to the designer, in service to a woman with people to meet and places to be (a feeling heightened by makeup that included an asymmetric red lip conceived by Thomas De Kluyver). ‘It was really important for me to respect the legacy of Proenza Schouler, and that’s this really strong love of the New York woman,’ Scott said. ‘But I wanted to find a way to get closer to her, to have more complexity and texture – she can be erotic, she can be angry. Sometimes she’s not quite so perfect.’ Anna Fixsen