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There’s an element of bravery in keeping things simple. Brooklyn-based designer Connor McKnight’s working world is an exercise in this restrained form of courage, producing designs that sensitively transform quotidian moments of Black life into a wardrobe of quiet beauty.
Terming his aesthetic the ‘Black mundane’, the Parsons graduate and ex-Bode designer draws from music, family memories and the rhythms of the everyday city. In his collections, he takes familiar menswear staples – the fisherman’s wading jacket, the hunting coat, the tailored blazer – and refines them with gentle precision until they feel both special and a second skin, made to be worn, lived in and returned to again and again.
The rising style stars of 2026: Connor McKnight’s quiet beauty
Connor McKnight S/S 2025
The past 12 months have seen McKnight do another brave thing – stop. Taking 2025 as a fallow year, he made space to pour his energy into two areas of interest. The first was an exploration of leather that arrived in the autumn with the wittily titled ‘mixed bag’, a minimal bucket crafted from thin strips of brown and black leather that sold out almost instantly. The second was a months-long immersion in tailoring that pulled him into the intimate world of bespoke craft. It began almost by accident, making suits for friends who asked him to dress them for special events.
‘I wanted to make a suit that feels like jeans and a T-shirt’
Connor McKnight
Attuning McKnight to the luxurious effects of a perfect leg width or discreetly placed pocket, this awareness sharpened as he considered how he wanted to feel on his own important nights. Initially drawn to the panache of 1970s silhouettes, he found himself instead gravitating toward looser, more understated shapes. ‘I wanted to make a suit that feels like jeans and a T-shirt,’ says the designer, who will launch a suiting capsule in February, followed by a full collection in Paris in June.
Connor McKnight S/S 2025
While he’s not giving any specifics away, how he hopes the collection might feel comes via another source of inspiration: a series of ancient carved figures that dot the shelves and windowsills of his apartment. ‘I’ve been collecting these primitive objects and thinking a lot about how the makers’ hands have formed them,’ he says. ‘With simple pieces, personality can only be preserved through the hand.’
McKnight is trusting that by presenting clothes that say less, he might make space for others to feel more. ‘With the next collection, I think I’ll be doing even less, even more pared down. With simple designs, you worry someone might miss it because they’re subtle, but this year has given me the confidence to believe in what I’m going to make.’
A version of this article appears in the January 2026 Next Generation Issue, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today