This season at Calvin Klein Collection, Veronica Leoni’s impulse was to strip things back. Gone was menswear from the runway for a start, with the Italian designer instead casting her attention to six ‘foundational pieces’ that define Calvin Klein the brand, but also happen to be the elements of most women’s wardrobes. Namely: ‘the coat, the shirt, tailoring, the trouser, the pencil skirt, the slip.’

One inspiration was the work of American Minimalists, whose mid-20th-century principles of reduction were no doubt an influence on Calvin Klein himself (in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the American designer created clothing that was a riposte to the previous decade's excess). ‘American Minimalism was a discipline of removal: take away everything that does not carry the work, until only what is necessary remains,’ said the Italian designer, whose S/S 2027 runway show marked her fourth as creative director.

‘Calvin drew from that and turned it toward the body. I turn it toward the woman inside it,’ she continued. ‘My minimalism begins there, in the relation between design and a body, with nothing in between. Take everything away. What is left is desire.’

Held in Terminal Warehouse, a 19th-century former freight hub in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood, the stripped-back showspace was installed with sculptural works by the artist Walter De Maria, a pioneer of American Minimalism alongside figures including Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Frank Stella. They had been curated by Antwaun Sargent, an New York-based writer, curator, and director at Gagosian, who authored The New Black Vanguard Photography Between Art and Fashion in 2019.

‘I first became involved through a meeting with Veronica, when she shared the show’s theme of American Minimalism and asked me to curate the art for the space,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘Given the iconic setting of Terminal Warehouse, Walter De Maria immediately felt like a natural choice. As a key figure of American Minimalism, with landmark New York installations such as The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), his work offered a compelling dialogue with Calvin Klein and the architecture of the space.’

Spread across three rooms, the pieces chosen were Truth / Beauty (1990–2016), ‘a series comprised of stainless-steel polygonal rods set on granite bases,’ as Sargent describes; 14-Sided Open Polygon and 16-Sided Open Polygon (both 1984), ‘geometric stainless-steel sculptures punctuated by a single steel ball’, and 13, 14, 15 Meter Rows (1985), which features 42 ‘precisely arranged’ steel rods and was the first work to greet guests on arrival.

‘[They all] speak to De Maria’s fascination with geometry, repetition, and mathematical order, while their polished steel surfaces interact with the architecture, light, and movement of the fashion show,’ explains Sargent. ‘De Maria was equally concerned with how viewers experience his artworks as he was with the works themselves. The sculptures achieve a paradox: [they] maintain intense physical heft while appearing delicate through precise geometric fabrication and the reflective nature of stainless steel.’

‘There is a natural connection between the principles of American Minimalism and the design language of Calvin Klein, particularly in their emphasis on clarity, restraint, and essential form,’ he continues. ‘Calvin Klein has long embraced this sensibility through clean lines, precise proportions, and simplicity, while always maintaining a close relationship to the body. De Maria similarly uses repetition, geometry, and precision to reduce sculpture to its essential elements, while still creating works with an extraordinary physical presence.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from New York Fashion Week.

The Isamu Noguchi Sunken Garden in Lower Manhattan was designed by the American artist to evoke the Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan, which is home to the world’s most famous Zen rock garden. Designed to draw the eye downwards – the circular garden sits below ground in the shadow of the 60-storey Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed Chase Tower – it’s populated with seven basalt stones taken from the riverbed of Japan’s Uji River. One of his major works in the city, he designed it – like the rock garden of Ryoan-ji – to be viewed at a remove through its glass windows; a place of quiet contemplation amid the surrounding energy of New York’s Financial District.

For Tory Burch, who selected the space as the venue for her S/S 2027 show yesterday evening, the garden provided a counterpoint for a collection which she described as unapologetically ‘more is more’. Seemingly in no mood for quiet contemplation, she posited the vivacious spring collection as one which celebrated the ‘joy of dressing’ up through the kind of eclectic combinations of colour and texture that have defined this edition of New York Fashion Week so far (a similarly liberated approach was seen at Ralph Lauren, Diane von Furstenberg and Proenza Schouler).

‘I was thinking about how people want to feel joy and optimism right now, that you still need to dream,’ she said backstage after the show. ‘Everything feels quite dystopian, so I was thinking about how do you dream, and how do you escape? You can do that through self-expression.’

It led to pieces which captured what Burch called an ‘opulent femininity’, a mood of richness largely achieved through the collection’s fabrications, a focus of the designer since she stepped down as CEO of the eponymous label in 2019 to dedicate all of her time to the creative side of the role (the time since has been deemed as the ‘Torynaissance’ due to bolder creative decisions and a slew of viral accessories, particularly with Gen-Z). ‘Granny cardigans’ (Burch’s personal favourite garment from the collection) were richly embroidered; jacquards recalled lavish fabric wallpapers; while handpainted silk ‘feathers’ became boas and pom-poms. Accessories included pumps in woven leather which splayed open at their front, shark tooth earrings, embroidered handbags and high-shine chain-link belts.

Colour was similarly eclectic: for the palette, which recalled heady 1970s decor, Burch had tasked her team with finding unusual colours and combinations ‘which weren’t just easily available’. One green ‘was impossible to name… we still haven’t come up with a name for it as a team.’ ‘I started this collection with colours,’ she said. ‘I really want it to have depth.’ Lightness was also important: heavy knits were actually made from chenille, a fluffy yarn which is much lighter than wool. More utilitarian elements also featured, like a series of military-style overcoats, trenches and blazers, some featuring delicate beading or crafted from Burch’s take on classic menswear tailoring wools.

It was, she said, the way she envisaged women dressing today: a riposte to perfectly matching outfits and the conventionally tasteful. ‘I think we all have to manage through difficult times and look for bright spots,’ she said. ‘I think self-expression is one of the ways to do that.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from New York Fashion Week S/S 2027.

In 1974, Diane von Furstenberg introduced the now-iconic wrap dress – a simple garment that wrapped around the body and tied at the waist. At the time, it was a revolution in women’s fashion: sexy, practical, and stylish enough to move seamlessly from the office to a night out. It became a symbol of women’s liberation, offering a new kind of freedom and confidence through its ease. By 1976, more than a million had been sold.

Earlier this year, with Von Furstenberg’s blessing, the brand named Henry Zankov the brand's first artistic director – a newly created role overseeing the American brand’s full creative vision. Zankov served as Diane von Furstenberg's design director of knitwear from 2014 to 2018 before stepping out on his own with Zankov in 2020, eventually earning a place as runner-up for the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prize and the CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year award a year later in 2024. This morning (September 10), for S/S 2027, he debuted his first collection staged on a landmark of present-day New York: the High Line.

Over the years, Von Furstenberg and Zankov have formed a special relationship – the two speak on a daily basis. ‘She told me that body language is the most important,’ Zankov told Wallpaper* the day before the fashion show. Von Furstenberg taught Zankov how to work with the body: ‘how clothes move, how they reveal, how they communicate,’ read the show notes.

The Russia-born, Brooklyn-based designer grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, raised by strong women. Even as a child, he ran his own play-fashion business, setting up a boutique where he designed outfits and sold them. As he got older, he would cross the Hudson River to visit New York, and he became fascinated with the Comme des Garçons store, an early education in the city that would later shape his career.

‘New York is a very fast-paced city, and naturally the clothes usually feel more relaxed, nonchalant, and people dress for what excites them, not for the expectation,’ he said. ‘I always believe fashion can be a tool to highlight a person’s desires, feelings, and aspirations.’

Zankov's debut collection was a celebration of femininity. His muse is a strong, self-assured woman. ‘She is a rebel; she dresses for herself and no one else,’ he explained. ‘She moves through life to her own rhythm.’ The designer looked deep in the house's archives for inspiration. ‘I was drawn to prints and patterns which feel like house codes,’ he said. ‘Juxtaposing them with new colours and materiality feels like there is one foot in the past and one in the future.’

Archival animal prints, long, lean silhouettes, colour-blocking and tailoring ran throughout. Everything looked comfortable and liberating; his own takes on DVF’s signature silhouette were a green checked wrap dress and a colour-blocked maxi dress. Zankov also infused the idea of wrapping into an anamorphic leopard-print trench and a colour-blocked baby blue and oxblood wrap jacket. A boho-tinged enlarged leopard print dress has a free-spirited flair. The clothes were meant to seduce – but not in the conventional way. There are exposed shoulders and plunging necklines, but, according to Zankov, the seduction comes from movement and body language.

A new suit silhouette, in particular, merged Von Furstenberg's legacy with his own aesthetic. ‘It is an elongated shape for the jacket and trousers in the most beautiful raspberry red wool and constructed lightly inside so it feels tailored and substantial yet languid and easy,’ said Zankov.

But it’s not time for rest just yet; Zankov’s latest runway show for his eponymous show is on September 14. He even conveniently moved Zankov into the same building as Diane von Furstenberg. ‘I divide my time on both depending on the needs of that week,‘ he said. ‘It has become very clear the differences even more so between both brands.’

Zankov hopes to propel Von Furstenberg’s ideals into the future with the same ethos as its namesake. ‘I believe clothes feel modern today when they feel light,‘ he said. ‘When a garment is made in the most wonderful fabric and constructed lightly, it is true luxury.‘

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from New York Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Moncler’s story began in the mountains outside of Grenoble, France in 1952. Now, nearly 75 years later, it’s taken root amid Manhattan’s skyscraper canyons.

Today the luxury outerwear and lifestyle brand opens the doors to a new global flagship on Fifth Avenue, New York’s most famous shopping district. At nearly 24,000 sq ft, the store marks the largest Moncler location in the world, a destination where shoppers can immerse themselves in the brand’s latest collections; exclusive collaborations; and performance gear across two floors of dazzling retail spaces.

The store is also a love letter to New York. ‘When this iconic location on Fifth Avenue became available, we saw the opportunity to create something unique,’ explains Remo Ruffini, Moncler’s executive chairman. ‘Not just our largest flagship in the world, but a place to welcome existing and new communities, to express Moncler DNA at its best.’

To translate that ethos, Ruffini enlisted longtime collaborator Patrick Gilles of the acclaimed Parisian design firm Gilles & Boissier. ‘Patrick and I have worked together for more than two decades,’ Ruffini says. ‘Over the years, we have built a relationship based on trust and a shared vision. I do not need to explain everything; he instinctively understands what I have in mind, sometimes even before I say it.’

Gilles & Boissier had worked on Moncler boutiques in the past, and helped develop the brand’s architectural language when Ruffini took the helm 23 years ago. But for a New York flagship of this scale, Gilles knew he had to create something unique.

The store takes over the base of the GM Building, a 50-storey modernist tower designed by Edward Durell Stone in the mid 1960s. More recently, it was the location of FAO Schwarz, the beloved toy store that closed its doors a decade ago. ‘Every time that I went to New York there were a few things to do, FAO Schwartz was a destination,’ Gilles says – and whatever his firm created had to be just as memorable.

One opportunity was the scale of the space itself. ‘It’s super deep, and super big. It has nine-meter-high ceilings so it is something quite impressive,’ the architect says.

That allows for a grand entry sequence, an experience Gilles likens to the anticipation of stepping inside of a darkened theatre. From there, visitors step into a dazzling retail wonderland that marries the exhilaration of whizzing down slopes with the energy of Times Square. Collections are organised into enveloping bays that reveal themselves as you make your way deeper into the store – a sensation the architect compares to progressing through Manhattan’s neighbourhoods.

On the ground level, shoppers encounter the Moncler Collection encompassing men’s, women’s and children’s apparel; Moncler Genius designer collaborations; as well as accessories. Here, Gilles re-interpreted the General Motors Building’s modernist facade language – defined by vertical bands of white marble – with strips of bright white light on the walls and ceilings, a move that contrasts with gray-and-black checkerboard marble floors, and stone-clad columns. Whimsical house-shaped ‘curiosity cabins,’ clad in a mirrored finish, punctuate the space, as do towering evergreen trees and a monumental artwork by Ugo Rondinone. ‘It’s full of surprises,’ Gilles says.

Nods to the mountains appear in the store’s raw material palette of textured stone, timber and icy textured glass. But there are also nods to French culture, an important element of Moncler’s history, even though the brand is based in Italy today. Retail niches feature elegant details, including intricate plaster mouldings, and fanciful wood boiserie. ‘The story of Moncler comes from nature and from French culture,’ Gilles explains.

There’s more to discover upstairs, a level that’s devoted entirely to Moncler Grenoble, the brand’s collection devoted to life on the slopes. Here, guests can discover high-performance apparel and accessories for mountain activities ranging from skiing to snowboarding to trekking or simply relaxing in a chalet. This section also displays partnerships with Stöckli skis, POC helmets and even snowboards creed in collaboration with champion snowboarder and Moncler brand ambassador Shaun White.

The mood is slightly more hushed on this level, not no less dynamic thanks to illuminated ceiling panels (another modernist hat-tip) and dramatically-lit niches that elevate ski equipment into works of art. ‘The purpose was really to be in the Moncler style, which is quite discreet, but at the same time take the level of sensation as high as we could,’ Gilles says. ‘You will be in the shop, but also a part of the shop.’

The unique flagship experience is not just limited to the design; shoppers can also discover the latest LoveFrom, Moncler collection, an exclusive collaboration with designer Jony Ive, or customise their own jackets with Moncler to Measure, the brand’s first-ever bespoke atelier. Don’t know what to pick? Just consult Moncler’s AI-powered Outerwear Guide, another innovation coinciding with the boutique’s opening.

It’s all about leaving guests with a memorable experience, whether they’re selecting a new down jacket or encountering Moncler through its latest open-air art program, now on the streets of New York.

‘It’s more a project of sensation than anything else,’ Gilles reflects. ‘Your experience could be different than mine.’

Moncler New York is located at 767 5th Ave New York, NY 10153 USA

On December 20, 1964, Ralph Lauren married his wife, Ricky Lauren, after just six months, having met in the eye doctor’s office where she worked as a receptionist. Over 61 years of loving matrimony, she remains by the designer’s side for his finale bow each season – as she did yesterday afternoon at Lauren’s S/S 2027 womenswear show, which was held at the Clock Tower Building in Tribeca and marked the opening act of this season’s New York Fashion Week (albeit unofficially: Ralph Lauren and Coach both chose to show the day before the schedule’s official start on Thursday).

Which means it’s safe to say that Lauren – a stalwart of American style who is currently enjoying a renaissance as the fashion world embraces the preppy aesthetic for which he is best known – knows plenty about romance. Prior to the show, guests received a bouquet of white tulips, delphinium and hydrangeas, as one might woo a potential love interest (or indeed for acts of diplomacy with a longtime partner), setting the tone for a show which the designer described as ‘an irreverent take on romance’.

Soundtracked by the swooning ‘I Found My Love in Portofino’ and The Police’s ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’, the collection itself saw Lauren riff on hallmarks of romantic dress – among them ruffles, corsages, lace and feather – in the designer’s easy, insouciant style. Much of the ‘irreverence’ lay in the often eclectic mix-up of garments, which swayed between masculine tailoring (a tailored pinstripe waistcoat, dress shirt and wide tie referenced early designs for his Polo line, launched in 1967) and diaphanous, body-skimming dresses in plissé organza, lace and silk. Such juxtapositions ran throughout: shredded denim jeans, a nod towards Lauren’s longtime fascination with the workwear fabric, were worn with ladylike brocade jackets or shirts trimmed with colourful slices of shearling and feathers.

Other garments seemed to move between decades, often in a single look: waistcoats evoked at once the 1920s and the 2000s, the latter also referenced in the low-slung cut of trousers or in parka-style jackets adorned with boa-like feather trims. Elsewhere, a touch of Louis XIV grandeur was found in the corseted line of ceremonial jackets and billowing ruffled collars – albeit in Lauren’s contemporary, undone style. Undone too were a series of ‘spritz and tumble’ pieces, a technique which left garments purposefully rumpled and creased.

In a letter distributed to guests – which included his usual coterie of celebrity well-wishers, among them Cynthia Erivo, Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki – Lauren called it a proposition for ‘a new elegance’. ‘It’s about ways of dressing that celebrate ingenuity, originality and character,’ he continued. ‘The freedom and fun of creating a style which is truly personal.’

Stay tuned to wallpaper.com for more from New York Fashion Week.

For most people, a retrospective of their life’s work is the ultimate occasion to celebrate themselves, but for Charlotte Mensah, her new exhibition, ‘Charlotte Mensah: Community Matters’, is, as its title suggests, as much about the people who helped her become a pioneering force in Afro, mixed, and curly hair culture as it is about how she got there.

Open in London’s Ladbroke Hall 8-13 September 2026, ‘Community Matters’ is a mixed-media exhibition that traces Mensah’s life and career, from her childhood in Ghana to the opening of her famous salon, Hairlounge, on Portobello Road, and her position as one of Britain’s most influential hairstylists. In doing so, it showcases the people who inspired Mensah along the way and highlights the larger conversations around culture, creativity, and belonging that have always informed Mensah’s practice.

According to Mensah, the ambition was never simply to take things from the salon and put them into Ladbroke Hall. ‘We wanted to translate something of the feeling of the salon into an exhibition context: the intimacy, the conversation, the photography, the objects and, most importantly, the people,’ she says. ‘To do that, we had to look at my whole life and understand how it had informed my practice.’

Working with friends and Hairlounge customers, senior curator at V&A East Madeleine Haddon, and interior designer Jacqueline Douglas, Mensah filled the space with images and artifacts, creating an immersive space that will also, for the duration it is open, play host to talks and workshops like ‘Beauty, Business & Belonging’ and ‘The Modern-Day Salon: A Cultural Institution.’

Seeing her life presented before her in this way was an illuminating experience for Mensah. ‘It confirmed something I have always felt: none of this happened overnight, and none of it happened alone. My practice has always been social and relational. The work is hair, but around the hair there has always been family, friendship, conversation and collaboration.’

That was especially true when it came to Mensah’s family: ‘What surprised me was how present my children were at so many important points in the story,’ she says. ‘My son’s bedroom became my first salon in the mid-1990s. Then, while we were going through the archive, I found a photograph of my daughter in 2002 hiding inside the counter that was being made for the salon. That same counter is still there on Portobello Road today. The salon itself was designed by my neighbour, the architect Robert Grace. So even when I look at the physical space, I can see relationships embedded within it.’

Importantly, the exhibition also highlights Mensah’s trailblazing role in the history of afro and textured hair, and how that history has changed over the past 40 years. Mensah says he has seen the visibility of Afro hair change ‘enormously’ but, ‘visibility is only one part of progress’.

‘The conversation I want us to have much more seriously now is about education. There is an art to hairstyling, of course, but underneath the artistry, there has to be knowledge. You have to understand the fundamentals before you can improvise. You crawl, then you walk, then eventually you can run.

‘That is why I believe we need clearer standards and qualifications that properly demonstrate a stylist’s skill set, and that should apply across hairdressing. It is also why education has become such an important part of my own practice.’ To that end, Mensah runs Curl Workshops for families and delivers professional masterclasses for salons because, as she says, ‘ultimately, my idea of inclusion is very simple: somebody with Afro, curly or textured hair should be able to walk into a salon anywhere in this country and know that their hair can be cared for properly.’

'Charlotte Mensah: Community Matters' is on view at Ladbroke Hall until 13 September 2026

Every year, Le Labo distills the essence of one city into a bottle. Known as the City Exclusives, the fragrances within this limited collection attempt to capture the unique atmosphere of a place in scent so that, with one spritz, its wearer can be transported there. It’s a compelling approach to fragrance making, made all the more so by its unique distribution – the scents are only available to purchase in their home cities, except in September, when they make their journey to other Le Labo stores around the world.

The latest addition to the brand’s City catalogue is Shiu 25, an homage to Beijing that blends powdery iris notes with resinous frankincense and rich woods. Its an alternative version of Beijing to the soaring towers and busy streets that might come to mind. Rather, Shiu 25 draws inspiration from the city’s historic, peaceful spaces of traditional artisanship with their well-worn wooden floors and hidden gardens.

Le Labo opened its own such space in Beijing last year, the Beijing He Yuan Fragrance Lab, a unique perfume boutique inside the culturally protected Beizi Mansion in the Wang Fu Central neighbourhood. The Lab is housed in a traditional Chinese courtyard house, known as a siheyuan, offering a moment of stillness and peace to those entering, with Le Labo’s signature glass bottles filling dark wooden shelves.

‘Our City Exclusive fragrances began as a way to honour the places that leave an invisible imprint on us, and to distil their irreplaceable spirit through the senses,’ says Deborah Royer, global brand president and creative director. ‘When they travel each September, they offer a chance to feel something of their soul, even from afar.’

Shiu 25, Royer says, ‘emerged from our time in Beijing, and is an expression of what the city holds for us in its traditional spaces built for quietude and inner return – a lineage we’re privileged to nurture and continue in our historic He Yuan Lab. This fragrance carries that forward: an invitation to find centred calm, self-reflection, and a moment of pause in a world that rarely grants one.’

Shiu 25 and all other City Exclusive fragrances will be available in Le Labo stores around the world until the end of September, after which availability reverts to the home city.

And so it begins: with runway shows from Ralph Lauren and Coach, today marks the opening day of New York Fashion Week (albeit unofficially, with the two American powerhouses choosing to show off-schedule), and with it, the start of fashion month. With further stops taking place in London, Milan and Paris, the industry is preparing for four weeks of runway shows, presentations and happenings, as designers set forth their vision for the S/S 2027 season ahead.

There is a buoyant mood to New York this season, which against the odds is enjoying a luxury retail renaissance (read more below) and has a solid fashion-week schedule to match. This is bolstered by the presence of its big-name designers, which are largely in the midst of a renaissance of their own: among them Ralph Lauren, Coach and Tory Burch, which have each enjoyed social-media virality in recent seasons, particularly among younger consumers, as well as Calvin Klein Collection, Michael Kors, Thom Browne and Proenza Schouler. Each will show across the week.

Elsewhere, injections of newness come via Henry Zankov’s debut at Diane von Furstenberg (the New York-based designer has garnered an enormous amount of goodwill through his award-winning eponymous label Zankov, which will continue to show alongside), as well as the young labels Diotima, Ashlyn and LII, the latter of which saw designer Zane Li pick up the Karl Lagerfeld Award at the LVMH Prize 2026 earlier this month.

Here, Wallpaper* breaks down all the moments to look out for at New York Fashion Week S/S 2027 (9–15 September 2026).

Ralph Lauren and Coach will open the week – off-schedule

The week will begin with two American mega-brands – both currently in the midst of a renaissance – showing off-schedule on Wednesday. Up first, Ralph Lauren, whose signature preppy aesthetic, particularly the colourful Polo Ralph Lauren offshoot, is currently in the midst of a revival (collections from Celine, Dior and Miu Miu have all riffed on similar collegiate and varsity styles). The designer, who turns 87 next month, will host the show in a venue in New York’s Tribeca neighbourhood – expect famous faces on the front row and a coterie of major models on the runway, as well as a collection which riffs on the tenets of American style.

Later that evening, at an as-yet-undisclosed location, Stuart Vevers will show his latest collection for Coach (an afterparty will immediately follow). Vevers has hit his stride in recent seasons, combining his eye for accessories (styles like the Brooklyn or Tabby have gone viral) with collections which capture a New York insouciance increasingly geared for young consumers. ‘We embrace the continuous reinvention of what it means to be young and forward-looking, resourceful and creative,’ he told Wallpaper* last season.

Henry Zankov will make his Diane von Furstenberg debut

New York-based designer Henry Zankov has steadily built a reputation as one of the city’s most intriguing talents; his colourful, inventive knitwear under his eponymous label Zankov cleverly toes the line between the grown-up and the playful. After being initially embraced by fashion insiders (we called him the designer ‘making fashion’s favourite sweaters’ in 2024), he has gone on to find international stockists and won a CFDA Award for American Emerging Designer of the Year. ‘It’s just about letting the audience take it however they want to take it,’ he told Wallpaper* of his eclectic aesthetic. ‘There's a playful aspect to [my work], but it never feels matchy.’

This season, alongside the latest show for his eponymous label on Monday 14 September, he will show his debut collection for Diane von Furstenberg on the morning of Thursday 10 September. Taking over all creative for the brand, which was founded by its namesake in 1972, Zankov said he hopes to continue Von Furstenberg’s liberated approach to fashion (she is known for the advent of the jersey wrap dress, and always put women at the centre of her designs). ‘I have always been surrounded and inspired by strong women, and Diane is the ultimate embodiment of that,’ he recently said. ‘The DVF woman is a rebel – confident, curious and independent. It is an honour and privilege for me to build on Diane’s legacy and to carry the brand into the future.’ The woman herself added: ‘I am excited to watch Henry’s designs, sense of colour, and effortless sensibility seduce a new generation.’

New York’s blockbuster brands aren’t going anywhere

Joining Ralph Lauren, Coach and Diane Von Furstenberg will be a number of other names that have long been synonymous with the city. Proenza Schouler, now under the creative leadership of Diotima’s Rachel Scott, will show on Thursday 10 September, followed later that evening by Tory Burch, who will present her latest collection at the Isamu Noguchi Sunken Garden on New York’s Pine Street. Michael Kors and Calvin Klein Collection will both show the following day on Friday 11 September, while Khaite – one of New York’s more successful exports of recent years – will host its latest show at the Brooklyn Storehouse on Saturday 12 September. The vast warehouse space will no doubt be occupied by a typically cinematic show set by designer Catherine Holstein’s husband Griffin Frazen, an architectural designer who helped conceive the sets for The Brutalist.

There will be a New York retail renaissance

In April, property company Savills placed New York as the top city for luxury retail openings for the first time since 2019, cementing the renaissance of bricks-and-mortar retail happening across the city (notably, on Fifth and Madison Avenues, though there has also been luxury retail growth Downtown). Joining a slew of new Uptown mega-flagships – including the four-floor Peter Marino-designed House of Dior New York on Madison Avenue – will be a vast new Moncler store, Moncler Fifth Avenue, marking the largest-ever global flagship for the Italian outerwear brand. It will celebrate the opening with an event on Thursday 10 September.

Elsewhere, Acne Studios will open a new store in New York’s West Village on Greene Street with a party later that evening, while a new Victoria Beckham store created by the British designer alongside artist Alexander May and designer Ole Lund of LNP in SoHo will no doubt attract those visiting the city. Speaking to Wallpaper*, she called it her ‘home away from home’.

Zane Li headlines the rising design stars to watch

LII, the eponymous label of Zane Li, has been a Wallpaper* favourite for some time: in our January issue, we rated him as one of our names to watch in 2026. ‘Zane Li’s clothes are endlessly intriguing,’ wrote Orla Brennan at the time of the young Parsons School of Design graduate. ‘Starting from a flat shape, the Chongqing-born FIT graduate constructs garments the way an architect might a blueprint, leading to silhouettes that sit on the body in curiously sculptural ways.’

These intriguing silhouettes and a bold use of colour won Li The Karl Lagerfeld Prize at the LVMH Prize 2026 earlier this month, with chairman and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture Delphine Arnault praising him for designs that ‘seamlessly blend sportswear with couture influences’. Buoyant on this success, he will show his third runway show this season on Monday 14 September. Elsewhere, there are several other brilliant young labels in New York: Rachel Scott’s Diotima will host its third runway show on Monday 14 September; Henry Zankov will hold his latest Zankov show, also on Monday 14, and Ashlyn Park’s Ashlyn will show at the Cristina Grajales Gallery on Saturday 12 September.

Conner Ives will head stateside for a homecoming show

In something of a homecoming, Conner Ives will bring his irreverent London-based label back to the United States, where he was born and grew up. Previously showing at London Fashion Week, the buzzy label – which gained international prominence with his ‘Protect the Dolls’ T-shirts, which advocated for Trans rights and were worn by numerous high-profile figures – will hold its first New York show on Saturday 12 September. Expect the usual liberated blend of pop cultural references, insouciant glamour and upcycled garments, and a no-doubt memorable cast (his previous shows have drawn from London’s queer and creative communities, as opposed to typical runway models). Titled ‘Across the Pond’, the show will take place at The Grill, a chophouse located in the former Grill Room of the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building.

Thom Browne will return to New York for the week’s finale

The closing act of New York Fashion Week belongs to Thom Browne, who, after runway shows in New York and San Francisco, returns to his home city (as chairman of the CFDA, the organisers of New York Fashion Week, it is also a show of support for the event). Details for the show, which will take place at 5pm on Tuesday 15 September, are so far under wraps, though expect theatrical spectacle and plays on his signature garment, the grey suit. ‘Sometimes we don't realise how transformative the suit is until the person is wearing it,’ Browne told us in the August Creative American issue of Wallpaper*. ‘You do feel the shift when you put it on. It’s powerful’

This past June, Michael Rider held his first standalone menswear show for Celine at the Tennis Club de Paris. ‘[It’s about] enjoying what we do in the studio, and desiring it ourselves, all of it, the clothes and the characters,’ the Washington, D.C.-born designer said, honing an aesthetic that combines American preppiness and Parisian flair, offering a spin on the familiar tenets of a classic wardrobe.

Amongst an array of desirable accessories – including colourful cummerbunds, patterned ties and wooden beads – was his first major collaboration as the house’s creative director, a riff on Reebok’s 1982 Reebok Freestyle Lo, created alongside the American sportswear behemoth. True to style, Rider describes the nostalgic sneakers as ‘heritage two ways... Paris street, American movement.’

Celine’s collaboration with Reebok has arrived

‘Celine and Reebok are both about the tension between heritage and forward motion,’ he continues. ‘The past, and the here and now.’

Constructed in soft, pliable leather, lending a gently worn-in feel, the sneaker comes in eight colourways, including ‘Peanut’, ‘Oxblood’, ‘Dark Brown’, ‘Fluo Red‘ and ‘Butter’, as well as more classic white, black and beige (Rider is also known for a vivid use of colour, seeing bold primary shades paired with classic tones evocative of the house’s traditional bourgeois codes). ‘One style. 8 colours. Infinite possibilities,’ describes Celine.

Introduced in 1982, the 1982 Reebok Freestyle Lo was designed by Angel Martinez to initially appeal to women during the rise of aerobics classes in the early 1980s. It would become one of the brand’s best-known unisex styles, evolving into the Freestyle Hi, which features two Velcro straps. Reebok has continued the style in various iterations in the years since.

Rider describes it as ‘A shoe that has moved through time, and still moves with us, with you.

After a launch event during New York Fashion Week, the collaboration will launch on September 12 at selected stores worldwide, including New York Soho, Tokyo Ometesando, Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive, Miami Design District, Paris Montaigne, Milan Montenapoleone, Dubai Mall Men & Women, London New Bond Street, Shanghai IFC, Seoul The Hyundai, Hong Kong Harbour City and Singapore Marina Bay Sands.

celine.com

Ask many a skincare obsessive what their favourite brand is and chances are the response will be Biologique Recherche. Founded in the late 1970s by the biologist Yvan Allouche and physiotherapist Josette Allouche, Biologique Recherche has achieved its cult following and commercial success almost entirely through word of mouth, rarely engaging in traditional advertising or public promotion. But the brand has yet to become a household name, at least beyond its native France.

That, however, is about to change, thanks to the opening this week (8 September 2026) of the brand’s first flagship store in New York City. Located on 132 Greene Street in SoHo, the 2,500 sq ft space is the brand’s debut of its new, more public-facing identity. In the words of Wandjina Glasheen-Brown, SVP of global creative at Biologique Recherche, it’s a space that ‘is giving our reputation a voice, a vibe, and a physical grammar’.

Designed by London- and Berlin-based architecture studio Casper Mueller Kneer, ‘the Residence’ is the first boutique to bring Biologique Recherche’s new architectural concept to life. Inside, visitors will find a retail area for products; a space for the brand’s signature ‘Skin Instant’ diagnosis and expert consultation, allowing staff to create a personalised skincare routine for clients; and treatment rooms for both facials and body treatments.

‘Casper Mueller Kneer’s approach allowed us to explore the contrasts and contradictions that are central to Biologique Recherche,’ says Glasheen-Brown. ‘Precision and warmth, science and emotion, technical expertise and human touch – while also creating a dialogue between the maison’s Parisian heritage and the energy of New York. Together, we developed a new architectural language for the maison that feels contemporary and distinctive, without losing the unconventional spirit that has always been part of its identity.’

Upon entering the space, visitors are greeted by an ‘altar table’ where the products are displayed and which gives the serums, in Glasheen-Brown’s words, ‘a kind of sculptural authority, almost reliquary-like’, while a gold-leaf ceiling creates a warm, opulent aesthetic that contrasts with the clinical appearance of the glass-cylinder bottles. That clean, restrained look is picked up in the stainless-steel display area beyond, however, and, past that, the opulence returns with a blue marble bar inspired by the journey that the Seine takes through Paris.

Those who visit the treatment rooms will find themselves transitioning into a progressively more secluded environment, with the acoustics and atmosphere shifting to create a more intimate feel. Soft carpets underfoot are decorated with a design inspired by the Sistine Chapel ceiling, while the lighting and soundscapes in the treatment rooms are engineered to complement the rhythm of each treatment.

For Biologique Recherche, the New York space is an important moment for the brand, reflecting its move into a more public arena. That said, it is essential to all those behind it that the company retains the principles that have defined its approach since the 1970s.

‘Growth, for this maison, has to stay disciplined and highly selective. The things that built our reputation – professional expertise, the quality of our client relationships, and a genuinely personalised approach – are not negotiable as we scale exposure,’ says Glasheen-Brown. ‘What makes Biologique Recherche special was never scarcity for its own sake; it is the depth of methodology, of efficacy, and of the practitioner relationship. Our job now is to protect that depth while finally letting the maison show up with the confidence it's earned, on a global stage.’

Visit the store at 132 Greene Street, New York City, NY 10012, biologique-recherche.com/en-us

Shop Biologique Recherche

He bombs around Los Angeles in a Mercedes-Benz, top-down, the Santa Ana winds emphasising his artfully floppy hair. He is seductive, a polyglot, has an easy charm, an expensive watch and a tasteful home. He’s ridiculously handsome. When he’s wearing clothes, the clothes are Armani. He is, of course, the American Gigolo, as played by Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s impossibly stylish 1980 hit. Don’t you want to be just like him?

It was through Hollywood that the late Giorgio Armani steered the course of dressing in a new direction, starting with American Gigolo’s wardrobe of louche, earth-toned linen tailoring – but the film was also the first hands-on encounter with the world of cinema which would become central to the house’s reputation for decades to come. A manifesto, if you like.

The brand was then just half a decade old, but now, almost 50 years later, the 83rd Venice International Film Festival is underway, and Armani is a ubiquitous presence – from the branded boats which zip visitors across The Floating City, to the gowns and suits worn on the red carpet outside the Palazzo del Cinema.

But this year is the first edition of the festival without Mr Armani himself, who passed away in the final days of the 2025 event. Now, the torchbearers are continuing where the maestro left off. Armani Beauty is the official beauty sponsor for the ninth time, returning with its exclusive Armani Cinema Club, and bringing a host of talent who represent the future of film, including the newest fragrance ambassador, Jonathan Bailey, alongside Sydney Sweeney, Nicholas Galitzine, Madisin Rian and more. But it’s not just the new generation of stars who choose Armani for their moment. When George Clooney went on stage last week to accept the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award, he was wearing, almost inevitably, an Armani tuxedo.

The role of the fashion house is clear, but the beauty arm has its role to play too. ‘Our ethos is one of dramatic simplicity,’ says global makeup artist Hiromi Ueda. ‘The most important thing we take from the world of cinema when designing a makeup look is that consideration of how light hits the face; some parts radiant while others are more in shadow.’ The original poster for American Gigolo comes to mind. ‘I’m very inspired by films with beautiful cinematography, especially films where the colours, angles, composition and atmosphere are very strong,’ she says.

For the Armani Privé A/W 2025 collection – the house’s haute couture arm – Ueda created a makeup look which nodded to the sculpted sophistication of Marlene Dietrich, and she also cites Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda as a key reference point in her process. ‘I love how his films show everyday life in a very honest and natural way. He finds beauty in simple, quiet human moments rather than creating unnecessary drama.’ She continues: ‘That is also very close to my makeup philosophy. I don’t see makeup as a mask or something that should hide who you are. I see it as a way to enhance what is already there and make someone feel more like themselves. In that sense, I feel connected to Kore-eda’s approach, which is finding beauty in reality, in natural details, and in the quiet moments of everyday life.’

Armani makeup ambassador Vittoria Ceretti tells Wallpaper* that beauty is integral to building a character in front of a camera. ‘Whether it’s for the red carpet, or for a photo shoot, I will often start with the makeup to help inform the storytelling,’ she says.

It is hard to imagine a red carpet event without the elegance of Armani, films like The Untouchables, Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street without their distinctive tailoring, and the 1980s – full stop – without American Gigolo. Mr Armani’s passion for film has not only shaped the brand he founded, but also shaped Hollywood itself.

The 83rd Venice International Film Festival runs until September 12.

armani.com

In the United Kingdom, 1 September marks the first day of meteorological autumn – a change in season that’s been aptly marked this year with leaden skies and the first downpours in months.

It makes a suitable backdrop for the launch of the latest collaboration between Paul Smith and Barbour; the former is known for its eponymous founder’s irreverent riffs on the tenets of a British wardrobe, and the latter’s signature wax jackets have protected against the country’s inclement weather since 1894.

Paul Smith and Barbour unite for their third collaboration

For this third chapter, the two British brands look northwards towards the Highlands of Scotland, a place known for its dramatic vistas and synonymy with outdoor pursuits (as well as its own temperamental climate, with some of the highest rainfall in the United Kingdom).

One of these pursuits is the annual Highland Games, a longstanding Scottish tradition which sees participants undertake a series of tests of strength and endurance – from the ‘caber toss’ (players must throw a wooden log as far as possible) to ‘weight over a bar’ (its rules as simple as the name suggests). The events also feature ceremonial elements, from ceilidh dancing to massed bands of bagpipers.

The Highland Games are the inspiration for this latest 38-piece collection – and its accompanying campaign – with Smith’s reinterpretation of two traditional Barbour tartans, the ‘original’ and ‘authentic’ tartans, at its nexus. The fabrics are here reworked with the designer’s liberated use of colour: pinks, oranges and yellows are woven into the tartans and appear across the collections as motifs, details, or linings.

Elsewhere, memorable Barbour garments are reimagined in new fabrications, like the Beaufort Jacket, which has been crafted in merino wool with a ‘windowpane’ check or in navy corduroy. Elements of play – which have defined the previous two collaborations – appear throughout, like printed motifs of charms, keys and fishing flies; animal embroidery; or vivid flashes of colour.

The accompanying campaign, a ‘Highland odyssey’, mines this lighthearted mood: its two fictional protagonists, Paul and Baz, arrive at the Braemar Gathering (the most famous of the Highland Games) two weeks early. There, they meet an eclectic cast of characters – ‘each embodying the warmth, wit and enduring traditions,’ as Smith says.

The Paul Smith loves Barbour is available at barbour.com and paulsmith.com, as well as selected retailers.

Cult streetwear brand Palace Skateboards was born in the concrete underbelly of London's Southbank Centre, where a series of ledges, ramps and pillars has served as an impromptu skatepark for the past five decades. The brainchild of Lev Tanju and Gareth Skewis, who would skate there daily, Palace – as it is usually shortened – was formed in 2009, when the pair created T-shirts which sent up the logos of luxury fashion houses in an irreverent style that would become the brand's signature.

Adopted at first by Tanju's skate gang, the Palace Wayward Boys Choir (PWBC), Palace quickly transcended its subcultural roots to become one of youth culture's most ubiquitous brands, recognisable for its ‘Tri-Ferg' logo (graphic designer Fergus Purcell's riff on the Penrose triangle), which has appeared on a slew of collaborations, including Gucci, Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren and Mercedes-AMG, as well as Wedgwood, Stella Artois and Rizla (Tanju has said he picks his collaborators through instinct; the results are full of the deadpan wit you find in Palace's weekly drops). It also hangs over its bricks-and-mortar stores in London, New York, LA, Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai (among others), and Manor Place, a community space in south London conceived with Nike, which opened in 2025.

For their guest edit of Wallpaper*, Tanju and Skewis turn the lens from themselves towards the Palace community – friends, collaborators and muses from the worlds of skating, fashion, art, music and beyond, all of whom have done sterling work for the brand. Together, they encapsulate Palace's come one, come all spirit. ‘Palace is for everyone,' says Tanju.

Meet the Palace creative universe

Click the photographs below to find out more about each creative.

Wallpaper’s October 2026 Guest Editors’ Issue is available from 3 September, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

How would you describe what you do?

I'm a storyteller, a seeker, an instrument, a sponge. I recognise patterns that are right in front of us. At some point, I take my hands off the wheel and trust in divine providence. I tend to arrive at stories that most of us don't see any value in bringing to life.

Why do you do it?

In service of god and humanity.

Who or what inspires you?

My father.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

Skateboarding was my first love really. And the truth is, she is still with me to this day. Our relationship has changed a lot over the years, but I guess the repetitiveness of it is in line with what I do today. When you're a kid, you spend hours on end alone somewhere learning to jump on your skateboard. It's the same with storytelling. You show up and you don't mind looking stupid while doing it. Face yourself and what's right in front of you, regardless of how you feel about it. When I first found skateboarding as a kid, there was no holding back. I allowed myself to become one with it. Both my inner world and my outer world were filled with this thing that I deeply loved and wanted to keep exploring.

That's all I did. That's all my mates did. And I never questioned it. Even if my board broke and I couldn't afford a new one, I never worried about where that next board would come from. And yet it all worked out.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

It's like a childhood friend that you slowly grew apart from. He's got a big beautiful family now and you know he's doing great things in the world because the people around you tell you about him. I smile inside every time. When we reunite, everything is natural and well. Hopefully, he can still do a switch heel from time to time.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I will never forget the first time I saw Chewy Cannon skating down Shoreditch High Street when I first moved to London.

What are you currently working on?

On a collaboration with Nike, on the Penny Hardaway shoe. We are adding trucks and wheels. Basically turning it into roller skates.

Favourite restaurant?

SoulFood, Peckham High Street.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?

I understand.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

How would you describe what you do?

I'm always scanning everything, looking for something that catches my eye and speaks to me. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know it will reveal itself sooner or later and I'll be like ‘oh! There it is!' It's part of looking for new spots to skate. It's like a sixth sense. I'm motivated right now, I'm happy with the natural flow of things lately and I have found a creative process that works for me. I feel like I'm the best version of myself and my taste has matured. I'm ready to be creative full time because making art is just something I've sprinkled into my skate career here and there. I only really make stuff when I know I have a show coming up or need to make a graphic for Palace, but I wanna start making art work regularly.

Why do you do it?

It makes me feel alive. All the work I've done is a true sign of life. Proof that I was here. To give life to an object or canvas or a skate spot and make it mean something to me and others is the thrill of it all. I think I could have a great career in the arts and make a living of it. I'm only a struggling artist if I don't make the work. When I make stuff, people seem to wanna get their hands on it. I've sold pieces to some people who have Basquiats and Warhols in their homes. My goal is to be in museums and cool books.

Who or what inspires you?

I wanna make stuff that's gonna shock people or make them go ‘wow, that's genius, that's brilliant'. I'm inspired by it all, literally every corner of life. I also just wanna have fun and kill time. Life can get stale. Making art is a nice way to spice it up. I don't care if I sell. Honestly, I'd rather keep everything I make because the things I make become objects of my affection and I just wanna be surrounded by them all forever.

What creative work got you excited when you were a teenager, and how does it align with what you're into now?

I used to love those eye spy games and colouring books. I'd rip apart my action figure toys and glue them back together in bizarre ways. In school, I was always hyped for art class. And during academic classes, I'd always get in trouble for drawing and being a class clown. I had this notebook of all these wicked things I sketched and my teacher confiscated it and had my mom come up to school for a serious talk because my teacher was concerned by the drawings, lol. And my mom was just like ‘are you kidding me?' She's always supported me skating and my art.

How would you describe your experience of working with Palace Skateboards?

I wanna know how Palace would describe their experience working with me first, lol, but yeah, basically, all the king's horses and all the king's men at Palace put me back together again. I've fallen hard in my life, being a real Humpty Dumpty, but Palace has been there to pick me up. It's been ugly, it's been beautiful. I feel lucky and I don't take it for granted anymore, and I wouldn't trade it for any other ‘job' in the world.

What were your thoughts on Palace prior to working with them?

I loved that they were using VHS to make their skate videos. That resonated with me because me and my brother love VHS tapes and the 90s. I knew nothing about house music or drum and bass or whatever, especially it being mixed in with skating, but then I was like ‘wow, I love the way this is making me feel adrenaline'. So when I hear a certain tune or sound similar to tracks in the vids, I'm like ‘that's Palace music'. I think A Clockwork Orange was all I knew about England at the time. I would never have guessed that London would basically become my second home and favourite place, and we'd all be travelling the world together becoming the coolest brand ever, opening shops all over the world. I just thought in the beginning, ‘ok, cool, I'm getting some free boards and cool colour block clothes with parrots embroidered on them. Everyone on the team is sound and rips'. I was still like, this isn't gonna go anywhere for me because I had no dreams and goals of becoming a pro skater and travelling. I was ready to just work some city job as a janitor or doorman and be stuck in New York for the rest of my life and skate for fun. Palace opened up the world for me. I will forever be thankful about that.

What are you currently working on?

I'm working on a never-ending poem. It's made up of things I've overheard on the streets, television, radio, my own thoughts. And I'm working on myself. I'm on a health kick and it's paying off. I'm skating and filming in New York right now. Working on my ‘retirement' part, lol. I've been shooting a lot with disposable, and I'm gonna make tons of paintings and statues.

Anything you'd recommend?

Places: Flushing Main Street, Chinatown, Little Italy, Upstate New York, Long Island, London, Korea, Japan. Books: mostly random poetry books I find, Paradise Lost, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders, A Streetcar Named Desire, the Bible but not for religious purposes. Just go to the library or a book store, pick up any book and flip through it. You might be into it. You don't know unless you try. Read more and write more. It's good for you. The brain is a muscle.

Tens of thousands of real human Wallpaper* print edition readers are out there: what is your message to them?!

I hope everybody has a good day and nobody gets hurt. Your attitude towards life and the people in it is everything. If you find yourself stuck in a tight situation, try to think of the next best thing you can do to get yourself out. If you're struggling, ask for help. Tough times come and go. Go for a walk and listen to some music. Eat something good for you. Drink water. Sleep. Take care of yourself.

• Meet the entire Palace Creative Universe

Earlier this week, Victoria Beckham revealed that her eponymous fashion and beauty line has made a profit for the first time in its 18-year history (she founded the label in 2008, and has hosted runway shows in Paris, New York and its native London). Those profits amounted to 7.3 million, something bolstered by her critically lauded beauty line, which launched in 2019. ‘We have all worked hard for a long time for this moment of profitability and growth,’ she told the Financial Times.

It feels an apt moment, then, for Beckham to open the doors to the brand’s second permanent home, an outpost in New York’s SoHo district. Designed as a companion to her 2014-opened London flagship on Mayfair’s Dover Street – a two-storey conversion in sleek planes of polished concrete by Farshid Moussavi Architects – the New York address was overseen by artist Alexander May and designer Ole Lund of LNP, drawing on the distinctive cast-iron, post-industrial architecture of the neighbourhood.

‘I really wanted the SoHo store to honour the building’s unique character and give the space a distinctly New York sensibility,’ Beckham tells Wallpaper*. ‘We did this by keeping some of the original features and drawing inspiration from the art deco world of Tamara de Lempicka.’ (De Lempicka, a Polish art deco artist known for her bold, stylised portraiture, inspired Beckham’s A/W 2026 collection shown at Paris Fashion Week earlier this year). ‘At the same time, it needed to feel unmistakably Victoria Beckham – warm, intimate and like an extension of the house.’

‘Our starting point was to create a distinctly New York expression of the Victoria Beckham world: precise and confident, but also intimate and welcoming,’ add May and Lund. ‘We preserved the original character of the SoHo building and introduced a disciplined palette of mineral tones, burgundy, marble, timber, lacquer and velvet, balancing the strength of the architecture with softer, more tactile elements.’ Beckham describes it as a clash of ‘masculine and feminine’, a juxtaposition which also runs through her runway collections.

Much of this mood is created through May and Lund’s curation of furnishing and textiles, which add a feeling of richness to the otherwise simple, wood-floored space. Velvet drapery and curtains, created in collaboration with The Shade Store, line the space’s entranceway, while bespoke sculptural, curving sofas were designed by Pierre Augustin Rose. Elsewhere, a pair of monolithic marble counters intersect the space, used to display accessories and beauty, while a Gio Ponti lantern hangs over the entranceway staircase. Paints draw on the palette of Dorset-based company Farrow & Ball.

The store’s opening coincides with New York Fashion Week, which begins next week (10-15 September) and will feature a number of other big-name retail launches, including a vast new Moncler store on Fifth Avenue and a new Acne Studios address in the West Village. They are part of a bricks-and-mortar luxury retail renaissance in the city, which is largely centred around Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, bolstered by ‘mega-flagships’ like the four-floor Peter Marino-designed House of Dior New York, which opened in 2025 on the corner of East 57th Street and Madison. In April, property company Savills placed New York as the top city for luxury retail openings for the first time since 2019.

‘New York is where I started my brand, showing my collections there for the first time in 2008, and it’s also where I launched my beauty business,’ says Beckham of the city, where she showed for a decade before shifting to London in 2018. ‘Today, my teams are based in London and New York, so to now have retail spaces in both cities feels incredibly special and exciting. They are two places that have truly become home to my brands.’

Victoria Beckham New York, 150 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012.

victoriabeckham.com

Sisters Laila and Nadia Gohar are always serving up something surreal, be it lace-trimmed dishwashing gloves, a plate covered in trompe l'oeil beans or a carousel in the shape of vegetables. Now the duo and their cult-favourite brand Gohar World are kicking it into a new gear with a limited-edition shoe design with Asics.

The Gohar World x Asics Gel-DS Trainer SP melds the aesthetics of a mid-aughts track spike with the feminine silhouette of a laced-up ballet slipper. Asics material innovations, like proprietary Gel in the rearfoot and carbon-reinforced Trusstic support layers in the arch, make the flat ideal for running around town.

‘We wanted to create a shoe that could move through a full day – from early mornings at the market to evenings around the table,’ affirms Laila Gohar, a former Wallpaper* guest editor. ‘It needed to be practical, but also beautiful and fun to wear.’

Adding to the fun are quirky Gohar World signatures, including a quartet of charms (one pearlescent bauble is in the shape of a chicken foot) and punk-y stainless steel ‘piercings’ looped through the shoe’s black mesh upper. Slick black vamps, silver accents and a signature bean-shaped Gohar World logo keep the kicks feeling fast and fierce – just like you will be wearing them.

The majestic landscapes of Tenerife’s Poris Desert – located on the volcanic southwestern coastline of the Canary Island – provide the backdrop for the latest work by South African land artist Strijdom van der Merwe. Recalling ancient standing stone circles, the 50m loop, etched into the land and dotted with rocks, is constructed as a trail-running loop for those athletes – both professional and amateur – who find themselves on the island, which has long attracted runners thanks to its temperate climate and rapid elevation changes.

The work was commissioned by the Swiss activewear brand On, best-known for its honeycomb-shaped ‘CloudTec’ soles, designed to make the wearer feel like they are running on clouds. Conceived to stand in the location until it is weathered and worn by time, it provides the setting for the latest edition in On’s long-running collaboration with Post Archive Faction (PAF), a Korean brand with an avant-garde approach to sportswear (garments often have a futuristic feel and intriguing pattern-cutting). Each ‘chapter’ of the collaboration has been titled ‘Current Form’, with the latest ‘Current Form 5.0’.

‘I first came across Strijdom’s work through PAF’s co-founder and creative director, Dongjoon Lim, and his team,’ Lucy Delacherois Day, On’s global senior director of product, tells Wallpaper*. ‘What really stayed with me was the way he works with the landscape rather than simply placing an artwork in it. The materials he finds, the geometry he introduces and the natural environment all become part of the work.’

‘At first I approached the project like any other large-scale land artwork,’ adds van der Merwe, who has created award-winning works in water, wood, rocks and stone, with minimal intervention to the environment. ‘Nature determines the material, the location and the outcome. After working closely with the On team, I focused on blending my own artistic values with theirs. I had to adapt to the brief without compromising my practice, and ultimately, it became a beautiful partnership between the freedom of working in nature and On’s focus on innovation and design.’

At the centre of ‘Current Form 5.0’ is a new version of the Cloudsoma trail-running shoe (available 3 September 2026 at on.com) its design drawing on the contours of rock formations. ‘It has a very clear visual identity – the swirling lines, asymmetric lacing and almost geological patterning,’ says Delacherois Day. ‘The abrasion-resistant, quick-drying upper is built to be used; CloudTec Connect allows the shoe to move naturally with the foot; and Missiongrip provides traction as the terrain changes. That’s the sweet spot for us: a product with a strong point of view that still earns its place through performance.’

‘In nature, rocks may look as though they have been placed randomly, yet together they create a balance that feels precise and sophisticated,’ says Dongjoon Lim of PAF. ‘The collection began with rocks I encountered while hiking in the Engadin region in Switzerland. I wanted the shoes to carry some of their ruggedness – their chaotic but beautiful forms, while still communicating movement and function.

‘I do not think of the six collections as a perfectly completed circle,’ he continues. ‘I focused on placing each point carefully and finding meaningful ways to connect them; only in retrospect do those points begin to resemble a circle. For me, an archive works in a similar way. It preserves what has already happened, but it also creates the foundation for what comes next. The legacy of the collaboration would be for people to remember how we brought nature, movement and technical function into conversation – and to see the end of this journey as the beginning of another.’

Current Form 5.0 launches on 3 September 2026, through on on.com, postarchivefaction.com, and select retail partners.

John Galliano is out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today, following a groundswell of public controversy, the museum announced that it has cancelled plans to proceed with a landmark Costume Institute retrospective of the British fashion designer’s work next May.

‘Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition,’ Max Hollein, the Met’s director and CEO said in a statement.

The show, titled ‘John Galliano: Horizons,’ faced immediate criticism concerning the designer’s past racist and antisemitic comments. Galliano was famously ousted as the creative director of Dior following an antisemitic tirade at a Paris restaurant in 2011, for which he was charged with a hate crime in France.

Though Galliano has publicly apologised for his past behaviour, and the museum met with Jewish leaders and promised to ‘address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception,’ the exhibition announcement was met with swift backlash from New York’s Jewish community and beyond – especially at a moment when antisemitic crimes are on the rise. According to the New York Times, museum donors threatened to withdraw funding if the exhibition proceeded.

The controversy ultimately compelled the museum and Galliano to change course. ‘After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time,’ Galliano said in a statement shared on Instagram.

‘I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,’ the designer added. ‘I also recognise and respect that an exhibition honouring my work would be painful for some.’

The Costume Institute show would have marked Galliano’s first major museum exhibition, a milestone that would anchor the museum’s glittering Met Ball. In addition to overseeing his eponymous label and Dior, the designer has served as the creative director of Givenchy and Maison Margiela. In its initial announcement, the museum called Galliano ‘one of the most inventive and influential designers of the past four decades.’

The museum has yet to announce plans for a replacement exhibition.

‘Design, for us, is ultimately the highest expression of hospitality and care,’ says Aesop’s creative director, Aï Kato. It’s easy to forget, 39 years from when the first Aesop store opened in Melbourne, just how much it changed not just the beauty industry, but retail in general. Common features of the retail landscape now – designing stores to suit the aesthetic of its city; minimalist, apothecary-inspired aesthetics; transforming something as simple as a hand soap into a luxury status symbol – were all pioneered by the brand.

So it’s always interesting when Aesop announces something new, especially when it's something like its new redesign of all its perfume bottles and launch of its new perfume, Unforseen Aer. For Kato, who became creative director in 2021, redesigning the bottle was never about departing from the brand’s essential philosophy; rather, ‘it was an opportunity to rethink how we invite people closer to our personal fragrances, deepening the dialogue around them.’

The result is a taller, finer silhouette than the original bottle, a domed base, and a tactile basalt-textured cap inspired by the bluestone of Melbourne. The changes are subtle, but Kato asserts in order to understand the full impact of the new design, it must be seen within the context of the store. ‘It was conceived to exist harmoniously within our retail spaces alongside the rest of our formulations,’ she says. ‘Together with the packaging, which acts like a quiet library where each fragrance is framed through a small window,it creates a cohesive world. It is a gentle invitation for curious minds to step closer, discover, and reflect.’

The scent itself is classic Aesop: richly woody, with botanical notes and a touch of spice. Yet, this particular scent has an intense minerality that makes it unique among Aesop’s fragrance offerings and distinguishes it from most fragrances in general. A blend of petitgrain, eucalyptus, and geranium, it has an almost icy freshness–like the smell of skin after a swim in a cold mountain lake.

For Kato, the new fragrance, and the bottle it comes in, are an apt reflection of the philosophy that has guided Aesop from the beginning. ‘My vision is anchored in the belief that whenever we introduce something into the world, it must represent a meaningful step forward – for people, for our communities, and for the planet,’ she says. ‘At the end of the day, everything we do is a meaningful exchange between human beings. [Unforseen Aer] is an expression of deep respect for our heritage, an elevated experience for the wearer, and a more conscious, enduring object designed to accompany our daily lives for years to come.’

Our medieval ancestors understood the value of clothes better than we do today. They dedicated a room and a person to treasure and guard their garments, hence we get the French word ‘garderobe’, from which the English ‘wardrobe’ is derived. In the late Middle Ages, as more people acquired more clothes, not everyone needed or could spare an entire walk-in wardrobe; so the room became a piece of furniture and the guard became a lock and key.

Wardrobe: there is an undeniable elegance to the word and object. It sounds – and is – so much more dignified than a fitted closet. The latter brings to mind tricky door tracks and a broken light fixture that’s impossible to replace. The modernist doctrinaire taught us it was swish to save on space by integrating wardrobes into the built fabric of our rooms. Perhaps this holds still in new-build hotels and housing developments, where convenience is prized more than soul. The Lion, the Witch and the Closet just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

CS Lewis harnessed rather than invented the otherworldly vestiges of the wardrobe, which has always had a sense of magic about it. After all, it’s a portal for transformation. If the mirror tells you who you are, the wardrobe asks you who you want to be, and lets you choose again and again. Like the belt, the wardrobe is also one of life’s gentle reminders not to be greedy. Its structure sets the parameters, dictating when enough is enough and it’s time to shed or vacuum pack a season deeper into storage. The wardrobe’s brazen Gen Z descendant – the rail – will lay your fashion bare for all to see, and implode when it gets too much.

It’s hard to convey just how revolutionary Belgian designer Maarten De Ceulaer’s 2008 graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven was. His ‘Pile of Suitcases’, stacked to become a wardrobe, offered near-infinite configurative possibilities. It was instantly snapped up by Nina Yashar of Nilufar, but its legacy was to cast a spell over all who saw it. Never again would we disrespect our clothes by stuffing them into a flimsy MDF closet system. All robes deserve proper warding.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Every product in Fara Homidi’s beauty line begins with a story. The one behind her latest launch goes like this: ‘I was a young girl in the 1980s and we had a pool in our apartment complex. There were always these teen beauties and women in their twenties that wore the coolest bikinis and brushed their long hair with Maison Pearson-like brushes while applying Banana Boat tanning oil. I wanted to be just like them when I grew up! Every time they dipped into the pool and came out, with their slicked-back wet hair, I always noticed in that moment, their eyelashes were starry-eyed and glistening, and darker from being wet.'

Thus, Pool Slick Lash Lacquer was born, a volumising, high-pigment mascara in an acid-yellow tube that leaves lashes with a glistening, fresh-out-of-the-water effect. Homidi was a celebrated make-up artist before she launched her namesake beauty line nearly four years ago. Since then, the brand has garnered a cult following thanks to its tight edit of products developed according to Homidi’s exacting standards of perfection. Alongside the brand’s coveted Lip Compact, the new mascara exemplifies just how hard Homidi will work to create a product that mirrors her vision to the T – she started its development when she launched the brand.

‘Mascara is the toughest category because every variable, from the type of wand fibres you choose to the rigidity of the stem, all affect the finish massively,’ she says. ‘Beyond building the formula itself so that it’s a glossy, long-wearing, volumising, lifting, fortifying and gentle formula, I really had to [use] trial and error for the custom packaging to meet the formula and perform precisely how I wanted it to.’

The final result is a formula designed to vitalise and hydrate with plankton extract to stimulate hair follicles and help increase lash density; pink pepper extract to darken lashes over time; and pomegranate seed oil for deep moisture. Although long-wearing and smudge-proof, the formula comes off easily with warm water. The wand is curved to a degree that mimics the shape of lashes, creating dramatic lift and volume. The banana-yellow packaging, inspired by a motocross helmet, gives it a bold, playful look (and makes it very easy to find in your bag).

When it comes to what’s next, Homidi hopes to grow steadily, producing products that set a new standard for the industry. ‘I think I’ve set such a high bar for myself already for branding and product formulation and packaging [that] staying true to the brand's standards and leading the beauty world to new places, as the brand grows, is a feat in itself.’

Clarks’ Wallabee, the British shoemaker’s moccasin-cum-desert boot first released in the 1960s, has for over six decades been embraced by an eclectic cross-section of society: rappers to ravers, skaters to Britpoppers, as well as those simply desiring the comfortable, ergonomic footwear for which Clarks has long been known.

It makes it the kind of intellectual property that is ripe for collaboration; as part of the Clarks Originals line it has been reimagined by the likes of Supreme, Stussy, Carhartt, Bape and Aimé Leon Dore, as well as Wu Wear, the clothing line of the Wu Tang Clan, which saw the Wallabee adorned with psychedelic swirls in colourways inspired by the lyrics to ‘Ice Cream’ and ‘Glaciers of Ice’ (hues spanned maple, navy and honey brown).

A new collaboration, though, between Moncler and Clarks Originals is perhaps one of the most intriguing yet. Titled the Trailgrip Wallabee GTX, it sees the classic Wallabee reworked with an amped-up sole using Moncler’s Trailgrip Vibram technology, allowing its wearer to better traverse the sort of terrain with which the brand is most associated (Moncler was originally founded in 1953 to outfit climbers traversing the peaks of Monestier-de-Clermont in the French Alps). The brand says the idea is to reimagine the Wallabee ‘as a performance silhouette’ (crafted from classic Wallabee suede, it also features a waterproof Gore-Tex lining).

Its release coincides with that of the latest Moncler x Fragment collection, part of an ongoing partnership between the Hiroshi Fujiwara-led, Tokyo-based label and Moncler that has been running since 2018 in various iterations. The Trailgrip Wallabee GTX features in the collection in an alternative all-black version, finished with Fragment branding along its side.

The collection itself, which features Fujiwara himself in the campaign, wearing a reversible varsity jacket of his own design, looks towards Japan and the mountains for inspiration, ‘stripping away the noise of the city, distilling it to its most essential elements before embarking on an aesthetic journey into the serene majesty of the summits’, as he says via the collection notes. And, for the first time, it includes a ‘FRGMTmini’ collection, comprising sized-down versions of the garments for children – the ultimate in ‘mini me’.

The Trailgrip Wallabee GTX is available from Moncler stores worldwide and moncler.com, while the Fragment Trailgrip Wallabee GTX, £630, is available from Moncler Ginza and moncler.com.

The Wallpaper* September 2026 Style Issue invites you to craft a new persona – an ode to an A/W 2026 season of shapeshifting looks. ‘For our annual digest of the A/W season, we’re drawing attention to the act of dressing and how we use clothing to create a persona, whether for purpose, pleasure or joy,’ wrote Bill Prince in his editor’s letter.

And, while our womenswear cover shoot saw model Aylah Peterson don a series of different personae for the lens of Antoine & Charlie, for our men’s cover shoot, we looked towards another act of transformation – the beauty pageant, albeit in unconventional style. Putting a cast of male models centre stage, photographer Steve Harnacke and Wallpaper* fashion & creative director Jason Hughes undid the usual froth and fantasy of the pageant for a series of spare and streamlined looks which pair denim with undone formalwear.

They spoke to the lean, narrowed line which ran through the season, from Dior to Prada. At the latter, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons called the look, which comprised slim double-breasted outerwear and tailoring, ‘eloganted and precise’, while at Celine, creative director Michael Rider said that his streamlined overcoats were part of the house’s DNA. ‘I do think Celine is a place you go to find beautifully cut clothing, a slimmer silhouette,’ he said.

Explore the shoot below.

Shop the story

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Models: James and Gregorio at Premier Model Management, Mbaye at W Mgmt, Isaac Welton Sylvestre at IMG, Rupert Guinness and Jack Dracula at Kult, River at Twelve Mgmt, Nathan Howell at Supa Model Management. Casting: Miro Raynov. Hair: Kachi Katsuya using Bumble & Bumble. Make-up: Josh Bart using Rhode. Set assistant: Archie Thomson. Hair assistant: In Hyeok. Make-up assistant: Molly Lynch. Fashion assistants: Lucy Proctor, Agnese Strode, Nathan Fox. Production assistant: Danielle Quigley.

In the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper* – on international newsstands now – we identified an embrace of the traditional rituals of dressing up which ran through the A/W 2026 season, from the continuing ubiquity of the tie to tuxedo jackets, opera gloves and evening bags. The cufflink was another – once relegated to the annals of sartorial history, the accessory remerged this season as designers reimagined the archetypes of formalwear in imaginative style.

Eight of the best cufflinks, A/W 2026’s unexpected menswear accessory

This was largely down to Prada, where Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons likened their A/W 2026 collection to ‘archaeology’, excavating the traditional elements of menswear dressing and reinterpreting them for now. Sometimes this was literal – shirts were purposely covered with dirt, as if dug up or retrieved from a long-forgotten wardrobe – though other pieces recalled a time of dressing with refinement and care. ‘We questioned what should remain, from the past – and what can you build, from what you learn?’ said Simons backstage at the show. ‘There is a lot here from the past. If you take the layers away, you always find a kind of beauty.’

This included cufflinks, which hung from the collection’s oversized shirt cuffs in jewellery-like flourishes of carved lapis, malachite and tiger’s eye; strange carved metal faces adorned with chains or beads; or chewing gum-like chunks of moulded resin. They feature here alongside eight of the season’s best cufflinks – from an Hermès classic to Paul Smith’s lucky coins.

Lit by a single strip of cool white, these sharp all-black clothes are staged within scenes from a stark odyssey. They are an exclamation mark. A slash through the disarray of dim biscuit, cloudy nude and wan magnolia.

Across the seasonal collections, designers made a case for the body as a graphic line. At Fendi, a roomy two-button blazer worn over a silk shirt with matching pleated skirt – all in black – hailed Maria Grazia Chiuri as the brand’s new chief creative officer. Chiuri pointed towards her vision: a rigorous, no-nonsense, un-anxious wardrobe. One deftly separated from the gurgling stream of generic, international good taste.

Studies often claim that those who consistently wear all black have more gravitas; they are likely indifferent to the flimsy cycle of trends, considered more reliable, more intelligent, more self-assured. ‘I think we must be pragmatic,’ Chiuri said after her A/W 2026 show, right on cue. ‘Fashion is not entertainment. Fashion is a job. I am that kind of designer.’ Black is potent, seductive and strong. It’s pragmatic.

This season, Rei Kawakubo – a designer as revered for her esoteric sculptural forms as her persuasive retail stores and maverick perfumes – also showed 21 jet-black looks for Comme des Garçons, punctuated by six in sugared pink. Of black, she said: ‘It’s just the strongest, the best for creation, and the colour that embodies the rebellious spirit. And has the biggest meaning: the universe and the black hole.’ Darkness and mourning, daring and chic, depth and solitude. The middle of the eye, the colour of flies, tar and obsidian. Our time calls for serious black. Sensuous black, all-encompassing black. Black as not white. Black that is not vague.

The blueprint of black as shorthand for chic was decided in 1926 when a sketch of Coco Chanel’s calf-length crêpe de Chine dress appeared in Vogue billed as ‘the frock that all the world will wear’. Exactly 100 years later, the four-pocket, five-gold-button trouser suit by the house’s fledgling creative director Matthieu Blazy, photographed here, captures the same kind of clarity. The little black dress with a big new agenda.

In wearing black, one is creating an image. An outline, a silhouette against the world. In 1960, actress Marlene Dietrich arrived for an interview with The Observer wearing a wild mink coat, a black Balenciaga dress, a black tulle hat, black patent leather pumps and a black crocodile handbag. ‘I dress for the image,’ she said. ‘Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.’ A total black look, unadorned and unencumbered by the melee of prevailing fads was, and still is, a declaration of independence.

We all dress for image, albeit for a much smaller screen than Dietrich’s. Becoming an image dressed in black is an exercise in body language; the clothes cannot speak alone. The late Professor Louise Wilson, who as director of the MA Fashion degree course at Central Saint Martins nurtured the careers of some of fashion’s most influential designers, knew this. She was as notorious for her commanding presence and iron will as she was for her signature uniform of all-black: cashmere in winter and linen in summer. Aged ten, she sewed a black tailored jacket and raw-edge, below-the-knee skirt for her Sindy doll and finished it off with a headscarf, patent belt and bag. Our enduring image of Wilson is fixed – and fixated – with her all in black. Wearing it kept the attention firmly on her glittering alumni.

Wearing black is partly a refusal to respond to the changing moods. It is something safe and understood, at times radical and often deeply personal. It is something that means the wearer doesn’t stand out – unless they want to. Both a protective shield and a clarion call.

Arriving in Paris in 1981, the designer Yohji Yamamoto proffered a harder edge and hue to the prevailing collections of the time, which were happily shaping the decade’s women into either campy sculpted sirens or frothy babushkas. Yamamoto’s collection of menswear tailoring for women in black may have irked journalists, but it delighted the public. He refused to drench women in a riot of patterns or drown them under layers of tulle. With black, he was asking us to strip away the superficial emotions and focus entirely on texture and form. Black, he said, was not an absence of colour, but its conclusion.

Away from the whims of fashion, the wearer is energised by its most ubiquitous shade. A head-to-toe black wardrobe is intense because it asks the wearer to do most of the talking. There’s no hiding behind it. The late couturier Azzedine Alaïa always wore head-to-toe black. ‘I rid myself of colour. I only want black,’ he once said. ‘Black is the most important colour for me. It is what I start with when I create a model: it makes the silhouette appear better.’

Poised here on a foamy leather sofa, or curved onto the edge of a shaft of glass, the nakedness of black – its totality – revels in the absence of somewhere to hide. If the whole world is sopping in quiet luxury’s de facto beige – and telling us about it in maddening Technicolor – it’s time for a look that gets right to the point.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Waleska Gorczevski at Models 1. Set design: Tobias Blackmore at Lalaland. Casting: Franklin Headen. Hair: Christos Bairabas using Oribe. Make-up: Claire Urquhart at Julian Watson Agency using Fenty Beauty. Manicure: Saffron Goddard using Chanel Le Vernis in Coco and Chanel La Crème Main. Digi tech: John Cronin. Photography assistants: Louise Oates, Tamibe Bourdanne, Pete Hargroves. Fashion assistants: Lucy Proctor, Nathan Fox. Set design assistants: Paula Salinas, Aurélie Simon. Production assistants: Archie Thomson, Ady Huq, Indy Davy. Hair assistant: Milita Nagelyte. Shot on location at Studio Wayne McGregor.

The Balearic island of Mallorca has long been a refuge for artists and writers. The island – with its rugged mountains, white sand beaches and hidden rocky coves – is said to possess a mystical kind of energy that emanates from its dramatic landscape, which has long attracted artistic outsiders and bohemian types. No part of the island has become more of a creative meeting place than Deià, a hilltop village on the island’s mountainous west coast. And now, to honour that history, the legendary La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, is drawing on the island’s creative legacy with its new collaboration with the Spanish fashion house Loewe and its annual Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, a rotating artist residency that sees former finalists installed in the storied hotel for two-month-long residencies, starting with the Japanese artist Kaori Juzu.

The drive to Deià from the bustling city of Palma de Mallorca is a striking one. The terrain starts out flat and slightly sunburnt, with almond farms and cyclists zipping past you on either side. But as you approach the Serra de Tramuntana mountains, the road becomes circuitous, winding up the steep hills as the landscape becomes rocky and intensely green. Eventually, after twisting upwards for about half an hour, the sea materialises at the bottom of a steep cliff, stretching out before you like a painted backdrop. The town of Deià itself is a cascade of sand-toned stone houses that lead to a centuries-old church at the crest of the hill. In the evening, a warm light paints the rugged mountains that cradle the sleepy town like a catcher’s mitt, fading into shades of pink and orange as the sun moves through the sky.

When it was founded in the medieval period by the Moors, Deià was a strategic settlement. Its elevated hilltop position allowed for visibility across the coastline, meaning it was relatively cut off from invaders and safe from roving Mediterranean pirates. In the 19th century, European noble families would come here to convalesce thanks to its mild weather and clean mountain air. The Polish pianist Frédéric Chopin, for instance, famously spent several months in the nearby town of Valldemossa, recovering from tuberculosis. In the 1930s, international artists discovered Deià’s peculiar magic when the British writer Robert Graves made this place his home. Others followed, including Anaïs Nin and Pablo Picasso.

That tradition is being continued by the artist and jewellery designer Kaori Juzu, who lived and worked in La Residencia this summer. The Fukuoka-born Juzu was nominated for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in 2023 for her intricate creations made out of bent copper and powdered enamel. ‘I start by fusing the metal to create these shapes,’ explains Juzu of her process. ‘And then I colour them with the enamel, which is actually powdered glass. I sift it over the surface and fire it several times to create a unique surface depth and colour.’

The piece that caught the attention of the Loewe Craft Prize jury was a series of 108 tiny compositions arranged in a grid on a white canvas, each of them a unique abstraction. ‘The number 108 is very significant for Japanese Buddhism,’ she says, noting that on New Year's Eve it is customary to ring temple bells 108 times. The coin-sized forms that make up the composition call to mind the colourful abstractions of Memphis Group prints, rendered minuscule in colour-drenched metal planes. Her more recent work, meanwhile, embraces more earthy, natural hues: tones that recall the greens of olive leaves or the mother-of-pearl sheen of oyster shells.

During her stint in Mallorca, Juzu has experimented with new shades and forms. Every morning before the gardeners arrive on the property – which sprawls over a series of olive-tree-studded stepped terraces in the centre of town – to clean up fallen leaves and wilted blooms, she slips out and gathers them herself to bring back to her studio. She then creates two-dimensional arrangements laid out on a canvas on the studio’s flagstone floor to inspire new colour combinations for her work.

‘Artists in Residencia’ is just the latest creative initiative for La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, which, from 2023 to 2024, collaborated with Galleria Continua. That partnership saw the hotel host a series of artists, including Daniel Buren and Arcangelo Sassolino as part of the gallery’s ‘MITICO’ series, alongside emerging talents such as Liang Fu and Berta De La Rosa. The hotel also boasts an extensive permanent collection, including a vast array of works by Joan Miró in its Miró restaurant, named in honour of the Spanish painter and sculptor. Following Juzu’s stay at La Residencia, the hotel will host ceramic artist Deirdre McLoughlin and textile artist Dahye Jeong – both part of previous editions of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize – continuing to nurture a new generation of artists in this storied Mallorcan town.

belmond.com

The American sunglasses brand Jacques Marie Mage is often deemed the ‘Rolls-Royce of eyewear’ for both its fastidious production – each pair is hand-made and polished in Japan or Italy, and constructed from the highest quality cellulose acetate – and relative scarcity, with styles often running in editions of less than 500 (like Rolls-Royce, they come with the price tag to match).

It is why, in lieu of the usual brand-on-brand collaborations, Jacques Marie Mage has instead largely united with notable cultural figures, from Patti Smith and Marianne Faithfull, to the acclaimed fashion designer Haider Ackermann. Or, indeed, their estates: such is the case with a longstanding collaboration with the late film director Stanley Kubrick, whose distinctive visual eye has inspired various Jacques Marie Mage styles since 2022.

Jacques Marie Mage is reissuing its Stanley Kubrick-inspired frames

These have included futuristic face-shielding frames reminiscent of those which appeared in Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, or those inspired by the 1980 horror The Shining, which were released earlier this year. The two-piece collection comprised the ‘Torrance’ sunglasses, a 70s-inspired rectangular silhouette, and the ‘Twins’ sunglasses, a more vivid butterfly shape which draws on the symbolism of ‘cinema’s most sinister siblings’. Both collections praised Kubrick’s ‘peculiar fusion of modernism and classicism, violence and absurdity,’ calling him ‘an auteur for the ages’.

This month, Jacques Marie Mage is revisiting the collaboration once again, reissuing two frames from 2022 that were inspired not by Kubrick’s movies but by the man himself. Available in new colourways, the two styles draw on two seminal decades in the director’s career: the 1940s and the 1980s. During the former, Kubrick began working in New York as a magazine photographer, before being drawn into the city’s arthouse cinema scene; during the latter, he released The Shining and Full Metal Jacket (1987).

As such, the ‘1948’ has a bookish, mid-century charm, directly referencing the eyewear worn by Kubrick while photographing figures like boxer Walter Cartier and entertainer Frank Sinatra for Look magazine in the late 1940s (he began at the publication aged 17 as a staff photographer). With rounded lenses and thick-rimmed frames, they feature sterling silver hardware and are crafted from 10mm curated acetate. Jacques Marie Mage describes them as ‘charming and cerebral’. They come in four colours: classic black, polished clear acetate, bottle green and red havana tortoishell.

The ‘1980’, meanwhile, is a sleeker aviator style, inspired by the sunglasses Kubrick wore while filming The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. Featuring metal titanium rims and bridge, they have a lightweight hand-feel and also come in four colourways: silver with black lenses, gold with blue lenses, champagne gold with brown lenses, and light gold with ‘darjeeling’ lenses. Available in limited-edition numbers, they are finished with ‘1980’ engraved on the arm.

‘[They] serve as a celebration of the life and creative output of one of the most brilliant, influential, and original filmmakers in cinematic history,’ say Jacques Marie Mage of the two styles. ‘Over the course of his career, [he] displayed a dynamic dedication to research and craft that shaped his films into timeless explorations of humour, hubris, horror, and hope. This unique collection of eyewear is an homage to the legacy of cinema’s obsessive genius, a sartorial tribute to the unflinching vision and aesthetic ingenuity that solidified him as an auteur for the ages.’

jacquesmariemage.com

Celebrity campaigns are a dime a dozen, but when Chanel Beauty takes on a new face it generates attention. That’s because the house’s reach and resonance are such that its campaigns often become familiar touchstones of their time. Case in point, chances are if you were around in the early 2000s, you remember the Baz Luhrmann-directed Chanel No 5 ad starring Nicole Kidman, or Keira Knightley running around Paris for Coco Mademoiselle.

Now, the brand has unveiled a fresh era for the house with a new fragrance Coco Mademoiselle: Crush Absolu, and a campaign film to match, starring singer Gracie Abrams and directed by Joe Wright, best known for directing Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Anna Karenina.

Gracie Abrams stars in Chanel’s latest fragrance campaign

The film depicts Abrams running away from the paparazzi in Paris, only to find herself in a café where she quickly galvanises a crowd of everyday Parisians to join her in an uproarious dance routine (and plays a lot of pinball), all with the kind of exuberant glamour you expect, and want, from a perfume campaign.

The film’s euphoric, nighttime atmosphere echoes the aura of the fragrance itself, which opens with a bright grapefruit and lychee accord, before settling into richer notes of rose, jasmine and a particularly potent note of patchouli. As Chanel’s in-house perfumer, Olivier Polge, says, ‘it’s a scent that is full of character. Patchouli is elevated by ambery notes, accentuating the fragrance’s sensual, powerful nature.’

For Abrams, who has already achieved worldwide fame, being a part of the Chanel Beauty family is a landmark moment. ‘It’s unreal to be the new face of Coco Mademoiselle,’ she says. ‘I feel an immense sense of pride. I love that Coco is someone who leaves a mark everywhere she goes. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like her.’

chanel.com

Paul Smith opened his first standalone store in 1970, in a tiny, windowless location in Byard Lane, a pokey Nottingham alleyway. In the years prior, he had cut his teeth at Birdcage, a tailor’s workshop-turned-independent boutique in the city. Its founder, Janet Campbell, entrusted the Beeston-born twentysomething with heading up its menswear department, and here Smith dressed the Midlands’ Mod scene in its signature razor-sharp, bespoke suiting, inspiring him to launch his own line of men’s shirts: Paul Smith Vêtements Pour Homme.

Six years after moving into Byard Lane, Smith set his sights on Paris, presenting his debut menswear collection in a friend’s apartment on Rue de Vaugirard. From then on, it wasn’t long before the world came to know the singular visual language of Paul Smith: a lexicon of heritage fabrics, British witticism, impeccable craftsmanship and riotous colour. International acclaim has never stopped Smith, who celebrated his 80th birthday in July this year, from remembering his Nottinghamshire roots.

‘Nottingham has shaped everything, not just design but my life,’ he says. ‘Growing up in that environment taught me to value quality, hard work and making things properly. At the same time, it’s a city full of unexpected contrasts, and I’ve always loved mixing those ideas – traditional tailoring with something unexpected.’

Though the Byard Lane shop closed in 2017, Paul Smith’s Nottingham flagship, which opened in 2005 just a stone’s throw away inside the Grade II-listed Willoughby House, still stands as one of the city’s landmarks. Since marking the brand’s 50th anniversary in 2020, Paul Smith’s Foundation has been systematically cataloguing its history within a dedicated archive at the company’s HQ, housing more than 5,000 garments and objects from Smith’s extensive personal collection. (Even the bicycle Smith crashed at the age of 17 sits within this ‘Aladdin’s cave’, as the brand describes it.)

Among its most recognisable pieces is a shirt from the 1980s, printed with plates of marinara-soaked spaghetti, inspired by a surreal wax model acquired by Smith during a trip to Japan. This sits alongside one of the earliest garments produced under the Paul Smith name: a bespoke white wedding suit made for a client in 1970. Further custom-made ensembles include those worn by the likes of David Bowie.

‘There are many pieces in the archive that mean a great deal to me, but not always because they are the most well-known,’ adds Smith. ‘That said, recently a lot of people have been talking about my S/S 1999 womenswear collection. It’s lovely to see people revisiting it with a new appreciation and finding inspiration in it all over again.’

‘Looking back to look forward’ is a theme that Smith has explored in his most recent work. For the past three menswear seasons, shows have been staged in Milan rather than Paris. The label’s A/W 2026 offering saw Smith work closely with the newly appointed head of menswear Sam Cotton, examining the Nottingham archive from a new perspective, with reworked, oversized 1990s silhouettes reimagined across outerwear and relaxed tailoring. ‘The joy of having this repository is that my own design team visit regularly and come back with great enthusiasm for things they found there,’ said Smith at the time.

The ever-expanding archive has also been developed with the future in mind. Paul Smith’s Foundation offers a Fashion Residency programme supporting emerging designers with access to the archive, mentors and a free studio space in London. Meanwhile, its biannual Archive Residency invites visual artists to explore the space and its contents before producing a project in response. ‘I am very proud of lots,’ says Smith, reflecting on his career. ‘But mentoring and supporting young creatives has always been paramount.’ Above all, he believes, ‘the archive tells the story of staying curious.’

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Lottie Morris and Thomas Bunce at Viva London. Casting: Jon Johnson. Hair: Kachi Katsuya using Bumble and Bumble Make-up: Lydia Ward-Smith using Dior Forever Foundation and Dior Capture Le Sérum. Photography assistant: Emmet Banahan. Fashion assistant: Louis Boyagis. Production: Amelia Studios. Retouching: André Jacques.

‘To me, Comme des Garçons embodies the absolute freedom to dress however you want,’ says Octavius La Rosa, founder of the Melbourne-based Dot Comme, a dealer of rare Japanese fashion. Next month, La Rosa – one of the world's most prolific collectors of Comme des Garçons – will part with 265 rare pieces from the Dot Comme collection at a landmark auction in London (15 September 2026).

Held in association with London-based auction house Kerry Taylor Auctions, the sale marks an opportunity to purchase pieces which span the breadth of Rei Kawakubo’s career – from the early years of Comme des Garçons in Tokyo, Japan (she founded the avant-garde label in 1973), to those from seminal collections like ‘Body Meets Dress – Dress Meets Body’ (S/S 1997) and ‘Broken Bride’ (A/W 2005). There will also be an offering from Junya Watanabe, a protégé of Kawakubo whose eponymous label sits under the Comme des Garçons umbrella of brands.

‘I took a trip to Tokyo when I was 18 and fell in love with the pieces I found at the second-hand stores,’ says La Rosa, who has operated a Dot Comme store in Melbourne for 50 years, as well as a newer location in Saint-Germain, Paris (his full 4,000-piece collection will move to the French city this autumn). ‘I took a suitcase full home, and that was the start of my love affair with the brand. The aim was always to build a collection first, business second, and nothing has changed – I still spend 70 per cent of my waking hours thinking about Comme.’

Notable pieces in the sale include a black raincoat from the 1970s (‘it is rare to find pieces from Rei Kawakubo’s early collections in Japan’), a wool ensemble from her A/W 1981 ‘Pirates’ collection (part of the first collection she showed in Paris which marked the arrival of a radical new force in fashion), and an intricate trompe l’oeil dress from A/W 2005 ‘Broken Bride’, which represents a shift towards the ‘explosive’ silhouettes which would define Comme des Garçons ouevre in the 2010s and 2020s. A handful of menswear garments will also be available in the sale.

Kawakubo, who is now 83 years old, is one of contemporary fashion’s most influential forces, known for both her provocative runway collections – garments often operate more like sculpture, featuring bold protrusions of fabric and manipulated silhouettes – and concept retail spaces, including Dover Street Market, which she founded with husband Adrian Joffe in 2004 (it now has outposts in Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Beijing and Singapore). Her work has been featured in several exhibitions, including ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2017, and the more recent ‘Westwood Kawakubo’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in 2025.

‘What I’ve only ever been interested in is clothes that one has never seen before, that are completely new, and how and in what way they can be expressed,’ she said on the occasion of the former. ‘Is that called fashion? I don’t know the answer.’

Kerry Taylor Auctions Presents Dot Comme: The Auction takes place on 15 September 2026. The collection will be available to view on 11 September, 13 September and 14 September at Kerry Taylor Auctions, 249-253 Long Lane, London SE1 4PR.

kerrytaylorauctions.com

Amid the pantomime of street style at Copenhagen Fashion Week’s S/S 2027 edition, Galib Gassanoff’s show provided a welcome jolt of poetry. Inside the Statens Museum for Kunst, the runway was lined with tightly patterned carpets from the Caucasus mountain region between the Black and Caspian Seas. These antique pieces became a platform for sculptured silk coats, finely knit shawl cardigans and spare black trousers, while evoking the tangled history of Central Asia, Northern Iran, Anatolia and Eastern Europe.

‘These carpets have specific knots which all of these cultures have shared in their making. They unified everyone as they each added their own ornaments, colours and gestures. The carpets represent this kind of sharing,’ Gassanoff tells Wallpaper*.

‘My idea is not about fashion. It is more about culture, ethnography, craftsmanship – that is what interests me the most. I’m a little far from the glam of fashion,’ the Zalando Visionary Award 2026 winner and finalist for the 2026 LVMH Prize says. Gassanoff presents under the name Institution. ‘It’s not a fashion brand, it’s a roof. It’s not only me, but also the team and communities I’m finding in my region; I want to amplify that to cover more regions, more stories and more places – that is my priority overall.’

Aesthetically and geographically, the city of Copenhagen is a fair distance away from Gassanoff’s roots. He grew up in a village of just 4,000 people on the outskirts of Tbilisi in Georgia where everyone spoke the same dialect and everyone, he remembers, looked alike. As a child, he was interested in folklore and clothing, the tradition of head scarves and so on, but he didn’t know what fashion design was. At 13, surfing the World Wide Web for the first time, he discovered John Galliano’s eccentric work for Dior.

‘That impacted me a lot. I saw lots of ethnographic elements showcased on a scene in a theatrical way, with the music and the characters. It resonated with me. I realised that maybe I could unify all my passions: music, visual art, clothing, culture, and message, all of it, through fashion.’

At 18, Gassanoff moved to Milan to study at Haute Future Fashion Academy after receiving a scholarship. ‘I have been a guest there, just like I am here in Copenhagen. I’m Azerbaijani of Georgia, so I’m an ethnic minority there too,’ he says. Italy has introduced Gassanoff to ways of making from the 1950s that are somewhat endangered today. Not many tailors are making in the same way, using horsehair and canvases or handstitched hemlines because it takes so much longer. ‘Everyone is rushing to industrialise everything but I wanted to keep all of that skill. Yes, you can do a lot with the machine, but I prefer that there is a human touch.’

Gassanoff’s show encapsulated that commitment to the artisanal: his models wore Azerbaijani ‘jorab’ socks and sculptural cotton cord tabards hand-knitted by women he’d met in his native region. White silk chiffon robes were covered in ‘Tetri’ coins, the fractional currency introduced after Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1995. They are a symbol of freedom, democracy and national rebirth. The pieces open to become totally flat, offering a new form as a wall piece or tapestry. ‘It’s not something to be sold, it’s something to be collected,’ he says. ‘It’s a one-of-a-kind piece. I’m trying to encourage a dialogue between what is art, what is textile, what is collectable, what is clothing.’

Gassanoff’s work is layered in the residue of the different places he represents and yet has stepped away from. It evokes the distance between Azerbaijan and Georgia; the move from village to city; fashion as a mode of art. Gassanoff’s guest spot on the week’s show schedule forged yet another context. A blank page. ‘Scandinavia couldn’t be an inspiration for me because I don’t live here. I worked a lot with volumes, but I wanted all the attention to be on the carpets, which are very rich. I am myself a guest here, and when I go back, it will remain a memory. A dream. Just like I went to sleep, and then woke up.’

institutionstudios.com

Christian Dior launched the original Miss Dior in 1947 alongside his famous ‘New Look’ collection as an olfactory homage to his beloved sister, Catherine, a French Resistance fighter who survived multiple concentration camps and, upon returning to France, dedicated her life to cultivating flowers. The 1947 perfume was an unconventional chypre-floral loaded with galbanum, gardenia, rose, leather, and patchouli. A bold, attention-catching scent that was somehow both soapy and animalistic, and defied – much like Catherine – the norms of the time.

The modern-day Miss Dior Eau de Parfum is a softer, more feminine interpretation of the original with notes of rose (a nod to Catherine’s love of her garden), tinged with vanilla and almond, and a delicate touch of wood. It has become an icon in its own right, a fact that made it all the more difficult for acclaimed French illustrator and art director Ugo Bienvenu to come up with a campaign concept for the scent that reflected its history while presenting viewers wth something novel.

‘We decided to focus on three key themes: inspiration (Catherine Dior, Christian’s sister, his childhood and Provence), creation (Christian Dior’s first fashion show and the first time the fragrance was unveiled), and continuity, the fragrance’s place in today’s world (a tribute to the various advertising campaigns),' says Bienvenu. 'We agreed on these ideas and developed a storyboard with Stephen Vuillemin and designs with Arthur Sevestre. We then set our animation team to work.’

The final creation is a joyful, technicolour celebration of the fragrance’s history, from its debut at Dior’s famous ‘New Look’ show in 1947, to its more contemporary iteration as a pink solution in a square, bow-topped bottle with the actress Natalie Portman as its spokeperson.

To develop the concept, Bienvenu and his team scoured ‘a huge amount of documentation covering the entire history of the fashion house and the fragrance’ that was given to them by Dior.

It is no surprise, then, that the film is steeped in historical brand references, some of which will be clear to those of the house, while others will only be spotted by the most devoted fans. It’s the first time the house has ever taken such an approach to the visuals for its fragrance. The finished product is not only playful but also points to Dior’s dedication to craft (the film’s backgrounds were created entirely by hand using gouache and acrylic paint) and commitment to push itself into modern and unexpected territories.

In the end, Bienvenu says, he tried to create a film that balanced the house’s history with a high-spirited vision. ‘We have tried to create a campaign that is dynamic, youthful, romantic and light-hearted too. Whilst highlighting that the fragrance is not new, it is deeply rooted in the history of the house and its creator. It features notes of time-honoured elegance.’

Watch the film below.

British fashion designer Torishéju Dumi’s studio is located in the north London neighbourhood of Tottenham, part of a new outpost of Sarabande, the charitable foundation set up in 2006 by Lee Alexander McQueen that provides studio spaces for young artists to practise their craft. Taking over a pair of renovated Queen Anne buildings, built in the early 1700s for Sir Hugh Smithson, Duke of Northumberland, one was previously a warren of private flats, the other abandoned for half a century. The aim of the project, led by architecture studio F3 under the supervision of Sarabande director Trino Verkade, was one of minimal intervention, leaving the buildings’ original features in a state of perpetual decay: there are worn-away brick walls and doors bearing scratch marks from previous inhabitants, while original wallpaper, peeled and faded, is preserved behind glass, as one might find a wall of mosaics in a Roman ruin.

It feels like an apt home for Dumi’s eponymous label, Torishéju, which, despite its contemporary vision, is rooted in the past. In her collections, she undertakes similar acts of excavation and renovation, drawing on the contours of historical costume and radically shifting their context through clever manipulation of silhouette and fabric. Her pieces, which belong in the permanent collections of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have a spectral quality, rendered largely in black. ‘Maybe because of my Catholic upbringing, I have always been fascinated with the otherworldly,’ she says, citing a love of horror, though not of the ‘blood and gore’ kind, but the gothic and the spiritual. ‘I’m always thinking: what else is out there?’

Born in north-west London to a Nigerian mother and Nigerian-Brazilian father, Dumi grew up attending Catholic church (the family later moved to Hertfordshire, then Buckinghamshire). As a child, she remembers making things with her hands, and though she knew little about fashion as an institution, she was always interested in clothing, with early memories of priestly robes and her mother’s wardrobe proving transformative. ‘There were certain bits of clothing I loved – like the sleeve of a jacket or the layers of a skirt – but I didn’t have a clear understanding of what fashion was,’ she says. After finishing school, she attended De Montfort University’s art foundation course in Leicester, allowing her a year of voracious experimentation across mediums. ‘It was the best experience of my life: for a year, every day, I just immersed myself in painting, or in the wood or metal workshop, or made things with clay.’

It was around this time that Dumi discovered the work of designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, who pioneered an alternative way of making fashion, one largely unburdened from commercial concerns. ‘I realised that fashion could be more than just clothing,’ she says. ‘I loved the craft of what they were doing, the worlds that they were creating.’

After her foundation, she took the Menswear BA at London College of Fashion (LCF), followed by the MA Fashion course, under Fabio Piras, at Central Saint Martins (CSM). She graduated in 2021, then briefly taught on the costume course at LCF before launching her first eponymous collection in 2023. Titled ‘Mami Wata’, its name references the water spirits that appear in both Nigerian and South American folklore; as such, garments were constructed to appear as if they had been submerged under water.

Drawing the attention of American stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a rapid ascent followed: the following season, Dumi was showing her S/S 2024 collection as part of Paris Fashion Week, with Naomi Campbell opening the show. Using deadstock fabric given to her by designer Craig Green, the collection was titled ‘Fire on the Mountain’ and saw draped silhouettes and knotted forms recalling the traditional Nigerian lappa (a means of wrapping the body in fabric) meet elongated monastic overcoats and splashes of papal red. It was enough to convince Dover Street Market’s Adrian Joffe to purchase the collection for his stores. ‘I had made it in my Hackney flat on a domestic sewing machine, and then it was on the runway in Paris being worn by Naomi Campbell,’ says Dumi. ‘Afterwards, I thought I’d just come back to my life, to teaching. But then Adrian said he wanted to buy it, and I thought: what have I got myself in for?’

In 2025, she was awarded the Savoir Faire Prize at the LVMH Prize for Young Designers, and her clothing has been worn by the likes of Zendaya, Jack Harlow and Kendall Jenner, the latter choosing her to dress her for the Met Gala, which celebrated the opening of the Costume Institute exhibition ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’. Befitting the theme, Dumi’s grey tailored jacket with draped sleeves and matching skirt drew inspiration from queer Black Harlem Renaissance singer Gladys Bentley. She also used the look to reference her Nigerian heritage, with the jacket’s ties recalling the wrapped shirts she has memories of her grandfather wearing. This idea of cross-cultural pollination informs much of her work, particularly the way that British dress codes were both adopted and subverted by Nigerians as a result of colonial rule. ‘You see it even now, in the bowler hat, the suit jackets,’ she says. ‘But then they merged with these Nigerian fabric wraps, like the iro and the lappa. I want to explore that mix from a new perspective.’

These influences continue to inform her A/W 2026 collection, though the designer sees it as an evolution, noting a desire to ‘elevate’ the offering as she grows in experience. The severe nipped-waist on a tailored jacket recalls Christian Dior’s 1947 Bar jacket (here rewritten with twists of fabric on the chest, which might represent flowers or ‘black holes’), while elsewhere woven and knotted details, or extra sleeves designed to be tied around the body, continue to reference the lappa. Fabrics are a juxtaposition of coarse boiled wools and smooth duchesse satin – a textural expression of the state of in-between she likes to occupy in her work.

Currently working on her S/S 2027 collection, which she will show in September in Paris, Dumi speaks of her creative process with an almost spiritual fervour. In the run-up to starting a collection, she will often fast for 12 hours during the day, doing so until she hits on its essence. Then, she will work rapidly until the collection is completed, at least in its initial form. ‘I have to wait like six days for the idea to come out,’ she says. ‘But then it breaks free.’

Dumi believes that one day her practice will extend beyond clothing, perhaps to furniture or art. She says she cannot imagine not undertaking some kind of creative pursuit, though sometimes the demands of running a young label can be gruelling. She credits her will to continue to her close network of supporters: designer Craig Green, Sarabande’s Trino Verkade, Adrian Joffe, photographer Sølve Sundsbø, and her old tutors Fabio Piras (CSM) and Rory Mooney (LCF). ‘The people who I surround myself with are human,’ she says. ‘But they are also determined; they get things done by fire or force.’ One aspiration is to become a creative director of a house, which would make her a rare Black female designer in the role.

But for now, Dumi is in no rush. And she believes in fate: her A/W26 collection is titled ‘When It Rains, It Pours’, something her mother would often say, though she believes the adage applies to both the good and the bad. ‘It’s just this domino effect in life; certain things need to happen for other things to happen,’ she says. ‘But I’d rather play the long game and wait. Life is long, and I’m ready.’

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Tess Grootjen at Premium Models. Casting: Abi Corbett. Hair: Romain Duplessy at WSM Local production: Perrotte Production.

The September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper* embraces the transformative power of clothing: ‘For our annual digest of the A/W 2026 season, we’re drawing attention to the act of dressing and how we use clothing to create a persona, whether for purpose, pleasure or joy,’ wrote Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Bill Prince in his editor’s letter.

As part of the issue, we selected ten looks, accessories and trends that defined the A/W 2026 season – from the return of the cufflink at Prada to an all-new power suit at Saint Laurent. Discover them below.

Cuff links (top left)

The cufflink enjoyed a revival at Prada’s menswear show. Appearing on the shirts’ oversized cuffs – some purposely stained as if weathered by wear – it came in colourful enamel forms, and recalled a bygone era of dressing with refinement and care. ‘There is a lot here from the past,’ said co-creative director Raf Simons. ‘There’s the knowledge that you still want to celebrate and use, but you also want to innovate.’

Body conscious (top right)

Pieter Mulier’s final collection for Alaïa rounded out a tenure in which the Belgian designer proposed a vision of modern beauty rooted in the codes of the label’s founder. The show, held at Paris’ Fondation Cartier, opened with a trio of body-contouring dresses in engineered jersey, a longtime signature of the house. ‘At Alaïa, I learned that real luxury is not what we think,’ said Mulier. ‘It is a perfectly cut jacket.’

Oversized collars

There is an innate sense of drama to the exaggerated collar, a face-framing device favoured by historical monarchs and Disney villains to denote absolute power. At Bottega Veneta, Louise Trotter used the blown-up collar to add a theatrical flair, suggesting a mood of both glamour and protection (she said the collection was inspired by the clash of ‘brutalism and sensuality’ in her new home city of Milan).

Flat footwear

Footwear for men this season is still resolutely flat. Jil Sander’s Simone Bellotti proposed a riff on the ballet shoe – rendered in soft leather, its futuristic moulded rubber sole is reminiscent of the ‘Hood’ shoe, one of his first creations for the label. In his former role as creative director of Bally, Bellotti was also responsible for the ‘Plume’, a loafer-cum-boat shoe that became a viral hit.

The tuxedo

Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello celebrated 60 years of Yves Saint Laurent’s provocative ‘Le Smoking’, a female version of the men’s tuxedo. Vaccarello’s version – worn with side-slicked hair and a heavily smoked eye – was cut with a sloped shoulder and a narrowed, but not constricting, waistline. His take on the ‘power suit’, he said, was more ‘insouciant shrug than swagger’.

Sheer layers

Under the banner of ‘Mindful Intimacy’, the Miu Miu collection straddled a mood of toughness and delicacy – the former in chunky, rubber-sole shoes, trapper hats and crinkled leather jackets, the latter in sheer camisoles and dresses, adorned with crystals. They were pure Miu Miu: sweet but not saccharine, worn on the runway by a cast of notable women, including Gillian Anderson and Kristen McMenamy.

Lightweight leather

This season, leather was reimagined with a new lightness and ease. At Tod’s, leather handkerchief dresses had the fluidity and drape of cotton, while at Bottega Veneta, it was used to create slouchy tunics and roomy raincoats. Véronique Nichanian, in her swansong show as Hermès menswear artistic director, made top-to-toe leather a viable look, rendering a tailored suit in ultra-soft embroidered calfskin.

Slim lines

A slimmer line and long, lean silhouettes were conspicuous on the menswear runways, defining collections from the likes of Prada, Dior and Celine. At the last, American creative director Michael Rider presented a double-breasted evening jacket, elongated in length and sleek in shape. ‘I do think Celine is a place you go to find beautifully cut clothing, a slimmer silhouette,’ he said.

Opera gloves

The opera glove has been a symbol of refinement since the Tudor age, when Elizabeth I would wear white kidskin versions adorned with velvet embroidery and gold fringing. The item is currently enjoying a fashion renaissance, appearing everywhere from Mugler to Michael Kors. This suede Max Mara pair, worn scrunched towards the wrist, was inspired by 11th-century military commander Matilde di Canossa.

Dropped waist

The dropped waistline was a defining facet of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s approach to dressmaking, the low-slung proportions allowing the body to move freely. Seeking a similarly liberatory spirit, Chanel creative director Matthieu Blazy revived the silhouette this season, with some waistlines so low, they hung below the hips. ‘I want to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they want to be,’ said Blazy.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Models: Eduarda Muehlmann at PRM, Chol Mabior at Models 1. Casting: Monika Domarke. Set design: Haruka Kogure. Hair: Yumi Nakada Dingle using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance using Shiseido. Manicure: Nichole Williams at Stella Creative Artists using L’Occitane. Photography assistant: Scott Archibald. Fashion assistant: Ilaria Guerra. Production assistant: Indy Davy. Set design assistant: Cedrick Jison.

In 1994, German fashion designer Jil Sander commissioned Michael Gabellini to conceive her Milanese HQ, which would occupy a former palazzo and cinema on the city’s Piazza Castello. The architect had recently designed Sander’s inaugural Paris store, housed in a Beaux-Arts building on Avenue Montaigne originally built for Count de Lariboisière in 1890 and later occupied by the French couturier Madeleine Vionnet. Retaining its regal façade, the interior was transformed with what Gabellini would describe as ‘radical simplicity’ – linear planes of limestone, flooded light, floating surfaces – a reflection of Sander’s approach to clothing, which saw her strip away the extraneous in search of a purity of design (though she is most associated with minimalism, she has always eschewed the label, preferring the terms ‘pure’ and ‘modern’ when describing her work).

The Milanese HQ was built on a similar conceit. Within the building’s neoclassical shell, the interiors are an exercise in cool restraint: ascending a two-storey staircase, adorned with matte nickel hardware, guests reach a reception room that leads to a vast limestone promenade connecting the various rooms. It also takes you into the space’s nexus: a sunken, multi-use ‘theatre’, used, at turns, as a photography studio, meeting space, showroom and setting for the house’s runway shows. The offices are beautifully empty: so much so that the views of the neighbouring Castello Sforzesco – its Renaissance grandeur glimpsed through the arched windows that line the space – become a form of decoration.

The HQ has served as something of a muse for the Italian designer Simone Bellotti, who became the house’s creative director in early 2025 after a brief but acclaimed stint at Swiss brand Bally. His time there, from 2022-2025, saw him deemed a fashion editors’ favourite for collections that married rigour and restraint with off-kilter silhouettes – jaunting peplums, sloping shoulders, raised-up necklines – and an influence of subculture (his heavy use of leather drew on the work of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger, renowned for his portraiture of local teen biker gangs in the 1950s and 1960s). He also spawned a handful of successful accessories for the brand, including the ‘Plume’, a loafer-cum-boat shoe that remains ubiquitous in style circles today.

Taking over from husband-and-wife duo Luke and Lucie Meier, who exited Jil Sander in early 2025, one of Bellotti’s first moves was to bring the house’s runway shows back into the space. He would show his debut S/S 2026 collection at the HQ in September 2025, part of a watershed season shared with numerous other creative director debutants (15 designers began their tenures across the various fashion cities, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel and Jonathan Anderson at Dior). ‘I was interested to see all this excitement about what was happening in fashion,’ says Bellotti. ‘It was almost like people talking about football teams. I think it’s good for the industry.’

For that first show, models – including Guinevere van Seenus, a Jil Sander muse who memorably appeared in the house’s seminal Craig McDean-shot campaigns in the late 1990s – walked the length of the HQ, before dipping into its central theatre via a slanted runway clad in industrial studded black rubber. Clean and precise, the setting was a reflection of the collection itself, which Bellotti described as an attempt to return Jil Sander to its essence.

‘I remember my first day. I was nervous because they asked me to do a speech for the whole staff,’ he says. ‘We were in the headquarters, on the Castello side. When you are there, you start to understand what the brand is; you get this sense of light and modernity. But at the same time, there is the view of the castle, which is so classic. I realised Jil Sander is about the mix of these elements – when you go deeper into the archive, there is always this tension between something traditional, like masculine tailoring, and the need to make it light and open.’

As if a metaphor, several garments from the first collection were sliced across their surface, which critics likened to the work of Italian artist Lucio Fontana, though Bellotti says they were simply an attempt to capture the spirit of the brand: ‘Jil Sander is about showing and revealing the skin, the humanity, the body, and letting it breathe.’

Indeed, from the earliest days of the label (Sander opened a boutique in Hamburg in the late 1960s before creating her first official collection in 1973), the eponymous designer sought to streamline the clothing that surrounded her growing up in midcentury Germany. ‘People had a sense for cuts and quality fabrics. What was lacking in my view was modernity,’ she said in 2024 (in a Wallpaper* interview, as her monograph, Jil Sander by Jil Sander, was released). ‘Looking back, I realise I was part of a broader reawakening that influenced my childhood in Hamburg,’ she continued, referencing Germany’s rebuilding after the destruction of war and Nazi rule. ‘I was witness to a democratic reconstruction, a clearing away of anything standing in the way of a better future.’ (Sander would work at the house until 2000; returning briefly in 2003 for just over a year, and later in 2012, months after the exit of Belgian designer Raf Simons, before leaving again in 2013.)

The first garment Bellotti remembers designing at Jil Sander was a blue sweater, an addition to a pre-collection that had already been largely designed: ‘It was very simple, with a nice detail at the collar, very classic – like a T-shirt in wool’. Similar sweaters, contoured to the body and in colour-blocked shades, appeared in his first runway show, alongside crisp, shrunken tailoring, double-faced leather coats and blue jeans, while an intriguing eye for pattern-cutting led to jutting skirts inspired by Richard Prince’s Hoods, a series of paintings that used the bonnets of muscle cars as undulating metal canvases. The outward simplicity of other garments belied the hours of craft they took to construct – like a series of dresses and skirts made from hundreds of layers of organza-like fabric that fluttered open ‘like the pages of a book’.

Even if the final result is different, Bellotti says such attention to detail was influenced by the time he spent under Alessandro Michele at Gucci, a designer known for his maximalist collections that drew from the opulent annals of history (Bellotti was at Gucci for 16 years, working with Frida Giannini before Michele). ‘The approach is not so different,’ says Bellotti, who will often spend weeks researching fabric or perfecting a garment’s cut. ‘It takes an extraordinary amount of work to make something look simple.’

Looking back now, almost a year later, he sees the first collection as a palate cleanser. ‘The first show was about reducing and building a base to work on; it was important to do something that was precise and light. But with my second collection, I wanted to try and do the opposite. I always had this question in my mind: what can I add to a brand that is famous for reduction? So I thought about adding fabric, a useless amount of fabric behind the coat or the dress. I was [wondering] if something superficial can become essential.’

It led to an A/W 2026 collection, shown in February in Milan, that evolved the stark simplicity of his debut with flourishes of colour and texture: the vivid blue of a pair of tights appeared from beneath a tailored trouser, a pencil skirt came in leopard print, while a series of padded ‘mattress’ dresses saw Bellotti inspired by his late father’s career as an upholsterer. Other pieces were purposely worn in to make the collection appear ‘more real’ – a pair of scuffed suede pumps looked like they had taken a turn on the dancefloor – while an undercurrent of sensuality, evoked in slashes running the length of a skirt or dresses that appeared to be perpetually slipping off the shoulder, drew on Anders Petersen’s photographs of Café Lehmitz in Hamburg’s red light district in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ‘I’ve mainly worked with menswear, and it’s fun to work on womenswear and see all of the possibilities. I think it’s important to have something superficial,’ he said, likening the collection to an ‘olive in a martini’.

Another thematic thread was the idea of home: in a nod to the domestic, a rust-coloured carpet was laid the length of the Jil Sander HQ, which Bellotti chose once again as the setting for the sophomore show. ‘A home is a place one might seek refuge in or want to flee from,’ read the collection notes, a tension explored in Italian author and filmmaker Chiara Barzini’s The House above the Sea, a poem read by Kim Gordon as the show’s soundtrack. ‘We roamed the streets and crossed the bridges and then the oceans / We took trains and rides from strangers / Only to be home again... Escape and return are the same,’ it reads.

‘I think the idea of home was related to the idea of a house, a fashion house,’ says Bellotti, who describes the task of a creative director as a constant balance between reverence and departure. How do you live in a house that someone else has built? ‘When we are at home, if we are lucky enough to have a home, and even if we love it, sometimes we need to escape, to explore something new. What can I add to this brand? How far can I go, and what is the moment to stop? It takes a lot of experimentation and time. It’s psychological.’

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

All clothing from the A/W 2026 collection by Jil Sander (jilsander.com). Models: Marie De Clercq at Fabbrica Milano, Modu Fall at Elite Model Management. Casting: Suun Consulting. Hair: Daniele Falzone at Blend Mgmt using Phyto Paris. Make-up: Luciano Chiarello at Julian Watson Agency. Photography assistant: Kevin Ramos. Fashion assistant: Florencia Greco. Local production: Giacomo Barbon at Circus Studios.

‘Funner came about as more of an art project,’ says Jonah Kaner, one of a trio of founders of a new haircare brand which launches this month with a 21-product routine. ‘Beauty has always felt emotional and expressive to me. But hair care specifically had started to feel a little cold and clinical – of course performance matters deeply, and the products have to work, but I felt there was room to bring back more feeling, more artistry, more curiosity.’

Cue Jonah, who is the son of Oribe founder Daniel Kaner (his father also serves as a co-founder of Funner, alongside his mother, make-up artist and entrepreneur Sonia Kashuk), draft cult agency M/M (Paris) and acclaimed British photographer Jamie Hawkesworth as collaborators on the project. The former has created the unique packaging – featuring undulating bottles, scalloped edges and expressive motifs – as well as the colourful circular branding, while Hawkesworth has shot an accompanying campaign.

‘Working with M/M Paris was foundational to Funner,’ says Jonah. ‘From the beginning, the ambition was not just to create packaging around formulas, but to build a graphic language that could carry the entire brand. I wanted the products to feel like objects with personality: something you would notice in a salon, want to pick up, and remember afterwards.’

The name itself was dreamt up by Daniel Kaner, capturing what Jonah sees as the essence of the brand: ‘[something] a little imperfect, a little unexpected, and immediately emotional. It is not about fun in a childish way. It is about the feeling of possibility: trying something new, seeing yourself differently, leaving the salon with a little more confidence than when you walked in. Hair can be serious because it is so tied to identity, but it should also be playful.’

But Jonah is also insistent that these products aren’t just about their outward aesthetics: each of the 21 products – a ‘full wardrobe for hair,’ as he describes – has been meticulously developed alongside stylists, and draws on ‘real-world salon experience’ (alongside a launch on the brand’s website and selected retailers, Funner has also debuted at a series of international salons). Formulas are sulfate-, paraben-, and silicone-free, covering a range of concerns, from colour protection to scalp care and hair longevity.

‘A salon product must perform under pressure. It has to work across different hair types, textures, services, and styling needs – and it has to earn trust quickly,’ he says. ‘For Funner, that meant developing products that support the health and longevity of the hair while also giving stylists creative flexibility. The science is there to strengthen the foundation: shine, softness, resilience, manageability, and protection. But the products also had to feel beautiful to use.’

The extensive product offering, says Jonah, was designed for both professional and at-home consumers to be able to create a routine that fits with their hair type and needs. As such, some are universal – like ‘Fixer’, a high-potency daily serum designed for all hair types, or ‘Handshake’, a handwash which removes product build-up from the hands – to those which address more specific concerns, like ‘Better Butter’, a one-stop curl texturiser, or ‘Humidity Shield’, which provides a ‘weather-proof shield’ to keep hair smooth and shiny.

‘The goal was to give people products that feel intuitive and flexible and to make confidence feel effortless,’ says Jonah. ‘You can keep the routine very simple, or you can layer depending on the hair type, texture, and desired result. The foundation is always healthy, expressive hair that feels ready for whatever you want to do next.’

As for what’s next for Funner, Jonah sees it as a project in constant evolution. ‘I see Funner as a world, not just a product line. Hair care is the starting point, but the brand was never meant to feel limited in scope,’ he says. ‘Over time, I want Funner to keep collaborating with artists, stylists, photographers, and creative people who can expand the way we think about hair and beauty. Ultimately, Funner should evolve the way hair does: constantly changing, deeply personal, and always open to transformation.’

Funner is available from shopfunner.com, as well as selected stores and salons worldwide.

The new Maison Hermès, on London’s New Bond Street, is one of the largest in the Parisian house’s network, an extraordinary feat of construction and craft that has been 17 years in the making (the premises were purchased by Hermès in 2009). By combining six Grade II-listed buildings, dating back to 1769, the store encompasses five floors, two roof terraces and 55 rooms, each with a distinctive design scheme that reflects their contents. The ambitious interior project was entrusted to Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure, under the artistic direction of Denis Montel, and mines house codes of creativity, imagination and play.

New ornamentation, colour and décor, much of it sourced in the UK or commissioned from British craftsmen and artists, includes boiserie shaped in straw and horsehair marquetry; textured wall coverings made in Lancashire; panels of patinated copper; hand-finished walls in powder pink; hexagonal patterned parquet in oak; and carpeting created to reflect the cherrywood-panelled ceilings or patterned with English floral motifs.

Pierre-Alexis Dumas on Hermès’ new London Maison

These one-of-a-kind finishes and details sit side by side with historic Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian elements from the original interiors, while the space is decorated with more than 500 unique artworks, selected for the address by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès and a descendant of the company’s founder.

Dumas drew from five sources for the project: the Emile Hermès Collection, the Hermès Collection of Contemporary Photographs, the Hermès Contemporary Creations Collection, the Antoine Platteau Display Collection, and the house’s drawings and graphic design studio. Two site-specific works, by British artist Jessica Wetherly and London-based illustrator Katie Scott, were also commissioned for the space. To mark the opening, Dumas spoke to us about this unique curation project.

What is the symbolic meaning behind using the word ‘Maison’ for Hermès?

It literally means the home of the Hermès family. Émile Hermès turned the family home in Paris into a ‘Maison’ when he opened the Faubourg Saint-Honoré store in 1926, as it is today. The Faubourg store is my ultimate reference; it’s the root, it’s the modern tree. But it is a Maison because it has a soul. A Maison is, for us, much more than just a display of objects. The goal is to give character to the space, and make people feel like you are in someone’s home.

Why did you choose London for the sixth Maison [after Paris, New York, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai]?

We make them when we find the right place. There was the opportunity to acquire the leasehold of these six buildings 17 years ago, and there was no doubt that one day we would have a Maison in London.

What was your point of departure when you began to furnish the Maison with art and photography?

My starting point was the cultural context. We are here in London in the UK as a French house. I was brought up and educated by my father [Jean-Louis Dumas, former president of Hermès] with the idea that wherever we go, we have to create a dialogue. We cannot come as conquerors and just impose the brand as it is. Then there is the zoning of the store, which area will be dedicated to which métier. Because then we can fine-tune and start to have a dialogue between the works and what is being shown. My grandfather, Robert Dumas, used to say that Hermès is the most British French house. I tried to reflect this by paying homage to the British culture.

Émile Hermès [the grandson of founder Thierry Hermès] started collecting at the age of 12, and his collection of objects and curiosities became the foundation of the Émile Hermès Collection. Why is this important at Hermès?

We never stopped collecting. In 1951, my grandfather continued, and then my father and uncles did so too, and it continues today – it’s never been interrupted. I say that because when we pick a new painting, I feel connected to my ancestors.

You have selected six works from the drawings and graphic design studio, including the beautiful leather panel on the first floor, to display in the Maison. Last summer, you said ‘dessin’, or drawing, is the heart of Hermès. Can you elaborate on that?

Drawing is the beginning of all creation; you have to draw your ideas. I can’t stress enough how drawing and designing are at the heart of a creative house. It’s a medium that is beautiful in itself. And I also think that in leather craft, we draw with stitching; the line of stitching is the equivalent of the pencil. This is why, for the new Maison, we asked a craftsman to transfer the drawing of a scarf into stitching on leather.

The scarf pattern stitched on leather is reminiscent of your 2010 offering for our Wallpaper* Handmade project: an iPad case and headphone case in Rouge Hermès Swift calfskin. You sent us a beautiful panel of leather with our asterisk hand-stitched. Do you remember making this piece?

I was looking at it the other day. Did you see the console and turntable? [Displayed on the third floor, they were created by Ateliers Horizons, the special métier at Hermès that creates unique objects and bespoke projects]. I told the team: it all started with Wallpaper* 16 years ago. We were really visionary then.

The artworks create a kind of visual narrative. What journey do you imagine for visitors?

I want them to get lost. It’s a labyrinth. We intended for it to be that there are too many things for people to look at so they’re going to have to choose for themselves. We’re in a home, so you don’t label the name of the artist or the name of the work. If something is intriguing, then you have to ask.

There are British coastal landscapes by artist Tom Hammick and photographer Jamie Hawkesworth, as well as by French photographer Aurore Bagarry. Why was it important to have both countries represented in this way?

We are a French house in London, so I asked my team to find contemporary British photographers that specialise in themes that we like. We love landscape photography, but it’s a vast subject. It was really to engage in a dialogue between both cultures. We came with a French eye to choose works from British artists.

Was there a significance to selecting artworks that reflect local culture, such as Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin’s Household Cavalry image?

When I was living in the UK, from 1998-2003, I commissioned a photographer to do a series of images for Le Monde d’Hermès [the in-house magazine] of the Household Cavalry. Then they showed me the Stuart Franklin image at the acquisition committee, and I thought that was part of the commission that I did 25 years ago, but it wasn’t. And at that time, I had met a young officer of the Household Cavalry who explained to me the work involved every day to shine his boots, which is an obsession, apparently. I was really impressed by the technique of getting the boots perfectly polished every day. The photo reminded me of that. There’s something similar at Hermès. We’re talking about being a perfectionist.

What was the brief given to Katie Scott for her site-specific artwork, an imaginary orangerie in the perfume and beauty area on the ground floor?

We’ve been working with Katie for ten years now. She was always very serious – in French, we could describe her as ‘faussement sage’ [‘falsely wise’]. For me, I like to push people towards their own eccentricity. I wanted each department to have its own character, like in a British home, in the way that the British are masters of colour. I told her I wanted to feel like a child. I want to go into that space and feel its magic; a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, a place where you lose a sense of reality and you enter a poetic space of wonder. What she accomplished went beyond my expectations.

What drew you to commission Jessica Wetherly, who created a lifesize rocking horse sculpture, mounted on wheels, for the Maison’s atrium?

I wanted to invite a young artist to make a piece that would be completely arbitrary, to display in the atrium, the heart of the store. Jessica and I got along well; she’s a very engaging, hardworking, creative artist. She came to our Paris offices to learn more about Hermès. I let her wander around, and she picked up a little glass horse on wheels, a toy, very delicate, from the 19th century, and she came back to me, and she said she wanted to do it big. Losing our sense of scale is childlike, an invitation to dream, to play. It also makes the space less intimidating, especially in contrast to the spiral staircase, and serves as a reminder that the horse was our first client.

The new Hermès Maison is at 166 New Bond Street, London W1.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Matthieu Blazy’s A/W 2026 show for Chanel drew on the natural world’s most dramatic story of transformation – that of the caterpillar and the butterfly. ‘Chanel is a paradox. Chanel is function, Chanel is fiction. Chanel is sensible, Chanel is seductive. Chanel is day, Chanel is night. It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ he said. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’

Indeed, the collection itself, which at the time we called a ‘fashion pick-and-mix’, moved between restraint and abandon, like its shimmering final act, where models emerged from the metaphorical chrysalis with metallic or mermaid-hued hair to the sounds of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance. It seemed to encapsulate the mood of the A/W 2026 season, one which mined fashion’s transformative power – from Prada, where models removed a layer each time they left the catwalk to reveal a whole new look, to the theatrical flair of Givenchy, Dior and Valentino. Or, indeed, the sultry glamour of Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent, where a reimagined version of Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo seemed to have the power to change its wearer into someone else entirely.

It was in this spirit that photographers Antoine & Charlie and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes approached our A/W 2026 September Style Issue cover shoot, which sees Australian model Aylah Peterson try on a series of personae in the A/W 2026 season’s most transformative looks. ‘We were really thinking about clothing’s power to forge a new identity; how a garment can entirely change the way that you feel, and act,’ says Hughes. ‘It required the incredible Aylah to be a real shape-shifter on set as she became a series of different versions of herself, with the help of our hair and make-up artists, Chris Sweeney and Megumi Matsuno.’

‘Another theme of the shoot was the idea of looking, or being looked at – and revelling in that feeling,’ he continues. ‘We shot the story at Landing Forty Two in the City of London, an event space on the 42nd floor of Leadenhall Building, here a stand-in for a corporate office block. Some of the images were treated to appear like Aylah was being caught on CCTV, while in others, she’s picked up the camera herself.

‘The clothing was chosen to be high impact throughout – silhouettes are dramatic, while a feeling of sensuality comes through in the textures, which include silk, lace and shearling.’

See more from the shoot below.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Aylah at Premier Model Management. Casting: Suun Consulting. Hair: Chris Sweeney at One Represents using Sisley. Make-up: Megumi Matsuno at Of Substance using Chanel Summer’s Calling and No.1 de Chanel Body Serum-In-Mist. Manicure: Ella Vivii at The Only Agency. Digi tech: Olivia Estebanez. Photography assistants: Ugo Reyre, Tom Porter. Fashion assistants: Nathan Fox, Bonnie Bowley. Set assistant: Archie Thomson Production assistants: Danielle Quigley, Max Mazower. Retouching: SparkPost Studio

Film credits. Directors: Antoine & Charlie. Fashion: Jason Hughes. Director of Photography: Guillaume Périmony. Editor: Dmitry Khmelnitsky. Colour grade: Chrisrémy Berrefjord at TMLS.

Our fashion story was shot at Landing Forty Two in the City of London. Managed by event property firm Spaces & Stories, it sits within the RSHP-designed Leadenhall Building (affectionately known as The Cheesegrater), and exemplifies the quality and design flair found in Spaces & Stories’ curated collection of extraordinary venues, spacesstories.com.

‘Fragrance has become one of the most powerful ways to tell stories because it’s invisible,’ says Réservation Parfums founder Francesco Ragazzi. ‘Unlike fashion, where you immediately see the product, perfume lives in memory, emotion and imagination. That fascinated me.’

Ragazzi knows very well the difference between creating clothing and perfume, having made his name first as creative director of Moncler and then as the founder of Italian streetwear brand Palm Angels. Working with celebrated French perfumer Yann Vasnier and backed by Pietro Ruffini, son of Moncler Group’s Remo Ruffini, Ragazzi made seven luxury, unisex perfumes designed to conjure the ambience of an imaginary California hotel, each scent a different room, a different guest, a different moment.

For those unfamiliar with Réservation, the best starting place is Suite 909, a blend of light woods, leather and lemon that manages to be both clean and animalic, or, in Ragazzi’s words, ‘captures the intimacy of a hotel suite... the feeling that the best moments happen behind closed doors. It’s elegant, sensual and understated.’ It is the perfect olfactory balance between Réservation’s two modes – pure and hedonistic, pristine and grimy, sun-soaked and noir – which is also, no coincidence, the modes of California, too.

For those who prefer their fragrances to stay entrenched in the clean and pristine category, the fragrance Bleu Piscine is a standout, with an almost chemical cleanliness that echoes the scent of chlorine or sunscreen. To make those notes appealing as a perfume, Vasnier tempered them with the addition of the naturally fresh mandarin and lime oil, as well as earthy notes of cypress and vetiver – creating a fragrance that poetically captures the feeling of a day spent lounging by the pool.

While for those who prefer fragrances on the darker side, there are scents like Chambre Secrète, which aims to conjure the feeling of night unfurling into the early morning hours with a potent shock of sweet vanilla mixed with incense, spicy olibanum oil and cigarette smoke. There is also, on a similar end of the spectrum, Late Night, which blends spices like cardamom and saffron with creamy sandalwood and vetiver, designed to evoke the scent of night that is only just about to begin.

It is not only the concept behind Réservation that makes them stand out, but the fact that they carry the stamp of Ragazzi’s fashion past. ‘Fashion taught me that brands aren’t built through products alone. They’re built through culture, emotion and consistency. That philosophy became the foundation of Réservation,’ he says.

‘Working with Yann Vasnier was fundamental in this process because he helped translate ideas, places and feelings into scent. We weren’t starting from ingredients, we were starting from narratives. We’d talk about a room after midnight, the feeling of arriving at a hotel after a long flight, or California light meeting French elegance. The fragrance came afterwards.’

Réservation also sees Ragazzi return to his enduring fascination with blending European sensibilities and California style. Just as Palm Angels mixed Italian and Californian influences, Réservation sees the French tradition of fine perfumery fused with the essence of the Sunshine State. Asked why he keeps returning to that theme, Ragazzi says: ‘California represents possibility. As an Italian, I grew up surrounded by history and incredible craftsmanship. California offered something completely different: optimism, freedom and the confidence to reinvent yourself.’

‘I’ve always been inspired by that tension between European refinement and Californian ease. That’s exactly what Réservation represents. It’s crafted in France but infused with California, not literally, but emotionally.’

As Réservation enters its first full year on the market, it's proving a strong contender in a market that is becoming more and more saturated. According to Ragazzi, this is down to the brand’s story-first approach. ‘I never wanted to create another perfume brand. I wanted to create a world,’ he says. ‘Today, many brands focus on performance or trends. We focused on building a universe. The fragrance is only one part of the journey.’

reservation-parfums.com

‘The world is so chaotic,’ says Kim Kardashian over the phone from LA, ‘so I always wanted my home to feel really simple and warm’. In the world according to Kardashian, chaos is evidently a condition best answered with beige. The colour has become as central to her iconography as her hourglass silhouette, appearing in oatmeal, mushroom, taupe, sand and innumerable other shades that exist somewhere between skin and stone. In her new Skims flagship on London’s Regent Street, this familiar palette has been expanded into architecture. Pale walls curve around the space; surfaces appear continuous and almost seamless; a monumental female nude sculpture by Vanessa Beecroft presides with the authority of an ancient fertility goddess.

The store is grand, but in the service of distinctly intimate items: underwear, T-shirts, socks and the concealed scaffolding worn beneath a dress. There is an amusing disproportion between the monumentality of the space and the private, sometimes ungainly act at the centre of it. Pulling on shapewear is rarely an elegant procedure. It involves tugging, contortion and the fear that one may never fully emerge from it, at least metaphorically speaking. Skims has housed this negotiation between flesh and elastic within something akin to a temple. That scale is not accidental. The London flagship, designed by New York-based architect Rafael de Cárdenas – who is no stranger to minimalism, having begun his career at Calvin Klein in the 1990s – represents the fullest physical expression yet of a brand that began in Kardashian’s home. Founded in 2019, Skims’ earliest fittings took place in Kardashian’s closet, and campaigns were photographed in her hallways. ‘We were just doing everything at home all the time,’ she says. ‘And I wanted that to come off in the physical stores.’

So, rather than the brand’s design language being manufactured retrospectively by an agency, instead it emerged from the places where the products were developed and from Kardashian’s already intensely codified way of living. ‘People seemed to like this clean, monochromatic aesthetic,’ she says. ‘I wanted as much of the materiality from my home in the store, so it would still feel like it was part of that.’

Kardashian’s house, created in collaboration with Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt, is one of the most documented private interiors of the social media and reality TV age. Its vast planes of pale plaster have been photographed so frequently, they are no longer particularly private. Empty, monastic and almost suspiciously uncluttered, the rooms resemble a luxury retreat designed for someone who has transcended the need for possessions, despite their owner being among one of the most accomplished merchants of material desire.

Kardashian is aware that minimalism can easily become a euphemism for emotional vacancy. ‘People can feel like, because it is so minimal, it might not be warm,’ she says. The challenge, both at home and in the stores, was to preserve the calm while creating some suggestion of human temperature. ‘We’ve managed to add that warmth back into it.’ The contradiction is pure Kardashian. She is an avatar of maximal exposure who prefers minimal interiors; she is synonymous with conspicuous consumption but her aesthetic language is one of subtraction; she has made the body spectacular by foregrounding everything required to control it.

For nearly two decades, Kardashian’s body has occupied a disproportionate amount of cultural space. It has been desired, derided, moralised over, surgically debated and replicated through clothing, exercise, filters and cosmetic intervention. It helped to dethrone the attenuated, adolescent figure of the 2000s, replacing it with a new ideal based on dramatic curvature. Yet, as with anything relating to the female body, it also produced its own set of tyrannies.

Kardashian’s most consequential intervention was not the introduction of a particular silhouette, but her insistence that the work of producing it should no longer be hidden. She dissolved the old conspiracy of beauty, in which famous women maintained their appearance was the incidental result of water, sleep and a few drops of moisturiser. In the Kardashian universe, beauty requires an almost bureaucratic devotion to maintenance through fittings, lighting, hair extensions, shapewear, cosmetic procedures and the like.

‘I love shapewear,’ she says. ‘I have cellulite, I feel insecure, and I want to wear something that makes me feel good about myself and snatched inside my clothes.’ She doesn’t pretend that a compression garment resolves the insecurity. She is interested in what it enables her to do despite it. ‘It’s how it makes me feel when I wear something and I’m leaving the house. I’ve always owned up to my shit, no matter what.’

This is Kardashian at her most compelling: honest about artifice, not entirely secure, but unwilling to treat insecurity as a private shame. She doesn’t argue that the body must remain untouched to be authentic. Instead, the self is something one can continually edit without regarding the original as a failure.

Skims transformed that proposition into a global business. Shapewear had previously belonged to a faintly mortifying category of garments: corrective, medicalised and redolent of girdles sold in department store basements. ‘Granny knickers’, as they were once known, they presented a stark contrast to the skimpy lacy lingerie sold in dimly lit, boudoir-like boutiques. Their purpose was to conceal themselves along with the bodily irregularities they had been enlisted to suppress. Kardashian made the category aspirational. ‘When I started a shapewear brand, it wasn’t popular,’ she says. ‘People associated it with a girdle type. I wanted to flip that and make them feel sexy in it.’

To own one’s insecurity is not necessarily to escape it. Skims speaks the contemporary language of self-acceptance while selling garments designed to compress, smooth, lift and rearrange the body. It welcomes the body as it is, then offers to improve its lines. This is less a hypocrisy and more an accurate description of today’s cultural climate of self-optimisation. We are encouraged to love ourselves unconditionally while treating ourselves as an ongoing renovation.

Skims succeeds because it understands that contradiction rather than attempting to resolve it. In November 2025, the company raised $225m at a $5bn valuation and said it was on course to exceed $1bn in annual net sales. It was, by then, no longer an unusually successful celebrity side project, but a substantial apparel business with ambitions to expand further into physical retail, beauty, activewear and international markets.

De Cárdenas says that the product’s commercial credibility was apparent when his studio began researching the company. Skims was offering quality at a relatively reasonable price, he says, while nevertheless communicating aspiration. ‘It validated the project,’ he says, with the pragmatism of an architect who has presumably encountered more than one luxurious environment built around something less persuasive.

The brand’s most significant departure from the old lingerie industry has been its rethinking of ‘nude’. Before Skims, the term often meant a single, pallid beige: the colour of one person’s skin promoted as a universal absence of colour. Kardashian recalls finding underwear in arbitrary nude colours, too light or too pink to disappear beneath the clothes of most women.

‘It was important to me to have a wide variety of skin tones,’ she says. This now sounds obvious, as all successful cultural corrections eventually do. Yet the commercial lingerie industry maintained the fiction of a universal Caucasian flesh tone for decades. While Skims did not invent inclusive sizing or diverse casting, it brought both into the mainstream with the force of Kardashian’s image-making apparatus.

Its campaigns have also become exercises in cultural timing. Sabrina Carpenter made her Skims debut in 2024, just as her transition from former Disney performer to pop’s reigning confection was accelerating; Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan followed during the fever surrounding the show’s third season; and Rosé fronted its 2025 Valentine’s Day campaign as the Blackpink singer’s solo career reached a new pitch of global visibility.

More recently, Will Ferrell appeared in character as fictional pro golfer Lonnie ‘The Hawk’ Hawkins, wearing white briefs, a vest and an expression of unearned masculine confidence. The joke was not that he possessed the wrong body for underwear advertising, but that the conventions of underwear advertising were overdue for ridicule. De Cárdenas sees that playfulness as evidence that Skims has begun to acquire an identity beyond Kardashian herself.

In its early years, she appeared in almost every campaign; now the brand is popular enough to withstand her absence. Casting an intentionally ordinary or comic male figure, he argues, is ‘very different from what anyone else in this space is doing’. Traditional intimate apparel sells sex and the idealised body. ‘Skims is aware of that, but I don’t think it’s the aim,’ he says. Its proposition is closer to ‘empowerment of the self ’.

Kardashian describes the desired effect as ‘comfortable, but safe and sexy’. Traditional lingerie advertising dictated the terms of sexiness with exhausting certainty, offering a narrow performance of feminine availability, usually directed towards an implied heterosexual male spectator. Skims is not devoid of eroticism, but its sensuality is more self-contained. As a result, the Skims store feels very different from the conventional lingerie boutique. There is little red satin, no suggestion of the bordello and none of the coy, faux-French vocabulary through which women were once expected to purchase panties. The environment is closer to a contemporary art gallery or wellness space.

Says Kardashian, ‘I want people to feel this is their safe space,’ somewhere they can find ‘the most comfortable underwear, the best-fitting bras’ and shapewear made with materials that she has helped to develop. ‘It seems like a really simple concept, but I want people to feel good in their skin.’ It is a simplicity that would sound banal were it not also an extremely effective business proposition. Skims is not selling the dramatic transformation promised by date-night lingerie. It is selling the smaller, more repeatable pleasure of feeling fractionally better equipped to face the everyday.

She speaks of visiting the store as ‘your little time to be selfish’: a moment away from children, work or other obligations, when the customer buys something for herself. That idea of private attention is built into the architecture, particularly the fitting rooms. De Cárdenas describes them as intimate but also stage-like, recognising that trying on clothes has changed in the age of the front-facing camera. ‘When you try on clothes, you take a photo with a selfie,‘ he says. With shapewear, which is intended to alter how the body appears, the impulse to photograph oneself is even more pronounced. The rooms, therefore, needed to offer intimacy while allowing the customer to feel ‘foregrounded’.

A customer no longer looks only into a mirror – she photographs herself in it. The fitting room has become both private chamber and miniature production studio. This feels especially prescient for a brand whose aspiration derives from Kardashian, who hasn’t merely inhabited the camera’s gaze but learnt to redirect it. Having published a book of selfies with Rizzoli in 2015, she is acutely aware her image is not simply consumed; it is produced, managed and circulated with remarkable discipline.

The store borrows that same sense of control. Kardashian may not speak in the technical dialect of architecture, but de Cárdenas describes her as discerning and unusually decisive. During their first call, she was able to approve and dismiss references within minutes. ‘She’s very efficient,’ he says, ‘quick to know what she likes and doesn’t like, even if she doesn’t know the terminology.’

Kardashian became involved in detailed discussions about everything from the baseboards and shadowed reveals between walls and ceilings to the exact tone of greige. She chose de Cárdenas, she says, because he immediately appeared to speak the same ‘architectural language’. ‘His materiality, everything that he was presenting – it just felt like exactly what I was looking for.’

At the centre of the London store, Beecroft’s enormous female figure makes its bodily logic explicit. Kardashian has worked with the Italian artist for years, and her sculptures have become central to the architecture of Skims just as much as her photography has to its campaigns. They possess the authority of classical statuary, but their bodies are softer, stranger and less purified than the marble gods of antiquity. ‘There’s this type of fluidity [to her work], from the style lines and the curves of the logo into the fits of the shapewear and the body,’ says Kardashian, who was adamant that this softness should continue into the environment. ‘I didn’t want sharp edges. I wanted everything to feel soft. Whimsical.’

For de Cárdenas, the Beecroft figure works because it simultaneously summons classical sculpture and resists perfectionist tendencies. ‘It’s not necessarily an idealised body,’ he says. ‘It’s a sort of real woman’s body.’ Enlarged to a monumental scale, it becomes both artwork and surrogate customer: the body not hidden apologetically in a changing room but given the spatial authority to organise the building around itself. Few of the store’s walls are actually curved. Instead, several large gestures establish a bodily softness that is echoed throughout the space. ‘All 90-degree corners are kind of filleted and radiused,’ says de Cárdenas. ‘It’s meant to mimic the softness of the body. The body doesn’t have these rigid, linear edges.’

‘If the whole thing feels curvy, then that’s successful,’ he adds, acknowledging the more prosaic fact that no retail budget, even a Kardashian one, permits every wall to undulate. Two large curved moments create an impression that the remainder of the space is able to borrow from. The store is also an index of Skims’ expansion. Much of the ground floor is devoted not to shapewear but to apparel and seasonal collections; the foundation garments on which the company was built largely occupy the upper level. There are dedicated areas for menswear and Nike Skims, alongside two banks of fitting rooms.

The entry itself is a calculated departure. ‘It shows less product than any of the other stores right off the bat,’ notes de Cárdenas. It is, he says, ‘an interesting experiment’: the most recognisably luxurious area is also the least encumbered by things to buy.

The architecture also operates on the senses beyond sight. Kardashian describes meeting perfumers who formulate aromas for spaces rather than fragrances to be worn on the skin: the smell of a room, a hotel or even a new car. A subtle, proprietary scent was developed to warm the minimal interior. ‘It could be just that subtle scent,’ she says, ‘but we’ve really dived into every detail to make it feel warm and its own experience.’ The customer may never identify the aroma consciously; it registers instead as an unplaceable feeling that this environment is unlike the one next door.

This is precisely de Cárdenas’ measure of success. ‘I don’t think we want anyone to notice any details at first,’ he says. ‘If people walk away enjoying the experience and not being able to point to why, then I think it’s worked.’ The project is about ‘engendering atmosphere more than anything’.

In hindsight, Kardashian has always been an effective translator of elite taste. She takes aesthetics that might otherwise remain confined to galleries, private houses and inner fashion circles, strips them of their obscurity and sends them back into popular culture. This process inevitably flattens certain meanings, but it also creates new ones. What begins as Belgian minimalism or performance art ends as the visual language of bras sold to millions of people.

This may be her most enduring cultural talent. She doesn’t invent every idea she popularises, but she understands which ideas are ready to become mass desire. She is less of a muse than a distribution system. De Cárdenas describes her as both a ‘hugely mythological figure’ and ‘just a normal girl from California’. The tension between those two identities has always powered the Kardashian enterprise. Her life is fantastical, and yet the banalities of it have long been subject to fly-on-the-wall reality TV.

Perhaps Kardashian’s greatest legacy is that her world does not ask us to choose between loving the body and altering it. It assumes we will do both. ‘I feel I’ve always been not the most secure,’ she says. ‘But as I gained confidence, I wanted to exude that in a brand, and to help others feel the same.’

And perhaps that is the true architecture of Skims: not the curved walls or carefully calibrated greige, but a structure of feeling in which insecurity is neither conquered nor concealed. Just like the woman herself, it is a thoroughly contemporary contradiction.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

For our annual digest of the A/W season, we’re drawing attention to the act of dressing and how we use clothing to create a persona, whether for purpose, pleasure or joy. It's a thread that ran through the A/W 2026 shows. At Prada, models stripped off layers each time they left the runway as one might evolve an outfit over a given day, while at Chanel, Matthieu Blazy’s presentation promised to take its wearer from dawn to dusk (or in his words, ‘caterpillar to butterfly’). Further epitomising the shape-shifting mood, our womenswear story sees Australian model Aylah Peterson adopt a series of personae inspired by the season’s most striking looks, while our menswear shoot stages an abstracted beauty pageant in which models adopt A/W 2026’s streamlined silhouettes.

Continuing our conversation on what it means to get dressed, Tilda Swinton and fashion curator Olivier Saillard discuss a decade of clothing-focused creative collaboration, while Jil Sander’s creative director Simone Bellotti talks to us about his second season, which sees him combining moments of sensuality and play with the rigour for which the house is known.

And ahead of the opening of her new Skims store in London, Kim Kardashian reveals the finer details of creating a welcoming universe for her shapewear brand alongside architect Rafael de Cárdenas.

For this issue's edition of The Glossary, our close-up of the standout trends, we explore the colour black: omnipresent in fashion, it took centre stage on the runway this season.

We profile rising star Torishéju Dumi, who is carving her own path with the help of Dover Street Market’s incubator scheme and Sarabande, and we take a look inside Hermès' expansive new Mayfair Maison, which features an extraordinary curation of artworks undertaken by the brand's artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas.

And as Paul Smith turns 80, we deep-dive into the brand's archive in an exclusive shoot, a fitting tribute to a titan of fashion.

Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief

Cover credits
On the newsstand cover (top left), coat, €50,000, by Loewe. Necklace, £1,990, by Georg Jensen. Modular sofa, available for hire from Granger Hertzog. Coffee table, £4,895, by USM x Buchanan Studio. ‘Drum F2’ floor lamp, by Minimalux, from SCP

On the second newsstand cover (centre), Isaac wears jacket, £1,450; waistcoat, £330, both by Emporio Armani. Jeans, £385, by Stefan Cooke. Nathan wears jacket, £720, by Favourbrook. Jeans, £130, by Levi’s. River wears jacket, £4,100; scarf, £850, both by Tom Ford. Jeans, £255, by APC. James wears jacket and waistcoat (part of suit), £6,200, by Brioni. Jeans, £130, by Levi’s. Gregorio wears jacket, price on request, by Valentino. Jeans, £130, by Levi’s

On the limited-edition cover (right), top, £2,400; trousers, £2,600; sunglasses, £375, all by Gucci

Wallpaper’s September 2026 Style Issue is available from 6 August, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

A collection of pastel-coloured dresses in varying silk and brocade textures protrude from a mannequin fitted with bouncy blonde curls. The look is by third-year BA student Lulu Drawbaugh and is currently on display in the ground-floor gallery at MoMu, Fashion Museum Antwerp, as part of ‘Looks, Looks, Looks – The Antwerp Fashion Department at Work’. Curated and designed by Brandon Wen and Tom Van der Borght, the exhibition invites visitors to observe and learn about the mechanics of the acclaimed fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (Wen has been creative director of the department since 2022). Featuring drawings and sketchbooks alongside silhouettes from students across the department, ‘Looks’ also puts the current cohort in direct conversation with the Antwerp Six: a major retrospective charting the influential sextet of designers, who reshaped fashion in the 1980s, opened at the museum in March. Together, they tell the story of how the Royal Academy of Fine Arts made the Belgian city a fashion capital.

Inside ‘Looks, Looks, Looks’ at MoMu Antwerp

On the far side of the Drawbaugh mannequin, another model is dressed by Minghui Zhao; it wears a black and white outfit, a study into fragility and cuteness. Zhao is also in her third year, and describes this proximity to the Antwerp Six as the ultimate validation. ‘The Antwerp Six are the reason many of us packed our bags and moved to this city,’ she shares, reflecting on the legacy of designers Ann Demulemeester, Dirk Bikkembergs, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee. Graduating from the prestigious fashion school in the early 1980s (Martin Margiela, the group’s ‘plus one’, had graduated a year earlier), their appearance at the British Designer show in 1986 reshaped international opinion on Antwerp, and Belgium more broadly, announcing its sartorial significance and ushering in a new brand of avant-garde that endures today.

Relocating from the Academy’s main campus in the early noughties, for almost 25 years the fashion department has been based in the same building as MoMu, the ModeNatie, establishing a unique intimacy between the institutions. ‘Living here you realise how closely everything is connected – the Academy, MoMu, the city – and studying in the same building really has an impact,’ notes second year BA student Kristina Evert. ‘Fashion is not just an industry here; it is part of the city's cultural DNA,’ adds the museum’s director, Kaat Debo, ‘and the Academy has had an enormous impact on Antwerp's cultural landscape, creating an ecosystem where education, creativity, entrepreneurship and institutions like MoMu continuously reinforce one another.’

Indeed, the Academy’s reputation, coupled with the creative principles instilled forty years ago, has long made Antwerp a primary destination for style tourists, and the fashion department has a rich relationship with the city that extends to public events beyond its walls. In June, for example, the inaugural Antwerp Fashion Festival saw talks, exhibitions and catwalk shows pop up around Antwerp, while previously, in 2001, Van Beirendonck curated a series of exhibitions under the moniker Mode 2001 Landed Geland (in 2024, the museum presented an earlier iteration of the current showcase, titled ‘MoMu x Fashion Department’). In the industry proper too, Academy alumni continue to head major fashion houses – see Meryll Rogge’s appointment at Marni, Glenn Martens at Diesel and Maison Margiela, and Demna at Gucci – while Julie Kegels, a 2021 graduate, is an LVMH Prize finalist for her eponymous womenswear label, launched in 2024.

Wen, similarly, like his predecessor Van Beirendonck, is a former student of the Academy. Introducing ‘Looks’, he relays the department’s distinct focus on craft, detail and intensity. ‘We want to drown the viewer in our students’ vision on fashion and garment, showing off an excessiveness that we bring to fashion,’ he says. ‘Antwerp is special because of the profiles of students it attracts, the dynamic groups it creates and the creative space and freedom within a strict artistic structure that allows this work to happen.’ A pinned post on the department’s official Instagram page speaks to the future of this environment, and the anticipated disruption, following an earlier announcement about fees for international students, which are set to increase considerably for the academic year 2026-2027. Though not explicitly tied to the exhibition, participating students will still feel its effects. ‘The Academy is known for its heritage, but one of its greatest strengths is the mix of people it brings together,’ says Evert. ‘That is genuinely at risk, and will inevitably make the Academy less accessible.’

‘Fashion and art should never be exclusive, and Antwerp has always been the best example of this, but cultural exchange plays a key role,’ continues first-year BA student Tobias Fannrich. ‘The city’s real legacy is its culture of critical thinking, experimentation, and independence, which is much more important than reproducing a recognisable “Antwerp look”.’ Debo agrees, ‘The Antwerp Six and Margiela set an incredibly high standard, but their greatest lesson is that originality comes from remaining true to your own vision.’ With its bold line-up of ideas, ‘Looks’ ultimately echoes these sentiments and, moreover, is sensitive to the community that emerges among students during development. As Zhao remarks, ‘What sets Antwerp apart in 2026 isn't a secret formula, it’s the sheer energy of the environment and the people you share it with. The collective drive creates this unique ecosystem.’

Looks, Looks, Looks – The Antwerp Fashion Department at Work is at MoMu, Antwerp until 8 November 2026

We are in the age of the fashion exhibition: recent years have seen a proliferation of the medium, with institutions across the world embracing the fashion industry’s pop cultural appeal to draw in visitors. There have been recent blockbuster shows on the relationship between art and fashion (‘Costume Art’ at the Met, New York), the couturier Elsa Schiaparelli (‘Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art’ at the V&A), and a side-by-side of the radical designers Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo (‘Westwood Kawakubo’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), as well as a slew of smaller displays in cities from Antwerp to Durham.

This golden age looks set to continue in late 2026 and into 2027: last week, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced the subject of its Spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition, best known for its opening act, the Met Gala. In May 2027, it will host the first major retrospective of John Galliano, while other openings around the world will explore the work of Azzedine Alaïa and Vivienne Westwood. Elsewhere, there will be exhibitions on Burberry’s trench coat, the impact of the 1990s on fashion and art, curated by Edward Enninful, and a Bottega Veneta-sponsored exhibition on artistic patron Peggy Guggenheim.

Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* style editors, six standout fashion exhibitions to add to your calendar.

‘John Galliano: Horizons’ at the Met (May 9 2027–January 9, 2028)

Last week, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its Spring 2027 fashion exhibition, the opening of which is celebrated by the annual Met Gala on the first Monday of May. Titled ‘John Galliano: Horizons’, the Andrew Bolton-curated exhibition marks the first major retrospective of the British designer, who is known for his tenures at Givenchy, Maison Margiela, and, most memorably, Dior. Drawing on The Met Costume Institute’s already extensive collection of Galliano’s work (it is the largest in the world), it will begin with his Central Saint Martins graduate collection and traverse his over-four-decade-long career, celebrating his imaginative garments – which are often rooted in historical costume – and theatrical runway shows, though Bolton also says that the exhibition will not shy away from controversy (Galliano was fired from Dior after an anti-semitic outburst in 2011; later, after rehabilitation, he would return at creative director of Maison Margiela in 2014).

‘Every Galliano collection begins as a journey among things separated by time, place, or medium: portrait and posture, silhouette and story, memory and material,’ says Bolton. ‘“Horizons” approaches fashion as a form of cartography, mapping not territories but affinities, tensions, and transformations. It traces how images become ideas, ideas become material, and material becomes emotion. Yet a horizon reveals not only what lies before us, but also where we stand – the exhibition therefore considers both how Galliano has remapped the world through fashion and how his conduct, its consequences, and changing cultural values have reshaped our understanding of his work.’

‘The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon’ at the V&A (21 September 2026–3 January 2027)

London’s V&A Museum has long been known for its blockbuster fashion displays: in recent years, subjects have included the houses of Dior, Chanel and Schiaparelli (the latter, ‘Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art’, remains on display until November 8, 2026). This September, a new exhibition will look towards an altogether more British institution, Burberry, and its signature garment – the trench coat. Titled ‘The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon’ and taking place in the museum’s Prince Consort Gallery, it coincides with the brand’s 170th anniversary and will explore the garment, from its beginnings in the Boer War towards more recent iterations under creative directors including Christopher Bailey and Daniel Lee (we explored the garment’s history in our May 2026 design issue).

‘As we mark 170 years of the house, we are thrilled to partner with the V&A to celebrate the enduring legacy of the Burberry trench coat – a global design icon rooted in British craftsmanship and a symbol of innovation, creativity and timeless style,’ says Carly Eck, brand curator, Burberry. ‘A myriad of objects from the brand’s archive will be publicly exhibited for the first time – from early 20th-century catalogues to a Burberry trench coat worn by fashion designer Hardy Amies.’

‘Azzedine Alaïa: Sculpting Fashion’ at Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco (November 21, 2026–April 11, 2027)

American Azzedine Alaïa fans, rejoice – a retrospective of the French-Tunisian couturier’s work is heading stateside this November. Taking place at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum, it will mark the first US retrospective of the designer’s work and will explore his highly influential collections, which were defined by sculptural construction, body-contouring silhouettes, and an innate sensuality. ‘What really struck me was that we shared a preoccupation with material – an intrinsic, fundamental understanding that you cannot disconnect a material from form,’ Jony Ive told Wallpaper* after Azzedine Alaïa died in 2017. ‘I found his tenacity and refusal to accept the limits of a material enormously inspiring. If something wasn’t working in the way he believed it should, he would go and create a new material.’

Featuring 80 garments – including those worn by Tina Turner, Grace Jones, and Rihanna – as well as garments from the couturiers who inspired him, the display will take over the lower-level and first-floor galleries, and is presented in collaboration with the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation. ‘Azzedine Alaïa profoundly transformed fashion by introducing body-conscious, sculptural designs that empowered women to reclaim their bodily autonomy and reframe sexiness as strength,’ says Laura L. Camerlengo, the exhibition’s co-curator. ‘This exhibition highlights his enduring legacy as a catalyst for feminist self-fashioning, and celebrates the profound cultural impact that his creations had on contemporary women, including iconic American cultural figures such as entertainer Tina Turner and First Lady Michelle Obama.’

‘Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector’ at the Royal Academy of Arts (21 November 2026–14 March 2027)

‘Peggy Guggenheim in London: The Making of a Collector’ is a new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts that explores the legacy of Peggy Guggenheim, one of the 20th century’s most well-known artistic patrons. Not a fashion exhibition per se – though Guggenheim did have plenty of personal style – ‘Peggy Guggenheim in London’ will be sponsored by the Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta, which was founded close to Venice, the city where Guggenheim lived for much of her life.

‘Peggy Guggenheim’s story is deeply woven into the cultural landscape of Venice, where she established her home and created a lasting legacy through her pioneering approach to collecting and her unwavering support of artists,’ says Bottega Veneta. ‘Through an instinctive and deeply personal approach to fostering art, she created a space where artists, ideas, and cultures continue to come together in dialogue. Guided by this unique worldview, her belief in creativity as a force for transformation continues to define the city’s artistic identity.’

‘The 90s: Art and Fashion’ at Tate Britain (8 October 2026–14 February 2027)

Former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful turns curator for an upcoming exhibition at London’s Tate Britain, which looks towards the 1990s – a time of ‘bold creativity and rebellious spirit,’ according to the institution. Spanning both art and fashion, ‘The 90s: Art and Fashion’ looks to deep-dive into the seminal era, comprising both the era’s blockbuster names – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Alexander McQueen, Juergen Teller, Corinne Day and the like – as well as lesser-known figures, particularly those who worked outside of cultural norms (issues of race, class, identity and the Aids crisis will also be foregrounded). ‘The 1990s established conditions that are still with us,’ says Enninful. ‘The merging of high and low culture, the politicisation of fashion and image and the emergence of diversity as a creative force. What defined that period for me was not a single movement, but an energy – a refusal of hierarchy and a belief that new voices could and should be heard across art, fashion, music and image-making.’

‘Vivienne Westwood & Jewellery’ at V&A Dundee (opening 26 March 2027)

The V&A’s Dundee outpost, designed by Kengo Kuma, is quietly making a name for itself with a series of intriguing fashion exhibitions, from ‘The Fashion Show: Everything but the Clothes', which explored the ephemera around a runway show, to a moving display on Palestinian embroidery in 2025. Next up? An exhibition on Vivienne Westwood and her relationship with jewellery, curated by the British fashion house, spanning both Westwood’s own designs and the historical moments which inspired them.

‘Scotland has always been in mine and Vivienne’s hearts, and I really got to know it through Vivienne,’ says Andreas Kronthaler, creative director, Vivienne Westwood. ‘I always go back to its traditions – I even have my own tartan the MacAndreas which is one of the first things I made when I came to London. So I am really happy to show the exhibition in Dundee - it’s a brilliant opportunity.’

For this summer’s eyewear, bigger is better, it seems, as face-shielding styles dominated the collections – from Phoebe Philo’s enormous ‘Bombé’ sunglasses to Miu Miu’s colourful goggle-like frames, and the armour-like eyewear at Saint Laurent, which captured a louche, 1980s-inflected sensuality.

These enveloping, mask-like frames make for the perfect summer eyewear, repelling not only the sun, but the world at large after one of those mornings after the night before. The Georgian designer Demna, current creative director of Gucci, channelled this hedonistic mood in his debut runway show for the Italian house, evoking 2000s Hollywood starlets in his own subculture-infused style. ‘Unapologetically sexy, extravagant and daring,’ he said of the mood, seeing smudged eyeliner, body-contouring minidresses and louche tailoring accessorised with shielding black shades.

Here, the Wallpaper* style editors pick eight of the best shield sunglasses to accessorise your summer – from the ultra-oversized to the sporty and streamlined.

The quilters of Gee’s Bend, a remote community in Alabama’s Black Belt region, have been practising their craft for over a century. Rooted initially in survival – quilts were stitched together from old work clothes, fabric scraps and flour sacks to keep warm in unheated homes – the practice has been continued by generations of Black women, who have used quilts as sites of ‘history, memory and kinship’, as Diana Budds wrote when she visited Gee’s Bend for Wallpaper* in 2025.

Indeed, Gee’s Bend, which is named after Joseph Gee, a plantation owner and enslaver who bought 6,000 acres of land in the area in 1816, has become a site of significant activism in the 20th century. With the quilting practice beginning during slavery – Dinah Miller, who was captured in West Africa as a teenager and brought to Alabama in 1860, is often considered the mother of the movement – Gee’s Bend was later purchased, in 1937, by the American government, allowing inhabitants to buy back land through low-interest loans. Martin Luther King visited during the Civil Rights Movement, in 1965, after ferry services were cut off to prevent inhabitants from voting, while in 1966, the Freedom Quilting Bee was established, a cooperative that allowed participants to pool profits following commissions from stores such as Bloomingdale’s.

Artist in Residence: Ralph Lauren x Gee’s Bend

‘Whatever we are thinking about or what's going on in our lives, we typically put it into the quilt, sometimes not even knowing it,’ Loretta Pettway Bennett, a quilter, told Budds. ‘I tell people, it's in my blood. It's a part of my DNA. And I see it in my granddaughter, even though she’s four years old. When she was three, I started her threading needles.’

Now, a new project from Ralph Lauren sees the Gee’s Bend quilters become the latest participants in the American fashion house’s ‘Artist in Residence’ programme. Uniting with Loretta Pettway Bennett and Claudia Pettway Charley of Gee’s Bend, the project centres on two original quilts created by the textile artists, reimagined across clothing and home accessories, including a jacket, a version of the Polo Play Bag, pillows and hand-painted ceramics. Each features the original quilts’ bold, improvisational motifs, which are imbued with symbolic meaning by the artists (Pettway Bennett’s recurring red triangles, for example, represent her sons). Befitting the art of quilting, the apparel – constructed largely from denim, a historic workwear fabric – utilises upcycled Ralph Lauren fabrics.

The ‘Artist in Residence’ programme is part of a wider initiative from Ralph Lauren titled ‘Design With Intent’, designed to ‘expand its portrayal of America and to evolve from inspiration to collaboration with communities that have historically inspired Ralph Lauren’s designs’, as the brand describes. Previous iterations include collaborations with Naiomi Glasses (Diné/Navajo), Zefren-M (Diné/Navajo), Jocy and Trae Little Sky (Oceti Sakowin) of TÓPA, spotlighting traditional indigenous craft.

Ralph Lauren x Gee's Bend collection is available globally on Ralph Lauren’s website and in selected stores. Five per cent of the purchase price will go to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a Montgomery, Alabama-based initiative dedicated to social justice.

‘Most of my shirts as a child were handmade by my Aunt Iris, who worked as a seamstress in a shirt factory in Peckham,’ remembers the London-based multidisciplinary artist Harris Elliott, who in 2025 was awarded an OBE for services to arts and cultural diversity.

The shirt is central to the first chapter of Elliott’s latest project, titled ‘Le Parlour’, a reimagining of the traditional ‘social salon’, which began in 16th-century Italy and flourished in France and England in the centuries that followed. Entering the central London space, which across the summer will be used as a listening bar, artist showcase, conversation spot and marketplace to purchase one-off collectables, guests will be greeted with a warren of stitched-together vintage white shirts, evoking marketplace tarpaulins.

Inside Harris Elliott’s London social salon, ‘Le Parlour’

‘As a child I regularly visited markets with my mum [and] they held a lot of wonder – the colours, the rhyming slang of the stall holders, the different groups of people that came together was all fascinating,’ Elliott tells Wallpaper*. ‘As an adult, whichever city around the world that I visit, I always seek out the local marketplaces; that’s where the heartbeat of every city is.’

The initial reference for the project – which will transform through various ‘chapters’ over the coming months – was the ‘front room’, a modern equivalent of the parlour where traditional salons were held. ‘At the start of the year I wanted to create an artistic environment for gathering that was influenced by food and play,’ he says. ’Using my home as a reference meant I could lean into personal narratives – I had myriad cultural stories to draw upon.’ Listening to music was one such memory: in Le Parlour, a two-metre-high mirrored panel sound system is encased in a frame-like ‘house’, while Elliott’s personal family photo album is displayed, museum-like, on a plinth, ‘referencing the idea that this space is an extension of my home’.

Running from late July until December 2026 at The Casbah on Little Portland Street, Elliott hopes that ‘Le Parlour’ exists not only as an installation, but as a place for ‘people of all walks of life to gather in an intimate artistic setting, encouraging [them] to play games, engage with art, design, and often framed around food and drink’. A series of one-off pieces will also be available to purchase, including a T-shirt made in collaboration with artist Ayo Banton, tote bags crafted from the vintage white shirts used in the installation, as well as a ‘Russian doll’ miniature version of the ‘house’ which features as part of the space.

After the initial opening in late July, the space will evolve into a new installation, ‘Design for Sound’, in September, which will see hundreds of vintage record sleeves, collected in West Africa, decorating the walls. From this point, the sound system will be in action, while a planned series of ‘moments’ will invite groups from the world of ‘sound and music to dance, drink and share conversations’. In October, ‘Le Parlour’ will metamorphose once again, turning into a showcase for the work of emerging Ghanaian textile and visual artist Ofe Amponsah, whose works – using a traditional tufting technique – are inspired by Kubolor, a figure from Ghanaian folklore.

Elliott, who is at turns an artist, curator and creative director, rose to prominence with his work styling some of Britain’s best-known bands and artists, among them Damon Albarn, Kasabian and Noel Gallagher. It would lead to the 2014 curation of ‘Return of the Rudeboy’ at Somerset House, a portraiture project with photographer Dean Chalkley, and ‘The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion’, also at Somerset House in 2023. He is also the founder of Le Tings, a design studio which draws inspiration from the marketplaces of the African diaspora and his own African and Caribbean heritage.

With ‘Le Parlour’ – perhaps his most ambitious project yet – Elliott seeks to foster new intimacy, creating a web of connections that encompasses both longstanding collaborators and those new to the artist’s world. ‘It’s based on an invitation – an invitation to explore different narratives and to encourage the possibilities of future ideas,’ he says. ‘I want people to feel at home.’

Le Parlour is open from July to December 2026 at The Casbah, 20 Little Portland Street, London W1W 8BS.

Stay tuned to @harriselliottstudio for more information on Le Parlour’s programming.

This September, the fashion world returns from summer break to a four-week schedule of back-to-back runway shows, as the S/S 2027 edition of womenswear fashion month will make its usual stops in New York, London, Milan and Paris (a brief stopover in Copenhagen took place in early August). Held twice-yearly, the womenswear ready-to-wear shows are the most-watched on the fashion calendar, with runway presentations from the industry’s major players, alongside the requisite coterie of celebrities on the front row.

If last September was defined by its debuts (15 creative directors began their tenures in total, including Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel), one year on, this season looks to be one of subtler shifts, most notably to the schedules themselves. McQueen will return to its birthplace of London; Thom Browne will show once again in its own home city of New York, having presented recent collections in Milan and San Francisco; Prada will now open Milan Fashion Week, shifting from its historic Thursday afternoon spot, while Louis Vuitton will reclaim its position as Paris Fashion Week’s glittering finale – and with it, draw fashion month to a close.

That said, there will be a scattering of debuts: award-winning knitwear designer Henry Zankov will show his first collection for Diane Von Furstenberg on the opening morning of New York Fashion Week, while Christopher Kane will make his runway return as creative director of Mulberry in London, a hire which was met with universal approval when it was announced in March (the closure of Kane’s much-loved eponymous label in 2023 left a hole in the London Fashion Week calendar).

What else is there to look out for? We break down the headline moments from each city below.

New York Fashion Week (September 10–September 15, 2026)

New York Fashion Week will begin on the morning of September 10 with Henry Zankov’s debut show for Diane Von Furstenberg. The St Petersburg-born designer, who moved to the United States as a child, has won plaudits – including a CFDA Award – for his unconventional knitwear, presented under the eponymous label Zankov. Last season’s front-loaded approach continues for S/S 2027: Tory Burch will also show on September 10, Michael Kors, Proenza Schouler and Calvin Klein Collection on September 11, and Khaite on September 12.

Elsewhere, America-born, London-based designer Conner Ives will make his debut on the New York Fashion Week schedule (he usually shows as part of London Fashion Week), COS will once again show in New York (the Scandinavian brand shows in the city every other season), and Rachel Scott will show her sophomore collection for Proenza Schouler after an acclaimed debut (later in the week, she will host a runway show for her own label, Diotima, on September 14). Look out too for the latest collection from young Parsons graduate Zane Li – his eponymous label LII has fast become one of our New York Fashion Week highlights.

Away from the shows, it is also the week of blockbuster retail openings: Moncler has chosen New York Fashion Week to reveal a vast new address on Fifth Avenue, Acne Studios will host a party to celebrate a new West Village store on Gansevoort Street, and Victoria Beckham’s first store outside of London will open in SoHo. Credit cards at the ready.

London Fashion Week (17–21 September, 2026)

London Fashion Week continues to evolve under the leadership of Laura Weir, the recently appointed CEO who has promised to ‘reaffirm London's position as the global home of creativity and a catalyst for innovation, opportunity and growth’. This season, she has delivered with two major headliners: McQueen will make its return to London under creative director Seán McGirr, showcasing the house’s S/S 2027 men’s and womenswear collections the evening of September 20 (the brand usually shows as part of Paris Fashion Week), while Mulberry will host its first runway show since 2017, also on September 20, heralding the arrival of new creative director Christopher Kane. Burberry will round out the trio, showing in its usual Monday evening spot on September 21.

Elsewhere, expect a high-profile show from H&M (last year, the fashion behemoth had the week’s starriest model casting), the return of buzzy womenswear label KNWLS (last September, the brand showed in Milan), and shows from the likes of Erdem, Simone Rocha, Aaron Esh, Chopova Lowena and Roksanda. In terms of new talent – for which the city has long been known – look out for the latest edition of Lulu Kennedy’s talent incubator Fashion East on September 18, and the on-schedule debut of A Letter, the London-based womenswear label by designers Matt Empringham and Freddy Coomes, formerly of Loewe and JW Anderson respectively. AV Vattev, a label known for its lace-up knits worn by the likes of Dua Lipa and Paul Mescal, will also host a presentation in London for the first time.

‘This season marks an exciting moment for London Fashion Week, with the return of leading British brands alongside an exceptional new generation of creative talent,’ says Weir. ‘The schedule reflects the confidence and momentum of British fashion today, bringing together established houses, emerging designers and industry partners on a platform that continues to shape global fashion.’

Milan Fashion Week (22–28 September, 2026)

Milan Fashion Week begins with a notable schedule shift: opening proceedings at 2pm on September 22 is Prada, a house which has historically shown on Thursday afternoon. Some have speculated this might be to do with the arrival of Vogue World – the starry annual runway show from the magazine – which will take place on the evening of night one, after earlier iterations in Los Angeles, Paris, London and New York.

Elsewhere, the schedule is largely business as usual: notable moments will include Demna and Maria Grazia Chiuri’s sophomore shows for Gucci and Fendi respectively (September 25 and September 23), Simone Bellotti’s latest outing at Jil Sander (September 23), and Bottega Veneta, where Louise Trotter will continue to forge her vision for the Italian house (September 26). Rounding out Milan Fashion Week are runway shows from the city’s stalwart designers, among them Marni, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo and Giorgio Armani, among others.

Off the runway, 10 Corso Como’s gallery space will host Viktor&Rolf. Spectrum, the first Italian retrospective of the avant-garde label led by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, opening on September 25 (until November 22).

Paris Fashion Week (September 28–October 6, 2026)

Despite some scheduling shifts, Paris Fashion Week remains the longest – and most tightly packed – of the various cities, clocking in at nine days and a staggering 68 runway shows. The shows to look out for include Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel (now a year into their tenures, their shows are still guaranteed to generate much of the week’s buzz); Maison Margiela (creative director Glenn Martens skipped last season to show in China); Celine (Michael Rider’s vision of Parisian insouciance has already won him a legion of devotees); as well as Hermès, Acne Studios, Givenchy, Victoria Beckham, Jean Paul Gaultier, Comme des Garçons and The Row, which will all no doubt remain highlights.

Towards the latter half of the week, expect some shifts to the usual schedule: Miu Miu will now show on Sunday afternoon, rather than the usual Tuesday, while Louis Vuitton will return to its place as fashion month’s closing act, with the Parisian house showing on the evening of October 6. A duo of debuts will round out the schedule: Courrèges’s new artistic director Drew Henry will show on September 30, while Carven’s Kai Nesselrath will show on October 1.

Summer is in full swing, which (if you've been having a good time this season) means that, chances are, your skin is already in need of some intensive recovery after days spent in the sun; you have hair breakage from chlorine and saltwater; and you need a sunscreen top-up.

If that’s the case, not to worry. We’ve tried and tested all the launches of the season so far and have edited them down to the best. From haircare to skincare, here are the summer beauty products to pack in your suitcase.

La Bonne Brosse x Roseanna’s Hairbrushes

Fara Homidi's Blonzer Compact

Katya’s Hair Claws

Vintner's Daughter's Active Treatment Essence

Dr Barbara Sturm’s Everything Hydrogel

Loewe’s Pistachio Candle

Emma Lewisham's Sunceutical SPF

The idea of movement has been at the beating heart of Issey Miyake since the eponymous designer began the house in Tokyo in 1970. His signature pleating technique would come to encapsulate this feeling of dynamism: able to be folded entirely flat, on the body the plissé garments came to life, creating vivid silhouettes that transformed with movement, from bouncing ‘flying saucers’ built into dresses to complex origami folds and twists. ‘The body, the fabric covering it and a comfortable relationship between the two,’ is how the late designer, who passed away in 2022, described the nexus of his life’s work.

It is a design philosophy which has been embraced by Satoshi Kondo, the designer behind Issey Miyake’s womenswear line, in his acclaimed collections for the Japanese house since his tenure began in 2019. Indeed, his debut collection as artistic director, for S/S 2020, saw models twist, twirl and leap across the runway in an expression of uninhibited joy that has long defined the Issey Miyake brand. ‘I wanted to express the joy of wearing clothes, and the joy of movement,’ he said at the time, and his ensuing runway shows have often featured moments of contemporary dance or performance art.

In 2025, Kondo embarked on a new project, collaborating with French dancer and choreographer Némo Flouret on the costumes for his new contemporary ballet, Derniers Feux (Last Light). It is not the first time Kondo and Flouret have collaborated; for Issey Miyake’s S/S 2024 and A/W 2025 womenswear shows, Flouret created a series of ‘dynamic performances’ which unfolded on the runway, ‘capturing the spirit of each collection’s theme,’ as the brand describes.

Derniers Feux, which premiered at the 79th Festival d’Avignon last summer and is now touring internationally, including performances at Paris’ Grand Palais in June, marks the pair’s most extensive collaboration yet. Kondo, who says he is drawn to the ‘in-depth engagement with the human body’ and ‘rigorous physicality’ of Flouret’s work, created a series of vibrant costumes which draw on the vivid use of colour and technical construction that define his collections at Issey Miyake. Indeed, despite the collaboration being under Kondo’s name, several of the garments and fabrics are reminiscent of those used in recent womenswear collections for the brand.

These include colourful knitted sweaters with circular ‘peep holes’ and trousers with extra hanging ‘legs’, while other pieces are used as part of the show’s set. ‘The sheer vibrancy I felt in Derniers Feux – the choreography, the scenography, the fireworks, and of course the performers themselves – was the source of my inspiration,’ says Kondo. ‘In designing and making the costumes, my hope was to create something that intimately complements, if not elevates, the experience of Derniers Feux.’

Flouret describes Derniers Feux as ‘a reverie on the ephemeral and the immaterial’, which is loosely themed around the idea of dancers creating a show – ‘a nascent utopia carried by ten performers trying to give shape together to a world after the world’. Taking place largely on a scaffold structure, the highly physical work builds up to a pyrotechnical firework display, a climax of delayed gratification which is teased throughout the performance.

‘I wanted to work with fireworks, the images they convey, and the tension surrounding them: the fear of danger, the emotion and joy they evoke, that fleeting moment of eternity, that ephemerality,’ said Flouret at the work’s premiere last year. ‘The ten performers dance, play music, and assemble and dismantle the set. They are all technicians, performers, and spectators. They are constantly in motion. Dance is so central that we almost forget it: it is a way of life, the glue that binds together the images that appear and disappear.’

‘There is this sense of physicality – something sensuous – that I find apparent in Flouret’s work,’ says Kondo. ‘I see this project as an integration of our joint creativity, where I was able to immerse myself in the world Flouret created.’

The next performances of Derniers Feux will take place in Charleroi, Belgium on 18 and 19 September 2026.

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