Fashion month is well under way – with the spring/summer 2026 shows being the most hotly anticipated in recent memory, thanks to a slew of major debuts, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, Demna at Gucci and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga.
New York Fashion Week has already brought no shortage of talking points, from Rachel Scott’s first outing for Proenza Schouler, as well as her debut show for her own label Diotima, to Gwyneth Paltrow’s new fashion line, the succinctly named Gwyn. Over in London, this was a season of anniversaries, with both Erdem and Roksanda Ilinčić celebrating 20 years, David Koma marking a decade of his eponymous brand, and Fashion East turning 25 with an exhibition at the ICA. Then came Milan, where we had a surprise lookbook drop for Demna’s first collection at the helm of Gucci, as well as a critically acclaimed debut from Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta.
The season is rounding out in Paris, where we’ve already seen Jonathan Anderson’s debut womenswear show at Dior, and Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s first collection in charge of Spanish house Loewe.
Below, see all of our key takeaways from the spring/summer 2026 shows so far.
15 Debuts Done
15 designers made their debuts this spring/summer 2026 season – 13 of them men – and not all of their visions felt interesting: dresses suspended from nipple piercings and bodysuits printed with the image of a naked man. Better, then, to start with the women – Rachel Scott of Proenza Schouler and Louise Trotter of Bottega Veneta – who, in uncomplicated dresses with soft draping, sought to serve women’s multifaceted lives rather than perceived fantasies about them. See also: the bike helmets that rooted Michael Rider’s Celine in the real world. Women have (shock!) things to be getting on without being gawped at. To wit, the shrunken sweaters of Simone Bellotti’s Jil Sander and the undone waistbands of Dario Vitale’s Versace proved clothes can be desirable without objectifying the person inside them. The season’s most anticipated firsts, though, came from Pierpaolo Piccioli at Balenciaga, Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel. Piccioli looked to a single touchstone: Cristóbal Balenciaga’s 1957 Sack Dress, whose radical straight-up-and-down simplicity once freed women from the constraints of Dior’s New Look. Which was, of course, a tradition Anderson loosened in fun-size versions of the Bar with a miniskirt flipping out at the back. Blazy brought a similar ease to Chanel in lightening up all the old tweeds with viscose and open weaves, putting slipper-soft heels on toe-cap pumps, and showing a suite of evening looks that were nothing more restrictive than a satin T-shirt with a feathered ball skirt. The sense of movement and practicality – skirts with real pockets! – felt refreshingly sane. DR
A new Loewe gets a standing ovation
Loewe’s new creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have big shoes to fill, following in the footsteps of Jonathan Anderson – who flew the nest for Dior, after transforming the fortunes of the Spanish fashion house over the course of a decade. Still, the Proenza Schouler founders proved that they were more than up to the job, with a collection that – in their words – “take[s] on codes shaped over 180 years of history”, while “interpreting it through our own distinct lens”. There were sculpted leather jackets and dresses in poppy shades of red, green and blue; asymmetric scarf dresses that draped down the side of the body; and shrunken polo tops and knits that are sure to be a hit. Then, there were the accessories that the Spanish house is so well-known for: boxy bags with just the one handle; mussel shell clutches, and see-through plastic shoes that can be worn with different linings underneath. After this confident debut (and the standing ovation it received), it seems that the future of Loewe is in very safe hands. EC
Jonathan Anderson’s Dior womenswear debut
Debuts, debuts, debuts! We’ve been banging on about them since last year, but this was one of the ones that we were all holding out for. Ok, it wasn’t a debut in the strictest sense – Jonathan Anderson’s first outing for Dior came back in June with his menswear show – but that was, in many senses, broadly thought of as a prelude to this week’s main event. Opening proceedings? A film projected onto an upside down pyramid cut together by acclaimed documentarian Adam Curtis; a pacy, retro horror-like flick ruminating on Dior and its weighty legacy. Then came the looks – lots of them, mind you: Bar jackets with pleated backs in Donegal tweed, riffing on what we saw in the men’s show, or as tuxedos with hip cut-outs in inky silk grain de poudre. Dresses that built on the red carpet teasers seen on the likes of Greta Lee and Anya Taylor-Joy. Drapes of ditzy floral lace, warped twists of chiffon, distressed denim miniskirts, slouchy cannage bags, pirate-y tricornes… Plenty of food for thought here from a designer known as a man of ideas. We eagerly await the next serving. MS
Sunderland rise
Louise Trotter’s debut at Bottega Veneta was always going to be a focus of this season’s chatter, but as one of only two women – including Proenza Schouler’s Rachel Scott – in spring/summer 2026’s record-breaking reshuffle of creative leads across 15 houses, it also carried a symbolic charge. The Sunderland-born designer rose to the occasion with a proposal of tastefully outsized tailoring, leather outerwear and tactile eveningwear in monochromatic looks of chocolate brown, pebble grey and cream, before giving way to glossily fringed showpieces in gradients of burnt orange, olive and aubergine. The extra-extra-large intrecciato bags and upturned clogs, meanwhile, seemed destined for a future accessories page in this very magazine. Trotter told press backstage that the collection’s visual arc mirrored her own move to Milan. “I arrived in this city that I find quite grey and austere and brutal,” she said, “and slowly, slowly I started to discover the beauty inside”. Long may that continue. DR
A surprise debut
London Fashion Week hadn’t yet wrapped when Demna surprise-dropped his debut Gucci collection. Unveiled in a Catherine Opie-lensed lookbook 36 hours ahead of the house’s scheduled film presentation, the release introduced 37 character studies on which his tenure will rest. There was Miss Aperitivo in her sequin minidress; La VIC swathed in GG monogram; and L’Influencer in a lizard-finish leather bomber with a matching skirt and horsebit slide-pumps and blackout sunglasses.
Demna’s exaggerated shoulders, chintzy florals, up-sculpted necklines, and tongue-in-cheek provocation – a spray-tanned Kit Butler in nothing but budgie smugglers (aka Il Bastardo) – sat alongside discreet nods to former creative directors Tom Ford and Alessandro Michele in the Narcisista’s undone shirt and the Nerd’s ribbon-tied knit shirt. “I needed to integrate a lot of Demna codes into [Balenciaga] for it to become the business that it is,” the designer said not long ago, in words that might equally apply to his vision for Gucci. “[It’s] a combination of that beautiful but somewhat claustrophobic heritage and my personal style that evolves and has been evolving.”
The collection will be sold exclusively in 10 Gucci stores – including Bond Street’s flagship – from 25 September to 12 October. DR
Birthdays abounded
“To stand here 20 years later, to present across so many categories, and to have icons like Vanessa Redgrave and Marina Abramović sitting in my front row – it’s really a special moment,” said Roksanda Ilinčić, speaking a few days ahead of her Barbara Hepworth–inspired spring/summer 2026 show. She wasn’t the only London designer marking a milestone. Fashion East celebrated its 25th anniversary with an ICA exhibition spotlighting some of its most influential alumni; Erdem Moralıoğlu toasted 20 years with a collection inspired by Hélène Smith, the 19th-century French psychic and artist; and Harris Reed marked a decade at the St Pancras Hotel. But no one did it quite like David Koma – the doyen of dancefloor dressing – who capped 15 years in business with an all-star dinner attended by Coco Jones, Nathalie Emmanuel and Paul Forman. DR
Conner Ives’s majority trans cast sparked joy
In perhaps one of the most spiriting moments of London Fashion Week, Conner Ives drew London’s fashion crowd to a Mayfair gallery for a show that was, in itself, a feat of performance art. That was in no small part due to the clothes, which pushed the designers’ vernacular of faintly meta riffs on ’90s and ’00s It-girl dress into skimpier, poppier territory, but it was in massive part down to the casting – some of the best that this particular editor has seen in this city. Featuring a majority trans cast, the show opened to rising rap superstar Cortisa Star, stalking the runway to Uffie’s electro-hip hop anthem “Pop The Glock” (cue: a frow of 30-something editors mouthing the lyrics without missing a beat), followed by the resplendent Ceval in a scarlet dress and trans masc boxer Jill Leflour serving jock-goes-jousting in a rugby shirt and knight’s helmet. The crescendo, though, came when British Vogue contributor Osman Ahmed took to the runway in hair as high as heaven and the slinkiest bodysuit, prompting a chorus of whoops and cheers. After the success of Conner Ives’s Protect The Dolls T-shirt and campaign, this show was diamond-clear proof that Ives’s intent isn’t just a matter of hollow sloganeering. The designer isn’t just about protecting the dolls – he’s about platforming and, moreover, employing them, too, at a time when that couldn’t matter more. MS
JW Anderson’s London return… well, sort of
There’s a fair bit of buzz around this season’s London Fashion Week, and for good reason. There are, however, a couple of notable blanks in the schedule this season, one of them being JW Anderson. Well, actually, the homegrown hero of a brand wasn’t entirely absent from the week – as well as a ritzy dinner at The Ritz (which you can get the inside scoop on here), Jonathan also invited the world into his label’s newly revamped Soho flagship, made-over in line with the brand’s très recherché new direction. As we mentioned when the rebrand was unveiled during the most recent couture week in Paris, JW Anderson is no longer a mere fashion label – it’s a fully fledged lifestyle proposal. Stepping into the store on Old Compton Street, you’ll not only be able to peruse rails of understatedly esoteric clothes (a black coat with warped, wired seams called out to me especially strongly!), you’ll also find artworks, furniture and objets selected by JW himself, branded gardening forks and trowels, and even an exquisite jasper blue crockery set, the product of a collaboration between the brand, British ceramics house Wedgwood and the estate of the late esteemed potted Lucie Rie. We hereby refuse to drink our tea from anything else from now on! MS
Rachel Scott wins New York Fashion Week
Looking at the discourse around the most recent edition of New York Fashion Week, the general consensus seems to be that it wasn’t necessarily its most dazzling edition. An exception to that, though, were the two presentations put out by Rachel Scott, the CFDA award-winning designer acclaimed for her own label Diotima and the recently appointed creative director of Proenza Schouler. The teaser of a vision she presented for the latter (the first full collection is set to come next season) saw her honour the brand’s vision of clean-lined elegance, infusing it with her signature flair for hand-wrought tactility, delicate textural flourishes and print. Over at her own label, she staged her very first runway show, presenting a boldly hued collection replete with fronded crochet dresses and frou frou-hemmed gowns. If fashion week were a competition (which, let’s face it, it basically is), Rachel was New York’s winner. MS
Female designers are the bedrock of New York
There’s been much discussion about the lack of female creative directors at major luxury houses of late, but over in New York, women designers are leading the way – from the aforementioned Rachel Scott to Calvin Klein’s Veronica Leoni and Khaite’s Catherine Holstein. Namesake founders including Tory Burch – who embraced low-slung trousers and skirts, along with a poppy colour palette – and Ulla Johnson – who was inspired by female artist Helen Frankenthaler this season – also showcased the power of women designing for women. EC
Quiet luxury isn’t dead yet
Last season, there were whispers, rumours even, that quiet luxury, stealth wealth, capsule dressing or whatever you want to call it, was on the way out. However, minimalists everywhere can breathe a collective sigh of relief as understated was back on the agenda at NYFW. For Veronica Leone’s second collection at the helm of Calvin Klein, the focus remained on crisp, clean lines, with “broken” suits and square-neck silhouettes spanning the entire Pantone neutrals swatch book. Opting for their signature Scandi take on elevated basics, Toteme stuck to orderly crispy collars and silky cowl necks, offered in a range of shades, from black to white. OA
In it to Gwyn it
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The latest endeavour by Oscar winner turned queen of wellness Gwyneth Paltrow? Gwyn, her newly announced clothing line – a natural extension of the Goop universe (one only needs so many jade eggs). “Gwyneth’s presentation was set within the beautiful backdrop of Quarters, usually a design-led concept store and bar, the event had the feeling of an intimate and relaxed Sunday brunch,” British Vogue’s shopping director Naomi Smart reports. “Nostalgic and personal touches were dotted around the apartment to feel even more like we were actually in GP’s home – pictures of her family, favourite records playing, cigarettes on a silver tray with delicate serving tongs. There was a delicious banquet table dotted with silver platters decorated with sunflowers, tomatoes the size of your hand and pastries, but it was the courgettes carved with Gwyn branding that caught everyone’s attention.” OA