Shape-Shifter. Hed Mayner AW26

January 17, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

If you’ve been reading for a while, you already know I’m a Hed Mayner fan. My admiration for the Paris-based designer was fully cemented after visiting his showroom last year and trying on some of his unbelievably well-made garments. Many people associate him solely with oversized silhouettes, but Mayner’s world extends far beyond that. His clothes are charged with gesture – they quite literally enhance the wearer: their mood, their attitude, their presence.

Mayner is also a master at exploring the possibilities of silhouette. In an hourglass-shaped Hed Mayner coat, you command true presence – and look striking while doing so. The same can be said for an overscaled leather jacket, reworked suit trousers with exaggerated pleats, or a perfectly judged vintage-inspired bomber.

This season, the designer officially welcomes women into his world, offering meaty velvet dresses and sequinned silver frocks that somehow fit seamlessly into his universe. But what I loved most about the autumn–winter 2026 collection is its sense of continuity. You can spot echoes of last winter’s offering – fringed scarves, utilitarian blousons – reminding us: why change something that’s already great?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Sense Of Skin. Hed Mayner SS26

June 30, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

For spring-summer 2026, Hed Mayner sheds structured, voluminous layers – and opens up to a “sense of skin“. “I wanted to have something that is suspended from the body,” he said, “that when you move, it fills you with air.” The designer delivered on the promise: his signature, cocooning silhouettes never looked that refreshingly breezy and sumptuously light. A standout were his handkerchief-hem bottoms; they billowed as they walked and represented the joy Mayner has found in this new exploration. He also brought cool, buoyant languidness to his jackets, now with draped capelets that do intriguing, draped magic around the arms. The designer recently moved to Italy: it shows in the collection’s sweet nonchalance.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Gesture. Hed Mayner AW25

February 1, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

“The gesture allows the clothes to exist,” said Hed Mayner backstage at his autumn-winter 2025 fashion show a week ago. How true this sentence is. You can have the most finely made garment in the universe, but if it just hangs in the closet, does it even matter? Clothes need a person’s gesture to be alive. But some clothes work harder, and once they are given life, they in return transform the wearer’s body language.

Of all contemporary menswear designers, Mayner balances utility with beauty of clothes in the most supreme way. And his new season perfecto jackets, leather pants and fringed shawls not only make you want to wear them, but also gesticulate in them – a lot. The fit of his over-sized wool-felt coat is so graphic and bold it creates a real silhouette. Same can be said of the sharp, yet round-edged plaid tailoring and meaty-velvet culottes. I can totally confirm what I’m saying, as I had the utmost pleasure of trying some of these garments in the label’s showroom. They truly transform your stature, give confidence, but at the same time seamlessly convey this “don’t bother me” attitude, just like Yohji Yamamoto’s designs.