Constructivist. Lii AW26

February 15, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

So perhaps New York Fashion Week still matters. It’s here that you encounter talents like 25-year-old Zane Li, the founder of Lii. He has an extraordinary approach to shape and geometry, creating garments that feel constructivist in both appearance and method. Like Vladimir Tatlin’s abstract installations made from industrial materials, Li’s pieces demand to be viewed from every angle: a skirt may appear exaggeratedly flat from the front, only to protrude at the back with an almost extraterrestrial force.

Based in New York, the designer explores the potential of line and silhouette through precisely cut, flat fabrics rendered in bold color-blocking that delivers a punchy visual impact. It was compelling to see him introduce faux fur into the mix, adding texture to designs that might otherwise read as austerely sterile. And the utilitarian gloves? A nod to Todd Haynes’s “Safe“. We do live in a dangerous world.

What distinguishes Li’s work is his refusal to casually appropriate the term “minimalism,” as so many New York designers do. He understands the discipline the word implies – and claims it, convincingly, on his own terms.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Mischievous. Saint Laurent AW26

January 30, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

Mischievous, horny, kinky – and chic – this is the ultimate Saint Laurent man as seen by Anthony Vaccarello. He’s the kind of guy Yves would have fallen in love with on a night out at Le Sept. He also makes women go crazy – in the same charged, homoerotic way “Heated Rivalry” does. Inspired by James Baldwin’s seminal novel “Giovanni’s Room“, Vaccarello was intrigued by the inner tension experienced by its protagonist. “I like the idea of being in contraction between something very conventional and something very sensual.” That tension was omnipresent in his autumn–winter 2026 collection, from printed silk ascots peeking out from the collars of crisp shirts to semi-sheer vinyl trench coats appearing in the latter half of the lineup. Stretch patent boots extending up the thighs? Corrado De Biase, Saint Laurent’s design director of shoes, knows exactly what he’s doing – and how to get the boys talking.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Defiance. Yohji Yamamoto AW26

January 26, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

Yohji Yamamoto, a designer so often – and so productively – faithful to black, detonated expectations this season. Guests entering the show space were met by two suspended speed bags, hovering between the ceiling and the runway. When the models emerged, some punched the bags, others barely brushed them; one kissed one, while a few simply stared. It was a telling prelude to a collection about confrontation and restraint, aggression and dignity – about how clothing can act as a kind of moral armor.

On the runway, that armor took tangible form. Yamamoto delivered one of his most colorful collections in years, though “colorful” here still meant disciplined, weighted, serious. The opening looks carried militaristic undertones: camouflage patterns coated double-breasted jackets and padded boilersuits, establishing a mood of readiness. Voluminous overcoats were paired with trousers cut from meaty corduroy and utilitarian jumpsuits in thick cotton, many printed with paint-like marks that looked less decorative than combative.

Elsewhere, padded coats arrived in stony beige; hair was teased into frizzy, defiant bouffants; and crushed beer cans were reassembled into a waistcoat and headgear – wry, César Baldaccini–inspired gestures that felt like survivalist poetry. In a fashion system obsessed with novelty and noise, Yamamoto continues to propose something rarer: clothes as stance, as shield, as a way of moving through the world with controlled defiance. It is precisely this posture – sharp, slightly arrogant, unyielding – that makes him not just relevant, but essential, one of the last designers of his generation for whom dressing remains an ethical act.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Long Game. Hermès AW26

January 26, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

Hermès’s Véronique Nichanian has always insisted that luxury is not a spectacle but a system, and in her final season, that conviction crystallized into a collection that elegantly distills her 37 years at the maison. This was Nichanian’s long game, and she won. Her celebrated détails égoïstes – those “selfish” refinements that reward only the wearer – were everywhere: the interior of a jacket as considered as its exterior, a zip as impeccably functional as it is beautiful, off-center bellows pockets, étrivière stitching, double lambskin lapels. These are clothes that recognize one another instantly, like old friends reunited, hand and eye aligned through private signals of craft.

A crocodile-leather coat in the inkiest shade of black, a reversible cashmere-and-wool travel jacket, a double-breasted suit in pinstriped leather: each piece stands on its own yet remains quietly mobile, designed for lives in motion rather than moments of display. Nothing feels “too much”. Instead, the collection moves with assurance through a season conceived to endure far beyond itself. Nichanian’s departure – serene,but grand – opens space for the impending arrival of Grace Wales Bonner, whose debut remains a year away. Yet this collection resists the tone of farewell. It plays more like a manifesto: a reminder that at Hermès, innovation has always emerged from renewing the bond between body, garment, and time. Clothes for now, and – stubbornly – for forever.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Decadence. Magliano AW26

January 25, 2026 | Design & Culture by Ed

Luca Magliano’s move from Milan to Paris provided the French capital with a much-needed counterweight to this season’s near-perfect menswear consensus, dominated by ideas of “good taste” and proper style. Magliano has always sought beauty in chaos and imperfection, and that ethos remained central. What the designer has long described as an “elegance of the provinces” – a defining signature of the brand – was reimagined here beyond geography, recast as a state of mind, a posture, and a way of seeing fashion.

The collection was rooted in Magliano’s characteristically slouchy tailoring but brought to life through gesture and movement. One of its guiding impulses was the desire to arrest cinematic motion within the garment itself: coats sliced with organza at face level that, when worn, looked unfamiliar, yet absolutely real. This tension between structure and fluidity embodied what Magliano has described as tailoring at its most romantic. His ongoing method of softening formality for those uneasy with it remained intact, as did the brand’s enduring proposition: classic, yet unapologetically queer.

Beyond delivering one of the strongest menswear collections of the autumn–winter 2026 season, the Italian designer also presented one of its most compelling castings, assembling a diverse array of real faces to model his patinated, decadently chic garments.