#fashion-runway

#fashion-runway

"Monograms let you know that the wearer has achieved a certain level of success; they can afford to [customize something] from a time and a financial perspective."

Casa Kahlo offers an unprecedented look into the famed Mexican painter's family home, Casa Roja, which stands just blocks away from Casa Azul in Mexico City. Kahlo would retreat to Casa Roja when Casa Azul got crazy.

They drive you crazy and they blind you with love. I have been addicted since an early age, when I used to play with all the feral felines living behind my parents' seaside hotel in North Wales.

"People are being murdered by ICE. Iran is being bombed. Democratic institutions are being dismantled. Yet Anna Wintour's Vogue and the Met Museum think it's OK to celebrate one of Trump's oligarchs."

Washi, because of its quality and texture, offers something not just tactile but psychologically soothing. It's about one-third the weight of cotton, light, breathable and dry to the touch.

Ian Berry's Secret Garden, constructed entirely from recycled denim, showcases the innovative use of materials in textile art, emphasizing sustainability and creativity.

Emily Porter found a woven sweater labeled 'Maria Rodriguez Chicago' at a resale shop, highlighting the significance of local designers in Chicago's fashion history.

Chloé is anything but homogenous, with its name chosen simply for aesthetic appeal, allowing for a fresh creative direction that Kamali is now exploring.

The J12 was also sporty enough to appeal to men, all the more so as sizes increased in new editions like 2005's Superleggera, inspired by legendary Milanese sports car coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring.

"The name is a paradox. They never functioned as a collective," says Kaat Debo, MoMu's director. "Some of them still describe that label as a blessing and a curse. But they were friends."

"They're everyday professionals who simply don't have the time to shop the traditional way," said Kneen about J. Hilburn customers. Instead, stylists manage fit, fabrics and wardrobe planning, effectively outsourcing the entire process for busy professionals.

The end of the show did not mark the end of the trip. Back at the Le Grand Bellevue the group divided between fireside hot chocolates and the hotel's spa. The hotel's Le Grand Spa is over 3,000 square metres and has eight different types of saunas, several ice showers, foot baths and an outdoor bubble pool (named thus as it's bigger than your standard jacuzzi).

In the show, "dirty" extends to anything that breaks fashion's pact with propriety. Here are clothes caked in grime, blotted with makeup, stiffened by salt, pieced from trash, frayed, and faded. The garments span decades, from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, when the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier built their fame on defying convention, to today, when corporatization has made such daring increasingly rare. But forgoing practicality frees certain designers from the demands that the body be polite-and thereby policed.

Travelling for art can be incredibly virtuous and culturally rewarding, like collecting souvenirs for your eyes (and from the post card rail in the gift shop). Remembering to research what is on before I book flights is a lesson I learnt all too well after I missed the Metropolitan Museum's fashion exhibition in 2016 by one day. As a fashion obsessed 20 something, I did not take this well and have since improved my itinerary planning and exhibition calendar checking.

It's not a multi-thousand pound handbag from Hermes that best captures the new era of It bags, but a 149 tote from John Lewis. Launched this season, it's deeper (45cm) and taller (33cm) than your average handbag, and comes loaded with good intentions. It's able to hold your packed lunch, flask and book, as well at a push as your gym kit.

Stylist and writer Orla Dempsey tried on some ties for a week, following a big fashion trend for 2026 and following in the footsteps of some famous faces

Even for the largest, most resourced fashion houses, delivering a cohesive capsule of menswear that lives up to increasingly astronomical expectations - all while facing a cutthroat seasonal cycle and mounting industry consolidation - is a momentous task. More so when they haven't shown for 20 years. Then again, as Mr. Lauren has proven time and again, it is ill-advised, if not downright foolish, to bet against him.

Everybody thought I would make oversized bomber jackets with monograms, said the mononymous king-of-the-hoodie designer after the show. That's what ChatGPT said, apparently. But that's not why I came to Gucci. Instead, he said, his Gucci will be energy, passion, fun and sex.