From Bar Jackets to Sarongs: What Paris Men's SS26 Gave Us

Dior

Possibly one of the most hyped shows of fashion week and the first from Dior’s new creative director, Jonathan Anderson’s debut didn’t attempt to reinvent the house. Instead, it looked inward, asking what Dior means now and where its codes can be bent. Set inside a velvet-walled replica of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, the setting departed from the elaborate style of previous Dior men’s shows, opting instead for a pulled-back, intimate space, the kind of environment that invites close looking. Two Chardin paintings anchored the room, chosen for their quiet intensity and focus on the everyday, signaling the collection’s mood: sensitive, intellectual, and slightly off-centre.

Naturally, we expect incoming creative directors to explore the House’s archive, and Anderson didn’t abandon Dior’s heritage - instead, he excavated it. From the Bar jacket to 18th-century waistcoats, regimental neckties to Donegal tweeds, the references were clear. But nothing felt frozen in time. In Anderson’s hands, silhouettes loosened, proportions shifted, and embellishments took on unexpected forms. Accessories were equally layered: the Book Tote stamped with literary classics from Baudelaire to Capote, a crossbody quietly nodding to Dracula, and a Lady Dior transformed into a sculptural piece thanks to artist Sheila Hicks and a tangle of linen threads.

Anderson’s Dior isn’t about nostalgia or shock; it’s about opening up space inside the archive, allowing something new to take shape. A reset, yes. But one built on depth, not noise.

Wales Bonner

Marking a decade of visionary creativity, Grace Wales Bonner’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection unfolds as a ceremony of cultural memory and sartorial heritage. Jewel expands the brand’s signature language, luxury is not measured in extravagance but in depth, meaning, and lineage. The collection becomes a testament to inherited stories and honored traditions, all brought together with a contemporary spirit of soulful boldness. With relaxed utility silhouettes, aged denim, and a linen-check field jacket sit alongside sharply tailored wool pieces, wing-tip silk shirts, and leopard opera shoes adorned with crystal buckles, Bonner crafts a collector’s closet for one who travels through time and spirit as much as place.

Collaborations with John Smedley, Anderson & Sheppard and Stephen Jones are treated as conversations between generations. Bonner’s continuation of the adidas Originals partnership, this time with Y-3, elevates athleticwear to another level, with technical tuxedo trousers and woven sneakers. Footwear becomes a language of its own: from Montego tasseled loafers to the supple new Julien ballerinas, Bonner uses shoes to ground her characters and to give them flight. Accessories too; diamond baobab-flower brooches, satin souvenir jackets carry emotion, imbued with the energy of adornment as legacy. 

The show’s soundscape orchestrated by James William Blades and culminating in a live harp performance by Ranie Ribeiro, deepens the atmosphere. It’s this commitment to multidimensional storytelling, across sound, image, and silhouette that has come to define Wales Bonner’s universe. Jewel celebrates ten years of the brand and it reaffirms that fashion can be a vessel for remembering, honoring, and imagining something new.

Dries Van Noten

Julian Klausner’s debut menswear collection for Dries Van Noten was an exercise in joyful, effortless dressing with high level details that made us swoon! Set against a pared-back, industrial backdrop, the clothes came alive in bursts of vivid reds, pinks, and blues, mixing tailored sharpness with surprising softness.

The standout moments? Oversized shirts paired with floral sarongs that we fully intend to borrow. The trend of stripes is seeming to continue but playing with volume and movement, while a khaki gabardine opera coat with a bold embroidered camouflage band proved Klausner’s skill at balancing classic and quirky. It’s menswear that nods to tradition but with a playful wink. Accessories took centre stage, too. Cummerbunds transformed from formal afterthoughts into statement belts layered over cropped jerseys and shorts, creating a relaxed yet considered silhouette.

Now, having seen both his first womenswear and menswear shows, each a standout in attention to detail and craftsmanship, it’s clear the brand is in safe hands post-Dries Van Noten’s departure. Long may it reign and honestly, who doesn’t want to be a Dries girl?

Craig Green

Craig Green has always had a knack for tension, and this season, it’s there in every stitch. His SS26 show continued his exploration of the uniform, but this time, jackets once rooted in military function were modernised and softly deconstructed in pastel colour palettes. There’s a quiet looseness to the silhouettes,  especially the fluid shorts and coats, but it’s never formless. Dreamlike patterns sat beside raw hems, while sculptural neckpieces fringed traditional coats, giving them a kind of ceremonial gravitas.

What’s so striking is Green’s ability to balance it all: commercial instinct with poetic detail, precision with feeling. Pieces that will no doubt live on in wardrobes, but just as easily in mood boards and museum spaces.

It feels like each look proposes a story. Not a literal one, but something suggestive. These are clothes intended to be worn, to move through life, to gather experience and memory. Clothing as a vessel, not a costume. And maybe that’s the point. As the brand’s own words put it: “Like sand gathered in pockets and hems, outfits remember things.”

Willy Chavarria

With HURON, Willy Chavarria offers a powerful reckoning with identity, resistance, and the complicated meaning of our world in 2025. Staged as a meditation on humanity, the show opened with 35 men in stark white T-shirts made in partnership with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) an unmistakable call to action against mass incarceration and the dehumanization of immigrants, both in the U.S. and abroad. It set the tone for a collection that fuses exquisite craftsmanship with moral clarity, rejecting traditional fashion spectacle in favor of social confrontation.

Chavarria’s Spring/Summer 2026 vision is deeply autobiographical, a reflection of his journey from Huron, California to the epicenters of global fashion. But HURON isn’t nostalgic, it’s insurgent. Refined tailoring handmade in Italy, meets radical color theory: shades like Papaya, Chicle, and Bourdin Blue are acts of rebellion, reclaiming space in a landscape long dictated by whiteness and wealth. Accessories play a central role in this act of cultural redefinition. The debut of Chavarria’s full leather goods line with a signature “W” strapping alongside collaborations with Charles Jourdan and Adidas Originals, unites old-world elegance with new-age utility, all through a lens of political consciousness.

The collection is shaped with discipline and purpose: silhouettes are repeated across fabrications to emphasize intention over novelty. Whether it’s the Chilango suit’s or the trench-dresses inspired by the women of Almodóvar and Wong Kar-wai, each look is an assertion of agency. Even the footwear, the debut of the Megaride sneaker and reimagined Charles Jourdan classics asks: who gets to move freely in this world, and what does it mean to take up space?

Chavarria’s SS26 is a rallying cry for truth-telling through design. It repositions fashion as a medium for dignity and defiance, proving that beauty is not an aesthetic, it is resistance.

Kartik Research

With How to Make it in India, Kartik Kumra delivers a Spring/Summer 2026 collection staged in a moment of cultural clarity. 

As the first Indian designer on the official Paris Fashion Week menswear calendar, Kumra’s presence alone signals a long-overdue shift. Rooted in India’s tactile traditions, the collection reimagines craft not as ornamentation, but as an experience. His travels across India, listening to artisans, observing how they wear their own clothes with intent, inform a deeply personal design language that feels instinctual.

Kantha embroidery from the Bengal region crashes across matka silks, and leather is woven without overshadowing the textile’s delicate handwork. His expansion into womenswear feels natural, with fluid, fabric-first looks that glide down the runway. Even the footwear, from Converse collaborations to Manolo Blahnik heels, plays its part very naturally without demanding attention. There is a humility in his approach, a refusal to polish away the human touch, which stands in sharp contrast to the overly curated aesthetics that dominate global runways. With this collection, Kumra is not only asking how to make it in India but he is also showing us how to make it matter.

Ami

Crisp, carefree, and just the right amount of dressed-up, Alexandre Mattiussi’s SS26 collection for AMI Paris felt like summer bottled. Offering a wardrobe built for movement, wide trousers, trapeze-cut skirts, fluid jerseys, and oversized shirting half-tucked or layered with nonchalance. Even tailoring had a relaxed air, with sharp jackets worn open and collars flicked up.

Contrasts shone as organza sat alongside gabardine. Knitwear brushed up against raw denim. Pastel yellow clashed beautifully with matcha green, while inky blues and off-whites kept things grounded. Stripes, argyle, and bold topstitching brought rhythm and play. These were real clothes, but with charm: rolled sleeves, visible belt loops, and shoes that looked made for city wandering. You could sense the AMI universe expanding, from soft beach baskets and mini Mimi bags to tourist-chic charms (croissants included).

This is Mattiussi doing what he does best: offering up clothes with clarity, craft, and emotional ease. It’s elevated casualwear that doesn’t try too hard, just slips in, stylishly, to wherever summer takes you.