Berlin Fashion Week SS26 *Highlights

BERLIN, BABY!
*13 Berlin SS26 Moments That Rewired Fashion’s DNA (and Our Nervous Systems)

written SARAH ARENDTS
documented NICOLAI SAUER

Berlin throws itself headfirst, limbs flailing, into the spring/summer 2026 abyss and claws its way back with glitter-streaked cheekbones, melted mesh, and stories to tell from behind veils of sweat and synthetic nostalgia. Restraint stays buried under cobblestones.

Thirteen houses, collectives, renegades, and reverents surfaced from the city’s creative swamps to orchestrate one long slow gasp of textile rebellion, post-dystopian tenderness, and neurotic elegance. This week held no boundaries, it performed itself as an exorcism in daylight.

CLARA COLETTE MIRAMON
SS26

CLARA COLETTE MIRAMON
SS26

Tulle trailed like it had somewhere better to be, catching on the carpet rolled out in front of the Volksbühne, which stood there massive and unbothered, probably thinking about its next revolution or cigarette, while CLARA COLETTE MIRAMON turned the whole street into a makeshift ward where care wasn’t whispered, it was strutted, dragged, flung over shoulders like it weighed nothing and everything at once.

Hospital beds leaned into Pilates machines like an inside joke about wellness, uniforms cut from memory walked alongside jackets that looked like they’d been trained in restraint. Sequins clung where tenderness had been. It all moved like aftermath, like someone tried to tidy up a feeling and gave up halfway through. And when the short wedding dress showed up with a real scoliosis brace tucked underneath, no one gasped because everyone already knew, this was what happens when you hold it in for too long and decide to let it wear you instead.

Gender-melt rituals expanding in neoprene priesthoods, metallics slick with sweat theology, garments summoned from the intersection of sacred longing and queer futurism. IMITATION OF LIFE, GMBH’s SS26 collection, unfolded as an autobiographical opera, where every silhouette became a protest and a prayer, shaped by bodies negotiating desire, diaspora, or devotion. Layered mesh and synthetic gloss coated skin like ex-votos, while deep-cut tailoring paid homage to faith communities, the kind that cradle and the kind that exile. There was no clean line between theology and sensuality, no clear boundary between mourning and joy—only garments vibrating with ancestral heat, with techno as liturgy and muscle memory as myth.

GMBH
SS26

GMBH
SS26

GMBH
SS26

GMBH
SS26

GMBH
SS26

LAURA GERTE’s SS26 collection, LOOPED & BOUND, moved like a spiral collapsing into itself without conclusion, without hierarchy, just perpetual orbit. The designer’s vision crawled through movement and memory, with upcycled silks twisted into unstable elegance, techno-lingerie suspended in friction and delay, each element vibrating beneath the distorted pulse of a soundscape by RIFTS. Fashion slipped sideways, became gesture, became echo, became the choreography of mesh folding into another gesture, and then another, endlessly. Gerte designed with repetition as ritual, layering rhythm over rhythm until the silhouettes moved with the logic of instinct, tracing patterns in the air like choreography inherited from future bodies.

A whisper steeped in starch, pressed into precision and then unraveled by a quiet kind of defiance that trades volume for voltage. IDEN’s language unfolds in shell-like layers, protective yet porous, where embellishment slips from memory and off-white ferments into something less polite, more possessed. Drapery loops like an invocation conjured to summon breath across space, pulling tension through pleats and folds that gather meaning without anchoring themselves in touch. Garments hover within a field of elsewhere, calibrated to radiate beyond gesture, atmosphere thick with the trace of bodies they neither await nor dismiss.

LAURA GERTE
SS26

LAURA GERTE
SS26

IDEN
SS26

JULIAN ZIGERLI slid into SS26 like a kid who just discovered the soft side of chaos and decided to wrap himself in it head to toe. Raver therapy disguised as suiting, cuddlewear torn into layers that giggle and sting in equal measure. Airbrushed tuxedos floated through rooms like serotonin hallucinations, plush renderings of memories misfiled under joy and juvenile revolt.

A palette that threw tantrums and love letters with the same gesture, textures with emotional volatility dialed up to maximum volume. Zigerli designed as if vulnerability wore platform sneakers and glittered under club lights at noon, as if print therapy were a real treatment plan and Berlin the only qualified practitioner.

If denim could sweat under pressure, this is where it would happen—spiraling through DAGGER’s SS26 collection. DAGGER cut silhouettes like hostile contracts, threading control through denim and cotton with surgical spite. Berlin’s dark romance with dominance gathered new momentum stitched in chrome, bias seams, and unease. Tailoring glared rather than soothed, and each look stepped like it remembered every rule just long enough to devour it from within. Dinner dresses itself in fear beside this—entering the mouth like a dare, tearing at the gums, staining the teeth, turning digestion into performance and etiquette into exquisite disarray.

JULIAN ZIGERLI
SS26

JULIAN ZIGERLI
SS26

DAGGER

SS26

SIA ARNIKA
SS26

Stretch limos humming under dead fluorescents, sour teenage lust smeared across collarbones and knees, Summer Time Sadness gliding through stale heat in garments warped by longing and daylight regret—SIA ARNIKA’s SS26 collection, titled IMITATION OF LIFE, wrapped itself around the moment before the ache forms. See-through lingerie clung like memory carved into skin, each look trembling with aftermath already present in the air, the silence before touch, the heat before collapse.

SIA ARNIKA constructed silhouettes from longing, textures from hesitation, garments from the unsaid. Every piece whispered like a friend too close to forget, too distant to reach. Nostalgia performed as method and ritual as blueprint. Her runway worked like a scent trail back to something almost remembered, every hemline folding memory into silhouette, every seam threading tension into poise. The ache circled the perimeter before the first step hit the floor, claiming the atmosphere as part of the garment’s architecture.

SIA ARNIKA
SS26

Each look in BUZIGAHILL’s SS26 collection, RETURN TO SENDER 11, arrived like a message in a bottle from somewhere capitalism refused to archive. Designer Bobby Kolade disassembled second-hand shame and rethreaded it into protest-glam hybrids, casting cassava bustiers in the role of resistance, multiverse denim as memoir, refugee embroidery as ancestral inscription. BUZIGAHILL offered a borderless archive of silhouette and sentiment, screaming memory back into fashion’s circuitry, with devotion styled in revolution’s own fabric.

Tailoring exhaled with the heavy breath of memory dragging itself back into form, melancholia crystallised along seams that refused to settle into silence and garments flushed with the sheen of unsaid things leaking through breathless corridors of fabric. Silhouettes swayed in suspended monologue, cassette confessions unraveling in soft warble. KILIAN KERNER cast SS26 in reverberation, the COLLECTIVEFOUR trilogy blooming like sequinned regret scribbled across steam-fogged mirrors, a stage of devotion rendered in textile syntax, the runway pulsing with the intimacy of unfinished sentences dressed in longing’s favourite colours.

BUZIGAHILL
SS26

KILIAN KERNER
SS26

KILIAN KERNER
SS26

Raw hems extended like emotional fractures reframed in yarn, sculptural knits pulled across bodies like shifting tectonic plates of memory, each thread stretched to a threshold where clothing blurred into dermal residue, folding and refolding itself around the possibility of a future identity written in texture alone. MARIA LUEDER’s SS26 emerged less as a collection than as a living rehearsal of shapeshift, a choreography of cloth trained on the tension between form and potential, silhouettes built from the question of how much resistance can soften before it becomes architecture. Tailoring dissolved under the pressure of generative rhythm, folds moving like sap through bark, bloom emerging not from seams but from a kind of textile metabolism that refused inheritance, a cellular rhythm expanding past blueprint and structure, creating silhouettes that no longer asked permission to hold form, simply arriving already in motion.

MARIA LUEDER
SS26

MARIA LUEDER
SS26

They burned their own silhouettes and showed us what survived. Threads extended like live wires dragged through the ash of their own origin, seams unraveling not from weakness but from an intentional logic of undoing, OTTOLINGER’s SS26 refusing structure in favour of combustion performed as elegance, collapse choreographed with precision, fabrics shredded in midair before reassembling themselves into silhouettes that glowed with the aftermath of friction. A love letter not written but scorched into the margins of utility, garments performing the precise moment when tension releases, when structure breaks, when what remains continues to hold the shape of motion.

OTTOLINGER
SS26

OTTOLINGER
SS26

OTTOLINGER
SS26

Unicorn tapestries stretching like echoes across the room, their faded grandeur mirrored in brocades and deadstock silks gathered by DANNY REINKE as if excavated from a cathedral of memory, each fold steeped in liturgical sorrow and stitched devotion. The Hunt unraveled like a ritual caught mid-incantation, spiraling slowly, breath suspended between velvet and vision, garments thick with the weight of fable, corsetry drawn from the pulse of medieval mysticism filtered through a contemporary yearning to embody the sacred without sanctimony. This wasn’t capture, neither was it reverence—it was myth metabolised, desire embroidered into form, forgiveness draped as silhouette, repentance whispered through lace, silk breathing in the rhythm of belief.

DANNY REINKE
SS26

Emerging queer alchemy in full orchestral pomp. Bows the size of grief unfurled across ballroom echoes, latex sleeves gleaming like archival secrets resurfaced beneath moonlit marble, silhouettes thick with sighs that began long before the runway existed and continued somewhere deep inside the fabric’s pulse; ANDREJ GRONAU, with his SS26 symphony of queer monumentality, scored every garment like a scoreless opera, collapsing baroque nostalgia into sculptural provocation, each movement stitched with the audacity of soft futures made flamboyant and serious in equal measure, parading down stone corridors like myth reborn in tulle, confession dressed in gloss, contradiction elevated to sacred discipline.

ANDREJ GRONAU
SS26

ANDREJ GRONAU
SS26

ANDREJ GRONAU
SS26

Fashion arrived in Berlin already whispering in tongues, unraveling with precision across industrial concrete like a hymn half-recalled, mascara trailing down cheekbones carved from afterparties and prophecy, silk folding into smoke with the choreography of ritual fatigue, breath looping into structure just long enough to shimmer before spilling into exhaustion’s embrace. Spring/Summer 2026 consumed the script in full mouthfuls of shredded satin and handed it back with glossed fingernails and eyes glazed from knowing too much too early, the language spoken entirely in gesture, movement, shadow, thread.

Nicolai Sauer caught it all, the residue and the rave, the gestures caught mid-morph, that split-second where fabric becomes echo and sweat becomes syntax. This was a week of a fever dreaming in public, a series of silhouettes mutating into biography with every step. What Berlin offered was contagion—sensation stitched into choreography, archive bleeding into immediacy, garments rising from dust like sentences never finished. The runway was never meant to end; it only flickers, folds, spills outward. Somewhere between the flash and the fold, between the hemline and the held breath, SS26 continues to ripple.

credit all images
(c) Nicolai Sauer

Dior SS26

.second campaign
Anderson Begins Dior
Dior in Velvet, Dior in Blood, Dior in Fiction

written Amanda Mortenson

Everything begins in velvet. Heavy velvet, red velvet, velvet with history pressed into its folds like pressed flowers too soft for cataloguing.

Dior builds a room, Berlin builds a memory, the Gemäldegalerie breathes through the walls like someone reading Baudelaire aloud in an empty hallway. Paintings hang, modest and glinting, Chardin’s hands still holding onto domestic stillness while outside, the fabrics whisper and the tailoring plots a gentle upheaval. There’s no irony in this, just layers. There’s always another layer.

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26
Indoor Scenography seen by Adrien Dirand

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26

Jonathan Anderson stands somewhere behind it all, somewhere beneath a Donegal tweed, somewhere inside a 19th-century waistcoat with a tie that knows its own power. The trousers stretch with the weight of time. The tailcoats carry too much and choose to carry more. The past feels present, loud, unfiltered, embroidered in the way only garments speak when language steps aside. The clothes speak in codes older than sound. They tell stories with buttons and collars and hems that remember how to behave in candlelight. No one argues, the room listens.

The collection arrives in waves. Caprice stares from a corner. Delft spins, unsure whether to seduce or confess. La Cigale lingers like a perfume trapped in architecture. Every dress carries a title, every title carries a timeline, every timeline opens up a drawer of private references and aristocratic gossip. The Bar jacket shrugs over it all, comfortable in its own elegance, aware of its origins, aware of the way form fits when structure takes over and softness submits.

A Book Tote enters, unread but fully understood. First edition Baudelaire, Truman Capote, the kind of library that wears its covers proudly. A crossbody arrives, Dracula tucked inside, blood in the stitching, literature clinging to the lining like it belongs there. Sheila Hicks lends her hands to the Lady Dior, transforming it into a nest, ponytails of linen blooming in every direction. The bag turns feral, beautiful, certain. Accessories carry fiction better than plotlines ever could.

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26

Charms dangle. Diorette details scatter across collars and wrists. And roses erupt from seams without warning. Embroidery blooms where thought once sat, the collection breathes deeply, exhales rococo, exhales restraint dressed as exuberance. No moment escapes embellishment, but everything wants to shimmer, and everything does. The show offered style as posture, style as attitude, style as inheritance passed through instinct and silhouette. A museum becomes a mirror and a garment becomes a ghost. There’s a gesture here, a lift of the shoulder, a tilt of the head, a pause in the fabric that allows the wearer to become someone they met once in a book or a dream or a hallway with too much velvet. Style lives in that space between and Dior stretches the horizon, Jonathan Anderson tapes it back together with thread dyed in memory.

Every model walks like they’ve done this before, in another life, under another monarchy. Formalwear tells jokes only archives understand and the trench coat plots. The shirt sighs, the trousers hold secrets without flinching and nothing tries to be wearable. Everything demands to be worn.

The music glows beneath it all, the kind that touches the hem of ceremony. There are no instructions. There are no summaries. Dior sends out clothes with blood in their pleats and novels in their pockets. The audience watches, some lean forward, some breathe through their teeth and others already remember this from a future they haven’t reached yet. Anderson moves like a curator lost in his own collection. Every piece arrives curated, arranged, unraveled slightly. The hemline flutters with purpose.

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26

DIOR MEN'S
Summer 26

DIOR MEN'S
Finals, Summer 26
seen by Adrien Dirand

credits for images
(c) DIOR / scenography and finale images seen by ADRIEN DIRAND

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper

.new collection
CLASS OF CREATORS
*The Mercedes That Grew Up On Cartoons

written Monica de Luna

Someone gave Colm Dillane a car, which is already funny, but then he turned it into something with turbine wings, cartoon lungs, balloon veins, and a winch on the front like it’s planning a very glamorous rescue or pulling something heavy from the past. The CLA, but make it handmade. Superhero-coded.

F200 wheels, 300 SL mirrors, patched like it got into a fight with nostalgia and came out the other side grinning. It sat in the Louvre, obviously, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where objects already know they’re being watched, and now this car, full of references and jokes and ideas that maybe only Colm gets, but that’s the point, because why explain when you can install.

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper
Campaign

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper
Campaign

They call it “Class of Creators” but it feels more like a sandbox with corporate approval and very good lighting. Before this it was Ice Spice in Manhattan. Gustaf Westman in London. Next it’s Hot Wheels or Riot Games or both. Colm went full Colm, gave the car a childhood, let it speak in KidSuper. Then made clothes to match.

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper
Campaign

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper
Campaign

Mercedes Benz x KidSuper
Class of Creators
Art Piece Capsule Collection

There’s a trench coat that looks like it could fix your engine or steal your boyfriend. Trousers that mumble in mechanic. A t-shirt nodding politely to the world’s first automobile. Bags that look like they carry tools or secrets. Thirteen pieces, soft power, stitched from canvas, jersey, cotton, poplin, wool, vegan leather. The logo is vintage, but the feeling is future. Everything smells faintly of burnout and joy.

And the car? Still there, still grinning, still dressed like the first day of school when you try too hard but somehow pull it off.

TAAKK SS26

.new collection
TAAKK SS26
*The Quiet Confidence

written Malcolm Thomas

It's been five years since I attended Paris Fashion Week. In my absence, brands have come and gone, and the industry has crowned new creative directors yet TAKKK remains exactly how I remember it. Intentional. 

Intentional like the creation of a simple TAAKK Spring/Summer 2026 show tee, a gift to its guests. Made from recycled nylon resin, processed and spun from discarded fishing nets collected across Japan. The band in which the tee is wrapped and program both made of recycled materials.

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

Already a master of textiles, Taakk has now added a deeper dive into sculptural embroidery and gradients, for which they're known, first with colors, now with materials, i.e. shifting a shirt to a suit, to their oeuvre. Yes, they're magicians, too.

Yet, despite this, Taakk remains elusively under the radar with a quiet confidence that I can only attribute to the mores of Japanese culture. Humble, polite, and inconspicuous. But Creative Director Takuya Morikawa, in my humble opinion, has lots to brag about.

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

TAAKK
SS26 Show during PFW

Titled "The Common Baseline of Art and The Ordinary," the program mentions an evolving quest for "the essence of creation." A less lofty interpretation, "Everyday wear and art. Necessity and disruption." It's easy to wax poetic about the many processes and the impressive self-awareness of this small brand, but I'll let the clothes speak for themselves. So, I encourage you to have a look around, and maybe you'll see why Taakk remains one of my favorites.

about the editor
When not reviewing shows or writing features for Le Mile Magazine, (or constantly hitting refresh on his wardrobe), Malcolm spends his time as Founder & Editorial Director of Malcolm + Friends Agency. A full-service agency powered by a global community of freelancers, consultants, and creative partners from leading brands and institutions. 

Wooyoungmi SS26

.new collection
Wooyoungmi SS26
*A Little Bit of Romance

written Malcolm Thomas

Enjoying a glass of cold champagne to the sounds of a violin rendition of Philip Glass in the beautiful stately courtyard of the Maison de la Chimie.

There is, quite frankly, no better way to end a very hot menswear season (and I'm not just talking about the shows). Mix in perfumed guests (many in Wooyoungmi themselves) with a discreet celebrity or two, and you have subtle cues that even before the runway music starts, you're in for something good.

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Then the moment comes. It begins with a sultry jazz melody and as soon as the first look is shown, a pulsating backbeat. Inspired by Seoul summers, which according to the program are equally hot, and the joys of dressing, the offerings this season are meant to be filled with "levity" and "elegance", of course. 

The collection—light on pants but heavy on sex appeal took to task many renditions of the men's Edwardian bathing suit. A once modest early 20th century essential subverted for the 21st century man. Another notch to add to the bedpost of menswear’s liberation.

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Wooyoungmi
SS26 Show during PFW

Most importantly, this is a man who has places to go and beaches to see. Lounging on a private beach in Monte Carlo by day and enjoying an old-fashioned or two in a members-only lounge, by night, perhaps. Think jumpers, vests, and knitted tops paired with oversized intarsia raffia bags and backpacks paired with silk viscose tailcoat button-ups. Did I mention he's also a multitasker?

Rooted in staples: smart tailoring, fine fabrics, and elevated colorways—Wooyoungmi is not here to tell you what to wear but to suggest it. Wooyoungmi is not here to tell you who you are but to remind you. 

Who said romance was dead?

about the editor
When not reviewing shows or writing features for Le Mile Magazine, (or constantly hitting refresh on his wardrobe), Malcolm spends his time as Founder & Editorial Director of Malcolm + Friends Agency. A full-service agency powered by a global community of freelancers, consultants, and creative partners from leading brands and institutions. 

KVRT STVFF Women

.new collection
Her Body. Their Rules.
KVRT STVFF Underwear.

written Sarah Arendts

First there were briefs. Then there were viral briefs. Then there were viral briefs on viral boys. Now there’s KVRT STVFF WOMEN — a proper new chapter, fully formed and stretching in every direction. A full-bodied rewrite stitched with intent, flesh, and very good lighting.

The brand that made swimwear feel like a controlled substance is no longer just for the male-coded torso. They’ve taken what already existed — Chad, Core, Mechanic, those infamous swim briefs that looked like they were designed by a Greek god with a design degree — and turned them, carefully but not cautiously, toward bodies that haven’t traditionally been at the centre of the KVRT STVFF lens. Until now. There are 100 new pieces. Underwear, swimwear, and that slinky category they’re calling bodywear — all made to mix, match, or ignore entirely. Sizes run from XS to XXL. Some cuts are unisex, some aren’t. It doesn’t really matter, because everything stretches.

KVRT STVFF
Espresso Core Bikini Shorts

KVRT STVFF
Macchiato KVRT Cheeky Bikini Bottom

Announcing nothing, explaining even less — just new shapes arriving like they’ve always belonged. The lines stay minimal, the energy moves forward, the proportions land exactly where they should. It’s KVRT STVFF, rerouted through hips, heat, and instinct. Like something a really hot science teacher would wear if science teachers taught physics in thongs.

It still starts in Barcelona, stitched and prototyped under the sharp eye of the KVRT STVFF STVDIO. The aesthetic remains tight, part techno nostalgia, part ‘90s sportswear fantasy, part softcore reconstruction. Not trying to be viral. Just inherently designed that way.

KVRT STVFF
Black Chad Cami Crop Top

KVRT STVFF
Ecru Mechanic Crop Top

KVRT STVFF
Black Chad Classic Boxer Brief

Sexiness speaks the same dialect, still cut in confidence, still built like it knows exactly what it’s doing. Now it lives in more bodies, stretches across more shapes, travels through more ways of standing in a room and taking up space. Underwear, system, uniform, suggestion — call it whatever fits. It shows up stitched to the point, ready before the question even lands. This isn’t a rebrand. This is the body, centre stage, lit from every angle. The frame just got bigger, thanks KVRT STVFF!

Christian Louboutin *PFW

Pin Me Down, I’m Louboutin
*Everyone at Hôtel de Crillon Was Looking at Shoes, Obviously

written AMANDA MORTENSON
documented BELLA SPANTZEL

They set up shop at Hôtel de Crillon. Three salons. Carpeted floors. High ceilings. Everything smelling faintly of inherited wealth and new soles. Louboutin called it Sartorial. No one asked what that meant. Everyone nodded.

First room: Batailles. Men hunched over shoes like the Enlightenment depended on it. One was patina-ing. Another was glazing. Someone whispered something about “le glaçage” and nodded like they were at a wine tasting. In a corner: butterflies. Not metaphorical. Real ones, stitched from organza and rhinestones and beads and sequins and probably quiet guilt. Maison Lesage. 55 hours per shoe. Do the math. No one blinked.

Second room: Salon des Aigles, where four men—beautiful in that way people are when they look like they’ve never waited in line for anything—were performing something loosely resembling a day in the life of someone too stylish to explain their job. They moved just enough to make it clear they were alive, but not enough to suggest they had anywhere to be. On their feet: Lord Chamb boots with a vaguely horsey superiority, the O Louvre loafers wrapped in moiré gros-grain like they just stepped out of an inheritance, and the Circus Booty Perla, which looked like a party trick from 1973 involving 10,000 rhinestones, some pearls, suede, and a memory of a harlequin no one really invited but everyone admired. Around them: glass vitrines displaying dissected shoes like scientific curiosities—Farfaman and Farfarock cracked open in slices, frozen mid-explanation. Someone near the back said “craftsmanship” under their breath like it was a secret. Someone else took a picture, shook their head slightly, and walked into the next room without looking up.

Third room: Salon Marie Antoinette, where the vibe shifted from performative to ceremonial. A green billiard table, because of course, held the entire Chambeliss line arranged like disciplined heirs waiting for the will to be read. Derby, Moc, Monk, Monk Boot, and one that looked like it simply couldn’t decide. The shoes didn’t speak, but they absolutely judged. All were adorned with the Chambelink, a sharp little metal pin stretched across the upper like a smirk—some minimal, some dripping in rhinestones, 200 if anyone’s counting, but no one was.

Each shoe had a matching shirt collar placed beside it, as if the collar had decided to go solo and the shoe was still getting over it. Someone whispered something about tailoring. Someone else responded with “elegance,” but their voice gave out halfway through, probably because the shoes were too close and listening.

There was a general atmosphere of reverence mixed with mild confusion, the kind where everyone agrees something is brilliant without needing to understand why. The shoes gleamed under the light like they had somewhere better to be, the rooms carried themselves like sets from a film where no one makes eye contact, and outside, Paris didn’t notice because Paris was busy being Paris. Christian Louboutin didn’t explain. There were no speeches, no signs, no marketing slogans. Just rooms filled with shoes that fully expected to be looked at.

all visuals produced for LE MILE .Digital
Bella Spanzel / www.bellaspantzel.com

Fashion Week SS26 *Highlights

Fashion’s Latest Side Quest
*In Fashion, the Outlandish and the Quotidian

written Chidozie Obasi

From Antwerp to Milan, designers are toying with convention and flamboyance. LE MILE rounds up key moments from the season.

Fashion’s fearless pursuit of the next trend continues apace, as the season — now in Paris — keeps gaining momentum, redefining classic silhouettes with a breezier, and softer approach. Volumes are getting looser and shapes are higher: menswear is all about functionality and soft practicality for next Spring.

PAUL SMITH
SS26

PAUL SMITH
SS26

Paul Smith charts a course through Paul’s own personal history of travel, with colours, prints and textures conjuring memories from his many voyagesIn an intimate salon-style show at the company’s Milan headquarters, Paul Smith presented a louche, sophisticated vision for the SS26 season through a series of 30 looks. A palette of warm, nostalgic tones like lime green, fuchsia, and coral evoked a fondly remembered summer voyage, but also brought to mind the practice of hand-dyeing which gives fabrics an exceptional depth of colour.

Above all, the palette elicited an impression of heat, with the bright standout colours complemented by an array of sun-bleached earth tones, inspired by a book of Cairo street photography which caught Paul’s attention during the early design phases. The collages incorporated fragments of photographs taken by Paul, his keen eye seeking out those things that others miss. This collage theme was echoed in a double-breasted jacket with applique birds, and a leather blouson with applique flora rendered in suede, offering a textural counterpoint.

“Clothing that holds a modern flair and heritage.”

Herbert Hofmann, Vice President of Creative and Buying at Highsnobility

SIMON CRACKER
SS26

SIMON CRACKER
SS26

SIMON CRACKER
SS26

For Simon Cracker, we live in a world where incompetence reigns supreme, and where the only way forward is to dig deeper. The result is a cleaner, more focused collection from the brand this season.

The colours are exclusively shades of white, rope, ecru and shades of grey and black, obtained by dyeing, painting and bleaching. There are no flashy fabrics, aside from the first Simon Cracker all-over pattern. The basic uniform consists of a square T-shirt and shorts inspired by men's tailoring. Each outfit highlights a single garment and its unique features. Crocs' iconic models complete the uniform, in the same palette but ’crackerised’ one by one with graffiti, patches and customized charms.

“We are bringing the focus back to the clothes, with few distractions,” the said. “The collection revives some of our iconic garments (the Siamese T- shirt, the earthworm jacket, the posture shirt...), with the clear objective of creating unique, upcycled pieces that can be reproduced: the same but always different.”

A different, flamboyant throughline that takes centre stage in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp show, which presented the collections of its new guard of creatives that were straddling between craft, poise and optimism. This year’s show had a newfound ease to it, coupled with the eclecticism of the collections that brimmed with technical know-how and tons of playfulness. This year, designers seemed to be navigating two competing urges: experimenting with new shapes while delivering a “meaningful” look. Or, as Highsnobiety’s Vice President of Creative and Buying, Herbert Hofmann, puts it: “Clothing that holds a modern flair and heritage.”

As a member of this year’s jury, Hofmann’s role lies in weighing creativity against commercial viability — seeing whether students have the urge, or the ability, to turn great design into something today’s customer will actually wear.

dunhill
SS26

dunhill
SS26

“I’m keen on what’s new, what’s innovative, and how a designer addresses today’s challenges: sustainability, sourcing, marketing, and creative identity,” he says. “It’s interesting because sometimes you see someone who has the whole package but is quieter than others. We think about how we can push those talents — give them the tools to survive in this crazy market.” In Antwerp, Hofmann sees a balance of modernity and heritage passed down from Simons, Van Noten, and Van Beirendonck protégés.

“You look at the kids on the street and they’re wearing the most amazing outfits. There’s a lot of vintage, and it’s meticulously handpicked and layered. There’s a cosy speciality in the air,” he says. “I always associate Denmark or Sweden with furniture, interiors, and architecture — but here, it’s about fashion. Compared to other major fashion cities, you realize Milan, Paris, and others tend to follow overarching commercial trends. But here, creativity pushes past convention.”

Bally wanted to revisit its sports heritage as it celebrates the release of the new Tennis Collection. Since its inception in 1851, the Swiss brand has always had an affinity with the technical requirements of performance wear, as well as the artisanal expertise to make exercise elegant. In this latest collection, a number of the house’s legendary styles are undergoing a redux, marrying the brand’s history with its evolving visual identity.

The dunhill Spring Summer 2026 season from Creative Director Simon Holloway draws from a distinctly British duality, the rarefied dress codes of English aristocracy and their influence on the louche, cultivated rebellion of British rock icons.

Taking cues from the sartorial expression of the Windsor men - figures that continue to be a central inspiration to the evolving dunhill wardrobe - this formal code is interjected with the effortless attitude of Bryan Ferry and Charlie Watts, the most classically dressed British rock stars, resulting in a collection that transcends the referential. These culturally iconic men inherited societal elegance but wear it with disobedient grace. For Spring Summer 2026 dunhill embodies this tension: the formal undone, the classic made rakish.

In perpetuity, craftsmanship remains central to the practice of design in this storied House. The collection is grounded in a dunhillian legacy of handwork and provenance, with a deep reverence for artisanal fabric mills, traditional craft and only the most excellent materials. The collection moves through the season in chapters: Car coats, driving blazers and motoring trench coats - drawn from the House’s Motorities legacy - are sculpted in butter soft French lambskin, supple suedes, coated Linen or cotton-silk twill in various shades of British drab.

credit all images
(c) Paul Smith, Dunhill, Simon Cracker, Bally SS26

Walter Van Beirendonck SS26

.new collection
Walter Van Beirendonck SS26
*Reaches For The Stars

written Malcolm Thomas

“If you are sad and wondering: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” to quote the show notes, they were probably body-deep, pushing their way into the Walter Van Beirendonck show (wallflowers, no).

Loud, experimental, and playful as ever, yes. Proudly displaying their Walter Van Beirendonck wears and hoping, albeit praying, for a chance to get inside the Odeon Theater. The kind of frenzy that can only be conjured by a designer who really resonates with his audience. An audience whose whimsy for fantasy is even more needed today.

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

A fantasy hopping and skipping its way down memory lane. Here, you’ll find childhood photographs in black and white from the designer’s personal archive printed across suits, trousers, and the like. Anoraks with plush trim (a bit more fantastical in Wednesday’s 100-degree weather). Delicate florals on skeleton suits, a nod to the stylish lives of 18th-century’s most well-heeled children. Also on the menu: polka dot leggings, combs, hot rollers, shoehorns, and more, as cultural icons. Reminiscent of playing dress up in your parents’ things. Speaking of dress-up, when the if-you-know-you-know crowd is spotted wearing shoehorn earrings and hot roller bracelets, don’t say you haven’t been forewarned. More honorable mentions: Stephen Jones bowler hats pierced by paper flowers and those Vidal Sassoon-Esque Beatles bobs—remind us we are all flower children.  

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

Walter Van Beirendonck
SS26 Show during PFW

So, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” the designer wrote. “Look back. Look below. Look forward.” They are boys as girls as girls are boys, and we are all human. Cut from the same technicolor rainbow, bubblegum, cotton candy cloth. “From the sunny fields, they wink at us,” Beirendonck continues. “Softly swaying, with Starry Eyes,” he concludes. Hopefully, to a world that will love them as much as Walter Van Beirendonck does.

about the editor
When not reviewing shows or writing features for Le Mile Magazine, (or constantly hitting refresh on his wardrobe), Malcolm spends his time as Founder & Editorial Director of Malcolm + Friends Agency. A full-service agency powered by a global community of freelancers, consultants, and creative partners from leading brands and institutions. 

WHITE Milano *Resort 2025

Milano Fashion Week
WHITE Resort 2025
*Resets the Rules in Milan

written Amanda Mortenson

Milan, late June—Resortwear found its reset button. At the 2025 edition of WHITE Resort, held at Superstudio Più in Via Tortona, the language of summer dressing stretched beyond seasonality. It fused global luxury, smart matchmaking, and slow living into a platform that felt less like a trade show and more like a carefully orchestrated rhythm of exchange.

From the first step through the Garden’s curated paths, WHITE reasserted itself as a soft power force within Milan’s style scene. Less spectacle, more intention. Each booth, each piece, each buyer-to-brand moment echoed a shared logic: summer dressing is no longer a niche, but the pulse. The format drew global attention and sealed its positioning as a resortwear laboratory, fusing elegance and functionality through a lens sharpened by sustainability and story.

WHITE Milano Resort 2025
June Edition

WHITE Milano Resort 2025
June Edition

International presence surged. A 35% increase in foreign buyers underlined the weight this edition carried. Representatives from Japan’s United Arrows, France’s Le Bon Marché, and Saudi Arabia’s Rubaiyat moved through the space with purpose. From boutique hotels to luxury resorts, key names like Royal Atlantis, Belmond, and Hotel Kaiserlodge were on-site,scouting and closing. The Middle East, particularly, stood out (not as a trend, but as a central axis) of beach luxury and contemporary taste.

WHITE’s brilliant team again provided bespoke support to these buyers, identifying collections aligned with their DNA ahead of time. The result was meaningful encounters and actual business outcomes. Boutique names from the U.S.—Fearrington Village, Everything But Water, and Coco Boutique—mingled with fresh Latin American voices like Malva from Colombia and European staples like Abseit (Germany) and The Feeting Room (Portugal).

“We created a curated, widespread showroom where each buyer received personal attention, a formula that worked. We're now working on exporting it.”

Massimiliano Bizzi, the Founder of WHITE

WHITE Milano Resort 2025
Gran Canaria Swim Week, June Edition

WHITE Milano Resort 2025
June Edition

WHITE Milano Resort 2025
June Edition

Gran Canaria Swim Week took up residence in its dedicated exhibition space, a strategic partnership designed for longevity. Its presence signaled a new frontier for European swimwear, a continent-crossing collaboration that draws Gran Canaria’s creative identity into Milan’s orbit. Through this alliance, the event deepened its function as a connector.

The brand lineup hit a rare balance—global but tight, niche yet commercially potent. From the conscious elegance of Vivia Resort and Athoa to the relaxed silhouettes of Be Sunset and Niluu, WHITE Resort’s offerings spoke the language of subtle luxury. Tailored but loose. Lightweight but sharp. There were no high-decibel trends, only a soft confidence that translated through texture, drape, and detail.

Accessories amplified the tone with a precise curation—Tkees, Maison Lana, Azman Perfumes, De Siena, and Van Den Abeele offered statements that didn’t shout. Each object acted as punctuation to the garments, extending the narrative rather than disrupting it. The return of Rebirth—a Saudi brand under the Saudi 100 Brands project—was a touchstone. It stood as a watermark of intent: WHITE is building something lasting with the Gulf, through creativity and cross-cultural dialogue.

Even menswear found its moment in the Lounge with Summer Games and Alexandre Hekkers, among others. The pieces echoed the broader WHITE language: fluid silhouettes, ethical sourcing, thoughtful design.

Courtesy cars by Renord ensured the city flowed as the show did, while the food & wine partners—Italian Wine Brands, Pantura, Ape Cesare—anchored Milanese hospitality at the event’s core. WHITE Resort 2025 arrived to redirect the current. This was an edition that leaned into continuity over noise, intimacy over overload. A platform, a filter, a gathering of those rethinking how summer moves through clothing, commerce, and culture. Thanks for inspiring us!

credit all images
(c) WHITE MIlano June 2025

Der Eigene by RIMOWA

RIMOWA´s Queer Magazine
*300 Copies, 15 Portraits, Zero Apologies

written AMANDA MORTENSON

RIMOWA is publishing a magazine again. Because why just make suitcases when you can resurrect a 19th-century queer publication and throw it into a spiral of black-and-white portraits, quiet rebellion, and people called Shikeith.

It’s called Der Eigene (which translates, sort of, like The One Who Packs Their Own Bags and Also Doesn’t Explain Themselves) and it was born in 1896, two years before RIMOWA started making boxes for rich people who fear scratches. Now it’s on its fourth issue, back from the dead and better lit, thanks to photographer Collier Schorr who knows how to make identity look like a slowly smudged pencil line on expensive paper.

Collier Schorr, Self-Portrait
(c) RIMOWA

Issue Nr. 4, Der Eigene
(c) RIMOWA

Lío Mehiel
(c) RIMOWA

Roberta Colindrez
(c) RIMOWA

Shikeith
(c) RIMOWA

For this new edition, fifteen humans selected with casting director Nicola Kast—artists, dancers, lawyers, dreamers, possibly a Gemini or two—shot in classic Collier grayscale, two photos each, because one is never enough but three would be indulgent. There are questions too. The kind you answer while lying on a hotel bed in a towel, thinking about gender and snacks. Names drop like sequins: Amber Later, Chase Strangio, Lío Mehiel, Shikeith, and a Charlie Porter essay to send you home smarter (or at least with something to quote at brunch).

Limited to 300 copies because scarcity is sexy and so is paper. You can find it in places with intimidating staff and tasteful lighting: BookMarc in NYC, Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, Yvon Lambert in Paris, and Climax Books in London, which honestly sounds like a drag king in itself.

A magazine that side-eyes you while you pretend not to stare. The kind that travels light, carries heavy. Out June 24. Don’t run. Float.

Levi’s x Nike Air Max 95

.collab
LEVI´S x NIKE
Air-Made, Denim-Raised

written Sarah Arendts

Let’s be honest. When Levi’s and Nike team up, it’s folklore. It’s the kind of crossover energy that could collapse a timeline. And now, in July 2025, they’ve done it again — not with subtlety, but with a full-volume denim sermon stitched onto the back of an Air Max 95.

You already know the bones: Nike’s “Big Bubble” Air Max silhouette turns thirty. Levi’s, still the blueprint of Americana cool, slides in with its selvedge swagger. The Levi’s x Nike drop lands in full formation. Three Air Max 95s. One in indigo. One in black. One pale and ecru like dust on a summer boot. Red Tabs stitched like a secret handshake. Sock liners dressed in dollar-bill drama. The kind of shoe you see in a dream and wake up wondering if it’s real. Each pair comes in Levi’s-red packaging with batwing tweaks and dollar-bill sock liners that wink at capitalism with one eye open.

Keon Coleman
Levi´s x Nike

Levi´s x Nike

“By integrating our signature denim into one of Nike’s most iconic silhouettes, we’ve created a seamless fusion of sport and lifestyle—honoring the past while pushing the boundaries of design.”

Leo Gamboa
VP of Collaborations at Levi’s

This is a full-body experience. The drop includes a Levi’s x Nike Trucker Jacket and a Baggy Jean so wide you could run a wind tunnel through it — both rinsed in that perfect mid-light wash and blessed with off-white chain-stitching and the holy co-brand: Swoosh meets Red Tab. The trucker keeps its Type II roots but flashes selvedge in all the right places. The jeans? Designed to puddle perfectly around your sneakers, like they were born for the sidewalk and maybe for the runway too.

The casting is sharp and culturally loaded: Larry June brings West Coast calm, Paige Bueckers adds court-queen heat, NFL breakout Keon Coleman looks like a god among denim mortals, and Daniel Buezo reminds you that fashion is still a design game. It’s a vibe cocktail with just enough teeth to matter.

Paige Bueckers
Levi´s x Nike

Levi´s x Nike

Levi´s x Nike

Leo Gamboa, VP of Collaborations at Levi’s, calls it a “seamless fusion of sport and lifestyle.” Translation: we’re past the era of drop-culture chaos and into thoughtful chaos — where design is religion, and Levi’s x Nike is your temple.

This is a muscle-flex for the now. A reminder that sportswear is not always just about performance or street cred. It’s about legacy. Also texture and tension. The way denim folds against a mesh upper. The fact that a sneaker can carry thirty years of cultural weight and still look like it came from the future.

So yes, the Levi’s x Nike collab drops July 10th via Levi.com, the app, and in select flagship stores. SNKRS gets it on the 11th. But really, it’s already happened. You saw it on that guy in line who looked like he knew something. You felt it in the stitching of your old trucker jacket. You heard it in the Air Max sole squeaking across a concrete floor somewhere in 1995.

And now, it’s back. Worn, reworked, and very much alive.

Wes Anderson x Montclanc *Part 2

.second campaign
Let’s Write Something Absurd
Montblanc & Wes Anderson Are at It Again

written Amanda Mortenson

There’s a mountain. There’s a library. There’s a train powered by a man on a bicycle. There’s Michael Cera in a fur hat. And yes—there’s a fountain pen.

Welcome to Let’s Write, the second chapter in the unexpected love story between Montblanc and Wes Anderson. Think less luxury campaign, more theatrical fever dream. In classic Anderson style, this short film lives somewhere between a snow globe and a fevered sketchbook—playful, precise, and just weird enough to feel like it escaped from a forgotten paperback.

Joey King
in new Montblanc campaign
Charlie Gray / (c) Montblanc

Montblanc campaign
Charlie Gray / (c) Montblanc

"Anderson’s style defies traditional luxury storytelling. This film is meant to captivate and leave a lasting impression. By creating a sense of wonder, we encourage people to engage with the brand in a completely different way."

Stephanie Radl
Global Director Brand Relations & Communications at Montblanc

Returning to the Montblanc Observatory High-Mountain Library (yes, that’s a thing), Anderson assembles a cast of familiar oddballs: Rupert Friend, Michael Cera, Waris Ahluwalia, and the up-and-coming Esther McGregor. This time, the trio finds itself stranded, or perhaps perfectly at home, inside a narrative where writing becomes metaphysical therapy. Anderson himself even appears, just to keep things charmingly self-indulgent.

The film is peppered with poetic detours, sideways glances, and snow-drenched monologues on creativity and escapism. And just when you think you’re watching a Wes Anderson short, you realize you’re also riding a surreal train—the Montblanc Voyage of Panorama—gliding through pyramids, canals, and subconscious metaphors. The point? To blur literal, metaphorical, and poetic travel until they’re all the same thing. Also: to sell you a very elegant writing bag.

Products—yes, they’re there—drift in and out like characters themselves. There’s the Meisterstück (forever the diva), a new Writing Traveller Bag, a portable desk, a gorgeously obscure Minerva pocket watch, and a curious creature called the Schreiberling—a fountain pen designed by Anderson himself, of course. They’re not so much advertised as absorbed into the madness. The props are the plot.

“Montblanc has such a rich archive of material and ideas—it’s almost too generous,” Anderson says (probably in velvet). CEO Giorgio Sarné calls the campaign “a new kind of emotion,” and he's not wrong. There’s something oddly moving about watching fictional mountaineers pause mid-expedition to reflect on inner landscapes... and then jot them down with a very expensive pen.

Also involved: the dream team of Jeremy Dawson, John Peet, Roman Coppola (co-director), Darius Khondji (cinematography), Milena Canonero (costume), and Adam Stockhausen (set design). It’s basically the visual equivalent of caviar on linen napkins in a log cabin shaped like a snowflake.

And just when it’s all about to go off the rails (in the best way), the film ends where it always does—with the soft-spoken rebellion of creativity. “Let’s Write,” it whispers. Not a slogan. A mission. A dare.

Montblanc is no longer just a pen brand. It's a stage. A metaphor. A plot device in a Wes Anderson film. And possibly the most stylish excuse you've ever had to buy a notebook.

Waris Ahluwalia
in new Montblanc campaign
Charlie Gray / (c) Montblanc

Montblanc campaign
Charlie Gray / (c) Montblanc

Catch Let’s Write started June 19, 2025, on montblanc.com and everywhere else with Wi-Fi and wonder.

credits for images
(c) Montblanc / seen by Wes Anderson

SavoirFaire 2025 *Fair for Interior Design

SavoirFaire 2025
*A Living Showcase of Architectural Precision and Material Beauty

written SARAH ARENDTS

From October 23 to 26, 2025, Knokke-Heist becomes a destination for design professionals and aesthetes. At the Grand Casino Knokke, the second edition of SavoirFaire brings together over fifty interior design studios, architectural producers, and emerging voices. The format honors built quality, refined material processes, and advanced craftsmanship.

LE MILE Magazine joins as a proud media partner of SavoirFaire 2025, reflecting the shared focus on form, process, and thoughtful execution. The fair takes place in a spatially curated format. Exhibitors receive individual attention, and each presentation serves as a standalone architectural fragment. The expanded format includes returning pioneers such as Inti, known for sculptural lighting that defines presence in space, and Lanssens, a heritage studio specializing in historically rooted window systems.

New exhibitors include Baswa, a Swiss acoustic expert working at the intersection of silence and surface, and DeltaLight, whose innovations in lighting explore scale and integrated architecture. These participants present material concepts that function as structural components. Antwerp-based Slag-werk offers dense, architectural furniture works that explore proportion and edge. Their output emphasizes surface depth and volume. Isabel Gomez Studio, active internationally, contributes interior environments defined by calm geometry and tonal precision.

RV ARCHITECTS
seen by Charlotte Lauwers

ISABEL GOMEZ Penthouse Office
seen by Ruth Maria

A curated shuttle service connects visitors to real-time reference projects throughout Knokke-Heist. Guests move from the Grand Casino into finished homes and architectural interiors that apply the materials, objects, and systems featured at the fair. This direct experience bridges concept with completed space. It introduces scale, light, and atmosphere in real-world contexts.

The exhibition inside the Casino is constructed with intention. Each participating brand or studio receives space to articulate its approach. Every contributor offers its own clarity. Architectural finishes, bespoke hardware, precision lighting, and handmade furniture create an environment shaped by integrity and transparency. SavoirFaire’s reach extends across multiple disciplines. Architects, interior designers, builders, gallerists, and collectors will engage directly with the exhibitors. Over 2,500 professionals and more than 7,000 design-conscious visitors are expected. Conversations emerge around longevity and sensory quality.

The fair presents design as spatial language. Shapes hold stillness. Textures communicate presence. Acoustic panels, limestone slabs, and engineered joinery appear in settings that allow material weight to settle. Furniture pieces align with structural grids and light plans. Each element integrates with the others. Across the event, visual cohesion plays a central role. Curators focus on slow design, architectural logic, and reduction without absence. Bold pieces exist in balance with quieter statements. Ceramic objects and large-format textiles extend the material range while preserving spatial discipline.

LE MILE Magazine’s partnership amplifies this narrative. With its emphasis on form, clarity, and atmosphere, the magazine contributes editorial presence during and after the fair. Photography and reports will follow the event, tracing its spatial insights and its material contributions to the international design landscape.

BOMAT
The ArchiScape Lina Burnt Brick

“At LE MILE, we look for vision and integrity in design. SavoirFaire gathers both. Collaborating with them allows us to deepen our commitment to spaces and objects that carry intention.”

Alban E. Smajli, Editor-in-Chief + Founder LE MILE Magazine

LES CONFIDENTS Invisible Collection

Mercedes Maybach Shuttle

ISABEL GOMEZ Penthouse Living
seen by Ruth Maria

Tickets are available via savoirfaire.be. The program includes guided visits, presentations, and architectural moments across Knokke-Heist. The fair opens daily during its run at the Grand Casino and includes reserved access for professionals and collectors. SavoirFaire 2025 offers a full encounter with space, object, and method. The material decisions on display affect surface, structure, light flow, and echo. These elements interact quietly, forming environments grounded in precision and discipline.

Each participating studio contributes work rooted in continuous refinement. The outcome serves residential, institutional, and cultural applications. Every item reflects advanced production and studied proportion.

This second edition affirms SavoirFaire’s intention: to gather voices across architecture, interiors, and object design under one roof, with attention to process, place, and depth. From custom flooring systems to marble detailing, from modular cabinetry to integrated fixtures, each decision adds to a larger architecture of clarity.

With the support of LE MILE Magazine, SavoirFaire continues to highlight designers and producers who work with care, scale, and awareness. October in Knokke-Heist brings these principles into view — through form, through presence, and through the lived experience of space.

discover more www.savoirfaire.be

Martine Rose SS26 *A Love Letter to London

MARTINE ROSE
*SS/26: Martine designs for family.
And this is what love looks like.

written TAGEN DONOVAN

Martine Rose’s Spring/Summer 2026 show didn’t just present a collection, she offered a living portrait of London as seen through her deeply personal lens of the city.

Staged inside a derelict Marylebone Jobcentre, the space opened up into an unexpected salon: cascading curtains, parquet floors, and soft silky frills transformed the formerly institutionalised space into something strangely romantic. The show was a "lust for the unseen"—and it delivered with uncanny precision.

MARTINE ROSE
SS26 Show

There was a deep sense of mutual care, community not curated for optics but nurtured with sincerity. The atmosphere was unmistakably authentic and as a Londoner, it felt profoundly familiar: the chatter, the kids perched on laps, the casual flow of movement that didn’t obey the stiff codes of runway etiquette. Here, fashion didn’t preach from a pedestal, it mingled, nodded, and danced alongside the crowd. The pulsing soundtrack carried the same mood: with heads gently bobbing along in unison.

Rose’s tailoring has always walked a line between refinement and rebellion. This season, that language expanded. The cuts held their own character, sharp where needed, in-flux elsewhere. Graphics informed by juice-carton packaging and barbershop capes honoured the visual vernacular of the high street. Little aprons in lascivious fabrics nodded to the micro-economies running off-grid. And throughout, the thread of community held everything together.

MARTINE ROSE
SS26 Show

“In the age of the obvious, we lust for the unseen.”

Martine Rose, Creative Director

Toying with archetypes, and for Spring/Summer 2026, Rose sharpened her subversion. The collection flirted with eroticism—albeit in her signature off-kilter way, a subtle seduction unfolded with each look. Inspired by “retro erotica” the garments exuded quiet provocation.

Poodle hair and powdery pastels dressed the space with a dreamlike intimacy against the thoughtful contradiction of the utilitarian backdrop, while the clothes themselves explored new textures of exposure. Archetypal menswear was remixed: puffa jackets, trench coats, tailoring and shirts rendered in stretch fabrics that “virtually vacuum-packed the physique.” Stretch jeans hugged the legs like a second skin; denim sets were embossed to mimic tooled leather souvenirs from Spanish markets - part kink, part kitsch. Elsewhere, tailoring was softened with accents of lace, dancing against the set’s ruffled edges.

Echoing this charm through to the accessories, handbags wore vintage T-shirts like veils. Even the footwear told stories: driving shoes mutated into square-toed kitten heels, while the cult-favourite Nike Shox MR4 mules reemerged into new colourways.

Kinship wove itself into every corner of the show. Downstairs, the show's prelude played out in a market of vendors. It was here that the heart of the collection beat loudest. Rose doesn’t simply reference the community - she builds with and for it. This wasn’t fashion as gentrification, but fashion as home. “Total participation” , as stamped across one of Rose’s SS26 tees—was less slogan, more manifesto. Every element of this world, from kids sitting front-row on laps to the sway of the soundtrack, echoed a philosophy of togetherness.

MARTINE ROSE
SS26 Show

For Spring/Summer 2026, Rose distills a lived reality into garments surged with a charming wit and love for community. Centering an embrace of the unobvious and a reaffirmation thatfashion can still feel homegrown, messy, sensual and above all, real. This wasn’t just a show, it was a gathering shaped by unity.

creative director MARTINE ROSE
stylist & art direction TAMARA ROTHSTEIN
hair GARY GILL
make up MARINA BELFON-ROSE
manicurist LAUREN MICHELLE PIRES
casting ISABEL BUSH
music + sound design SASA CRNOBRNJA
pr AGENCY ELEVEN
production CEBE STUDIO
show set design POLLY PHILP
market set design SIMON GRAY + JAMIE BULL
movement direction MJ HARPER
show notes ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN

The 10 Greatest Scents for *Spring/Summer 2025

PERFUME MONOLITHS
*10 Fragrances That Hold Space for SS25

written MONICA DE LUNA

Perfume creates presence. Each scent marks a place, a body, a moment. For Spring/Summer 2025, LE MILEpresents ten fragrances. The selection focuses on construction and atmosphere.

The presentation follows a sculptural approach. Photographer Maciek Miloch captured the bottles within structures by Studio Cuze. The layout avoids interpretation. Each perfume is given space. Each scent is described as it appears. The selection includes established houses and independent creators. The focus remains on composition and persistence.

NISHANE – EGE

An impression built from fennel, violet leaf, and basil. The notes drift across air and settle without weight. EGE evokes clarity. It speaks through rhythm and breath, not story.

NEANDERTAL – LIGHT

A scent that opens on sharpness. Citrus, mineral, resin. The structure is deliberate, with each layer shaped by trace materials. There is no blur. LIGHT remains steady, with a dry and clean finish.

FILIPPO SORCINELLI – HAC DIES

Incense, myrrh, and dry stone. The air cools around the core. HAC DIES does not alter. The scent stays as it is first found.

AMOUAGE – PORTRAYAL WOMAN

Gardenia dominates the top. Below it: tobacco, vanilla, and quiet warmth. The scent is built with attention to density. PORTRAYAL WOMAN holds its line without variation.

LOEWE – UN PASEO POR MADRID

Green fig and peony open this structure. Cypress follows without rush. Each element holds space, unforced. UN PASEO POR MADRID moves in even intervals.

ORMAIE – PAPIER CARBONE

Rooted in iris and benzoin. Powdered tones meet a touch of wood. The air is dry. PAPIER CARBONE does not shift. It remains close, without expansion.

NASOMATTO – FANTOMAS

Synthetic edges. A note of rubber. A suggestion of candy. The finish is brief, but the structure is intact. FANTOMAS operates on impulse and exits without trace.

BOTTEGA VENETA – ALCHEMIE

Ambrette opens the composition. Metallic elements follow. Amber closes the arc. The balance remains internal. ALCHEMIE is constructed without noise.

COQUET – VAUDOU

Patchouli sets the tone. Smoked wood and spice arrive next. The base stays low. VAUDOU carries weight without disruption.

STORA SKUGGAN – MISTPOUFFER

MISTPOUFFER begins in stillness. Soft florals, earthy undertones, distant spice. The atmosphere is thick, but never opaque. There is movement, though the frame stays intact.

photographer MACIEK MILOCH
set designer NINA LEMM c/o Liganord
set design assistant KRISTIN JAKUBEK
Retouch NITTYGRITTY
ceramic artist (Bottega Veneta + Stora Skuggan) STUDIO CUZE

Spring/Summer Selection 2025

Valentino *Vain Bag Campaign by Alessandro Michele

*The Vain Campaign
The Room Holds Her, The Bag Remains

written Monica de Luna

Light falls through the room in fragments. Two women move through it slowly, inhabiting space like breath. The Valentino Garavani Vain Bag is there, quiet and near, suspended in the atmosphere between them.

This is the second chapter of a visual journey led by Creative Director Alessandro Michele. The campaign, photographed by Sharna Osborne, unfolds through the texture of film grain, softened edges, and an emotional stillness that settles across every surface.

(c) VALENTINO
Vain Campaign

(c) VALENTINO
Vain Campaign

Each image holds time gently. Nothing presses forward. Isabella and Vera sit and reach without performance. The gestures are spare, deliberate, present. A hand resting on leather. A glance that lingers. A bag placed near the skin, absorbing the moment around it.

The Vain Bag enters this sequence with composure. No introduction, no demand. It exists as part of the room, part of the ritual. Surfaces tell the story—calfskin, glossy finishes, velvet, raffia, florals rendered in embroidery. Shape follows material. The new top-handle silhouette, the oval vanity box, the updated shoulder bags with prints from the ready-to-wear collection. The new Soft Vain clutch. Each element appears with continuity, held in the same tonal frequency.

The bag never moves to the center. It remains constant—alongside a figure, against fabric, beside a pillow. Always within reach. Always aligned with the rhythm of the body.

There is no staging but only observation. Osborne’s lens hovers with intimacy. Grain dissolves outlines. Skin meets shadow, and the bag rests in this gentle complexity.

Within the campaign, silence shapes the narrative. There are no declarations. The feeling builds through repetition and through the choice to let a moment hold.

Every surface speaks. The choice of beading, the way karung skin traces the handle, the way embroidered lines thread memory into form. The Vain Bag holds these decisions with clarity.

(c) VALENTINO
Vain Campaign

(c) VALENTINO
Vain Campaign

Nothing separates the object from the setting. The room, the body, the bag—each functions within the same visual sentence. There are no events here. No climax as well. Just a mood that accumulates. Time folds. Every frame brings a shift in posture, a shift in light, a continuation.

Alessandro Michele expands the vocabulary of Maison Valentino through rhythm and emotion. Each gesture within the campaign exists with intention. Every visual element supports the same atmosphere. There is no need for introduction. The women are already there. The bag is already held. The story is already in motion.

This collection of images does not guide. It allows. It creates the condition for presence. Within this setting, the Vain Bag is not defined by function. It becomes a participant in a private world. Its presence carries weight through detail—how it is made, where it is placed, what it reflects. The softness in the photographs is deliberate. Light moves through grain and color like thought. Osborne captures more than appearance. She gives space to texture and to the intimacy that unfolds when nothing is forced.

Each version of the bag exists within this visual tone. Whether resting in velvet or opening from a curved lid, the design remains grounded in its own material language. There is consistency without repetition. No element of the campaign moves toward resolution. Instead everything continues, open-ended. The gaze is held, not answered. The story lingers.

The Valentino Garavani Vain Bag campaign invites observation. Just attention. Within the codes of Valentino, this moment adds another layer. A new gesture, a pause, a softness drawn from craft. Everything remains close to the skin. Nothing speaks louder than it must. Nothing steps forward. Every element stays within reach.

The result is a composition of presence. A study in proximity, shaped by light, held by surface, made visible through rhythm. The Vain Bag becomes part of that rhythm. Not as symbol. Not as metaphor. But as presence.

And presence remains.

Aarke *Filter Coffee System

Ritual in Three Acts
*Aarke’s Filter Coffee System Arrives

written MONICA DE LUNA

Steam coils through the air. The slow bloom of ground coffee begins to rise. A gentle mechanical rhythm takes over. Aarke has entered the world of filter coffee, and the atmosphere around the process starts to feel different.

The Swedish design studio Aarke introduces its new Coffee System™—a three-part assembly of precision: the Aarke Coffee Maker, Coffee Grinder, and Thermal Jug. Each object holds its own purpose, with carefully tuned mechanics and an almost sculptural tactility.

This is a system designed for mornings. The Coffee Maker works with a built-in water sensor that calibrates brewing temperature. Its blooming stage wets the grounds before the full cycle begins, releasing full aroma and oil. The result is complete in under six minutes. The process holds its own pace.

(c) AARKE

(c) AARKE

Grind settings expand across a wide spectrum, with the Coffee Grinder accommodating moka pot to cold brew textures. A flat burr system measures out consistent grounds. Its motor speed holds steady. A dosing function lets the user set number of cups, or simply link it with the Coffee Maker. Once beans meet blade, the flow is uninterrupted, an anti-static ionizing chute guides the grinds directly into the holder.

The Thermal Jug finalizes the system with a quiet hold. It preserves heat for hours without any external heat plate. Stainless steel construction, vacuum-insulated walls, a drip-free spout, and a grip-stable handle. Each part designed to carry hot coffee from machine to table in one clean gesture. The valve at the top closes when the jug is lifted. There is no lid to twist. No buttons to push.

All three pieces connect in function and aesthetic: minimal forms, brushed finishes, a matte calmness. They work alone or in sequence. Together, they offer a rhythm (grind, brew, pour) without creating weight in the room.

Aarke’s approach to design shapes the daily without overstatement. Since 2013, co-founders Jonas Groth and Carl Ljungh have given elemental tools a new dimension. From water carbonation to filtration, their portfolio forms a coherent landscape of domestic precision.

“The most powerful design,” Groth notes, “sits quietly but asks to be used.” This idea threads through the Coffee System. Machines remain machines. But here, they speak with clarity. The sound of the grinder, the release of steam, the pause at the pour. These moments gain new character through material, proportion, but also control.

(c) AARKE

“A carefully engineered product shouldn’t be complicated to use.”

Carl Ljungh, Co-Founder and Chief Designer at Aarke

(c) AARKE

(c) AARKE

No display screens. No decorative clutter. Aarke's system favors real-time mechanics and intuitive use. There’s care in the spacing, in the push of each part, in how surfaces receive light. It is designed to be used again and again, without needing to be explained. The Coffee Maker, Thermal Jug and Grinder is available through aarke.com and selected partners.

In parallel, Aarke updates its classics. The Carbonator 3 now appears in a deep Burgundy, a tone between metal and fruit, sharp in daylight. And for travel days or studio shifts, the new to-go bottles extend Aarke’s design language beyond the kitchen. The Coffee System arrives as a shaping of a habit. It holds attention without asking for it. A new texture for early hours, repeated in warmth and steel.

discover more www.aarke.com

The Art of Natural Hair by *Èyí Dára

ÈYÍ DÁRA
*Botanical Alchemy for Natural Hair

written MONICA DE LUNA

In the evolving landscape of beauty, Èyí Dára emerges as a sanctuary for those seeking a harmonious blend of nature and self-care.

Founded by Ganiyat Salami, a Nigerian-American with a profound passion for natural hair, wellness, science, and sustainability, the brand offers a curated selection of hair care products designed to nourish and celebrate natural hair in its authentic form.

The name Èyí Dára, translating to "This is Good" in Yoruba, encapsulates the brand's commitment to quality and authenticity. Salami's journey began with a desire to transform the natural hair care experience, leading her to obtain a Diploma in Organic Haircare Formulation, along with certifications in Natural Cosmetic Preservation and Cosmetic Stability Testing from Formula Botanica. This educational foundation empowered her to create formulations that are effective and aligned with her values of wellness and sustainability.

(c) Èyí Dára

(c) Èyí Dára

Eyí Dára's product line is thoughtfully designed to transform routine hair care into a luxurious ritual. The Moisturizing Shampoo Bar offers a gentle yet effective cleanse, while the Leave-In Conditioner and Deep Conditioning Mask provide deep hydration and nourishment. Each product is formulated with natural ingredients known for their beneficial properties, creating a sensory experience that delights from scent to suds.

The brand emphasizes the use of high-quality, natural ingredients sourced globally. Botanical extracts like hibiscus, aloe vera, nettle, and rosemary are rich in vitamins and antioxidants, promoting scalp health and hair vitality. Butters such as shea, murumuru, tucuma, cocoa, and illipe offer deep moisturization, while oils like jojoba, avocado, olive, castor, and buriti provide nourishment and shine.

Beyond product offerings, Èyí Dára is committed to empowering women through education and community engagement. The brand invests in female financial literacy programs, aiming to support women in achieving personal and economic well-being.

Salami also hosts the "Unraveling The Knots" (UTK) podcast, a platform that explores natural hair experiences, lifestyle, history, and hair care practices. The podcast fosters a space of empowerment and authenticity, aligning with the brand's mission to celebrate natural hair in all its forms. Sustainability is a core value at Èyí Dára. The brand ensures that all ingredients are ethically sourced, cruelty-free, and environmentally friendly. This commitment extends to their packaging and business practices, reflecting a holistic approach to responsible beauty.

(c) Èyí Dára

“Participating in Formula Botanica courses helped enhance my understanding of formulation.”

Ganiyat Salami, Founder

(c) Èyí Dára

Èyí Dára stands as a testament to the power of combining natural ingredients, scientific knowledge, and a deep respect for cultural heritage. Through its thoughtfully crafted products and community initiatives, the brand offers a comprehensive approach to natural hair care that honors individuality and promotes well-being.

(c) Èyí Dára

discover more www.amouage.com

Amouage *Decision and Existence

The Final Elevation
*Amouage's Decision & Existence

written MONICA DE LUNA

Jebel Shams, the high mountain of the sun, stands above Oman in stillness and breath. Here, light cuts through juniper crowns and stone holds silence. From this summit, two fragrances arise—Decision and Existence.

Amouage offers them as the final compositions in the Odyssey Collection, a series shaped by time and devotion to sacred terrain. Under the creative direction of Renaud Salmon and through the hands of Quentin Bisch, these perfumes were born from intention and presence. The mountain offered scenery—it became origin. Its altitude, texture, and rhythm entered each formula with care and clarity.

(c) AMOUAGE

(c) AMOUAGE

Decision opens with tension shaped into elegance. Pink pepper sparks first—sharp, clear, with a lift that stirs the senses awake. Bergamot follows, cool and radiant, while cardamom moves through it like a steady current. The opening carries momentum, structured with fine detail. Simply adorable!

The heart unfolds with depth. Incense forms the central pillar. Juniper, resinous and green, curves around it with dry intensity. Myrrh completes the triad with density and warmth. These materials rise in tandem, each one distinct, yet gathered into harmony. They offer an interior space, held open by intention. At the base, patchouli enters the composition with steady depth. Cedarwood adds clarity. Vanilla brings warmth with round edges and a golden tone. The drydown arrives without gesture or flourish, it simply remains. So Decision becomes atmosphere on the skin, surrounding without overtaking.

The fragrance speaks with still force. Each stage holds structure. Its power builds with weightless control, carried by a resinous column and settled through soft wood. Worn close, it pulses. Carried on air, it gathers presence.

Existence moves in a different register. Its beginning is luminous. Lily of the valley rises first, delicate, vivid. Rose enters beside it, open yet serene. These florals radiate quietly, suspended in light.

Incense appears once more, placed with precision. Mystikal blends into the heart, airy and translucent. Labdanum introduces a golden resin, smooth and glowing. These elements hover between substance and shimmer, never forming edges, always in motion.

The base gathers softness. Amber breathes gently across the foundation. White musk lifts it upward. Benzoin holds the finish, smooth and lasting. These accords rest within the skin’s warmth, diffusing slowly across time.

Existence creates a space of calm expansion. It breathes without urgency. The transitions move with ease. Every phase lingers with intention, offering light without projection, depth without density.

(c) AMOUAGE

also read
AMOUAGE PURPOSE 50 *An Extrait of Skin, Memory, and Resonance

(c) AMOUAGE

(c) AMOUAGE
Quentin Bisch

Both fragrances reflect the patience of their creation. Decision contains 33% pure perfume oil. Its formula matured for three weeks in maceration and two in rest. Existence carries 20% concentration, shaped by two weeks of each process. Every phase, from blending to bottle, received time as a central element.

Together, Decision and Existence form a pair based in parallel movement. Each fragrance travels its own line—Decision through earth, fire, but also spice; Existence through bloom, air, and light. Their bond is origin, their shared source the mountain that gave them breath.

Here, the journey continues.

From May 19th, 2025, Decision and Existence will be available in 100ml Eau de Parfum, each presented at €365.
Their form reflects dedication. Their essence carries the trace of elevation.

discover more www.amouage.com