DANIEL w. FLETCHER SS26

.new campaign
The Thistle’s Whisper
*Spring’s Reckoning with Daniel w. Fletcher

written ALBAN E. SMAJLI

There’s a certain wetness to the Scottish Highlands that announces itself only when trousers surrender completely to the elements, the kind that hovers between rain and fog, an atmosphere born from nature’s own reluctance to hurry, pausing in the air, pressing against skin, gliding over shoulders, a presence Daniel w. Fletcher welcomes wholeheartedly for SS26—a collection conceived far from city grids and studio walls, placed deep in a landscape where thistles claim the horizon and sheep pay attention only to the subtle shift in grass and sky, unmoved by the artificial logic of seasons or palettes.

Hand-painted thistles bloom in reckless, botanical abandon, with each flower growing out from shirt sleeves and collars, each garment transforming into a half-wild meadow, an unmanageable flora arranged for the kind of person who ventures into the landscape and becomes indistinguishable from its restless green. Heather finds its way from hillside to fabric, moving across bodies, seeping into skin, with Fletcher’s colours bleeding mauves and mosses and that elusive purple-grey reserved for Sunday afternoons when the air feels heavy with promise and the sky rehearses for the next storm.

Tailoring enters, never content with restraint or ordinary smoothness—long-line jackets shape the silhouette, Edwardian waists emerge for the gentry and the bold, with military details carving sharp intervals in the softness, toggles and buttons murmuring stories of distant uniforms, each element inventing a wardrobe for escapists in waiting. Double-breasted and single-breasted jackets offer endless invitations, in a territory where rules drift across sheep tracks and lichen. Trousers billow, scarves wrap and spiral, silk chasing wind, lambswool berets balancing on heads, each one poised with the quiet confidence of a secret shared in a hushed room.

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

And the formality orchestrates its own quiet spectacle. Ballroom-wear emerges, tuxedos primed for a ceilidh high above the heather, crystal buttonholes glimmer through the mist, organza shirts breathe, drifting with their own internal weather. An urge arises to waltz, or simply to move with intention, carrying each garment across moorland and parquet, each piece calling for nerve, imagination, a willingness to lead it toward uncharted places.

DANIEL w. FLETCHER fills the scene with winks and sidelong gestures—stripes swell with volume, stepping boldly into the foreground, shorts carve themselves close to the edge, displaying knees as new protagonists. Corsets lace up, commanding presence and precision, every tie mapping out new lines for the body’s story. Faux fur overcoats settle across shoulders, weighty and resolute, built for winters that extend as long as one pleases. Each element declares its own prominence, every piece carrying the romance of tradition while responding to the pulse and rhythm of the world outside nostalgia’s reach.

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

Fabien Kruszelnicki’s photography seals the collection in filmic mist, Ruben McDowall flickers between silhouette and apparition, the Highlands rising as protagonist, the model inhabiting the landscape and the lambswool, styling shifting toward the realm of myth. Drama floods the images, comedy bubbles beneath—berets propose riddles, organza murmurs replies, thistles linger with prickly patience, always first to greet a visitor.

The collection drifts toward unsettled ground, finding comfort along the periphery, taffeta trousers sweeping up the grass, faux fur surrendering itself to the force of the wind. Resilience glimmers alongside lightness, each look blends the regal with the ridiculous, composing a wardrobe for those who flirt with romance and savor irony, an assembly of garments that welcomes the world, offers its hand, and releases a trace of heather and irreverence into the air. Art direction by James West, grooming by Sophie Jane Anderson, yet the narrative unfolds with greatest clarity out in the weather, cast across skin, carried forward on bodies in motion.

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

Daniel w. Fletcher
SPRING SUMMER 26 Campaign

HEIGS - Beurre

HEIGS
*Beurre Was Here Before You Noticed

written GINEVRA VALENTE

Some bags enter quietly and settle quickly, and others arrive too loudly to be believable; Beurre, from HEIGS, does neither and both simultaneously, occupying space with the ease of something that had an appointment, then forgot about it entirely and appeared anyway, not bothering with apologies, because leather has better things to do.

HEIGS calls the leather calfskin, full grain, uncorrected, words that carry meaning only until touched, after which language feels slightly beside the point, since texture does all the talking anyway, saying something precise about discretion without caring if it’s overheard, and allowing the grain to gather impressions quietly as the weeks slip by and nobody notices. Beurre remains Swiss in conception and French in assembly, two facts delivered with subtlety usually reserved for more questionable claims, suggesting a production process hidden somewhere in the kind of quiet European atelier where coffee breaks stretch indefinitely and stitching happens as if each line were the first ever sewn and the last worth doing.

The clasp holds Heidi and the lion, an emblem placed quietly inside, a detail included thoughtfully, precisely positioned where the hand finds it naturally, offering a subtle reassurance rather than explanation, a private recognition intended exclusively for whoever chooses to carry it.
The bag holds its presence quietly, never needing to raise its voice to enter the conversation, assured enough to wait for occasions to form naturally around it, confident that purpose emerges without being predicted.

The shape remains clear, quietly leaving space for whatever might accompany it, confident enough to allow purpose to emerge naturally, trusting that its presence alone provides all the context required. Beurre moves through rooms with quiet assurance, settling naturally beside everything already present, suggesting gently that adjustments are unnecessary, since good design anticipates life without needing acknowledgment. It's leather intended for living, softly prepared to age, comfortably ready to darken, unconcerned yet always aware of its own worth.

team credits

seen KANG MINJE / www.kangminje.com
styled LEE AHREUM
model LEIA HOLTWICK

Melissa x Diesel Collab

.new collab
MELISSA x DIESEL
*Rubber Gods and Other Delusions of Elegance

written AMANDA MORTENSON

Rubber melts memory faster than heat, and in the Melissa-Diesel union, the memory gets rewritten in translucent layers and factory-spun fantasies, where every sole becomes an altar and every arch a design thesis.

The launch breathes with that quiet insistence that only comes from brands long familiar with the performance of excess, the kind of intimacy that happens when a shoe imagines itself both object and spectacle, more monolith than accessory.

The Quantum Thong arrives soft and symmetrical, carrying a shape that recalls diagrams from a manual no one asked to read but everyone wants to own. Pink slides in like bubblegum after midnight, black stands like a nightclub wall you lean against out of rhythm, transparent red and blue offer the promise of temperature shifts that begin at the ankle. Platforms follow, geometric volumes with the attitude of architecture during a full moon and sandals lifted like invitations or warnings.

MELISSA x DIESEL
Campaign

MELISSA x DIESEL
Campaign

Sneaker X completes the trinity with the assurance of something bred inside a sealed studio with fluorescent silence and biometric locks, where gender loses its meaning and all that remains is a shell for movement, polished and aerodynamic. Every size appears, every color holds its own name, and nothing left to adjust. The Diesel D expands across each silhouette like a glyph from an urban folklore, a kind of sigil for the new believers of street couture and synthetic spirituality. The D doesn’t explain itself, it rather rotates, stretches, embeds, and accepts the surface as gospel and the foot as oracle.

Shoppers gather through portals coded to feel clean and frictionless, digital altars where Melissa and Diesel light scented fires made of pixelated gradients and mock-sincerity. Stores function as museums that forgot to lock the vitrines. Feet enter without asking and photography follows with no alarms.

MELISSA x DIESEL
Campaign

The collaboration folds time and flattens the idea of occasion. Morning, evening, somewhere between the club and the convenience store—each moment welcomes a shoe that behaves like sculpture and speaks in capital letters. Melissa carries its decades like an heirloom dipped in gloss, marching through past alliances with architects and provocateurs, never missing a step even when the runway disappears. Diesel, still fluent in the dialect of denim rebellion and factory-born pride, supplies the posture and the push, a language understood without translation.

The launch floats in like it missed the memo but still gets photographed from every angle. Color-coded, algorithm-approved, properly translucent in places where mystery performs best. The calendar says July 15th, the internet stretches and the shelves absorb it. Just plastic shaped like an idea someone once sketched on a napkin at a very loud dinner. Melissa leans in, Diesel flexes. So while the shoes wait, the feet arrive.

MELISSA x DIESEL
Campaign

MELISSA x DIESEL
Campaign

Endless Joy x Gung Ama

ENDLESS JOY
*The Priest, the Chef, and the Camera in the Jungle

written ADRIAN COLTER

There’s a certain way light touches skin in Bali that makes everything look like a ceremony, even when it’s just someone eating rice alone at 11am with one leg curled under the other and a small dog under the table, staring as if it knows something you don't.

This kind of place speaks through silence and sweat and cotton that sticks to the middle of your back in a way that makes you aware of your own pulse. So when Endless Joy decides to tell a story here, one that floats somewhere within fashion and folklore and something they’ve agreed to call Taksu, it becomes clear they offer more than garments inspired by the island. They’re wrapping up a worldview in fabric and tossing it over your shoulders like a wet blessing.

Endless Joy, SS25
seen GUNG AMA

Endless Joy, SS25
seen GUNG AMA

You have to imagine it as a séance conducted by two expats with a really good sense of color and a surprisingly respectful understanding of animist spirituality. Enter Gung Ama, the photographer with a camera that breathes, and a way of standing still that draws people into speaking more truthfully, even in silence. He works with an Afghan box camera, a device built around chemistry and intention and waiting. No assistants, no light rigs, no LCD screens blinking into feedback loops. Just the kind of waiting that makes time expand and eyes look away, then back again, when they realise they’re being seen.

Together, they’ve chosen five Balinese creatives, though “creatives” floats slightly too sterile for what these people do. There’s a priest, quiet in title but expansive in presence; a chef whose food carries the weight of earth and apology; a dancer moving through space with the assurance of someone who has listened to trees; a visual artist with turmeric beneath the nails and memory in the knuckles; and a musician whose instruments continue breathing between each note. Each of them captured mid-being, a state Gung Ama enters with that box of his and that way he listens without nodding. Endless Joy continues to exist in that space shaped by the poetic and the mythological, guided by a density of print that gathers meaning with each layer and a looseness of certainty that allows form to remain open, a kind of slow unfolding that settles through gesture and holds within intention, and here, in the moss-laden air of Ubud, that unfolding reaches a saturation point, the clothing not placed upon the environment but absorbed by it, absorbed into it, held within its breath and dampness and murmur, the fabric gathering story as residue, carrying the cadence of something spoken inward, and once touched, once held, the vibration begins almost imperceptibly, somewhere beneath the surface of language, somewhere between texture and heat. The collaboration expands without circling memory, drawing on the presence of the box camera, the grain of black-and-white film, the full weight of an analogue process that seek to meet, and what comes through is not recollection or reference but contact, direct and immediate, already living, already rooted, already woven into the space between palm frond and ankle bracelet, between the accumulation of sweat and the sound of oil meeting iron in the first breath of morning.

Endless Joy, SS25
seen GUNG AMA

Endless Joy, SS25
seen GUNG AMA

Endless Joy, SS25
seen GUNG AMA

Taksu holds its ground beyond description, evading the frame of search engines and definitions, remaining instead in the charged pause before thought, in the interval that hums just before articulation, transmitting itself through sensation, a force that rises through the hands and exits through the act, made visible only in what it produces, as pulse, as field, as presence that lingers in the eyes, in the breath, in the stillness of those portrayed. The people here carry it completely, through the sheer fact of being, and the garments shaped around them hold that same frequency, neither reflecting nor responding but residing within it, holding it as they move, as they are worn, as they accompany the body through space with an attuned stillness that remains.

Temu Space, where all this unfolded, holds presence in everything it touches, with trees gathering stillness at the edge of movement, stones settled into quiet alignment, and air thick with sound and heat, as the space draws the work inward and lets it grow through rhythm, through repetition, through a making that expands without beginning or end. Intention settles early and shapes the atmosphere through quiet accumulation, as each gesture returns to the last with memory already held in the motion. Endless Joy moves within this field, responding to what surrounds it, and what takes form carries the same density, thread and pigment moving with weight and quiet insistence, folding into the air, holding its place.

Within a visual culture marked by repetition and gestures that circulate with speed, there is a shift here toward authorship that builds from the inside, shaped by the people who hold the language of the place through action, through practice, through the way rhythm moves through the body and the way sound settles into ground. What forms here follows that rhythm, held in depth, and the field continues to vibrate with what has been made as extension. The clothing arrives through this same process, carrying silk, carrying illustration, carrying the line of the portraits, with the surface moving in layers and the depth sitting just underneath, asking for wear, duration, presence, and for the continuation of something that has already begun. The work holds memory, holds gesture, holds temperature, and circulates as a field that stays near the body and moves with it.

Fashion here opens space, reshaping how the body moves and memory holds, as time folds into fabric drawn with intention. Something older moves through each piece—steady, unhurried, fully formed—and once worn, the garment speaks through presence, holding the trace, carrying atmosphere, returning the story into the world.

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

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

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.

RIMOWA Design Prize III

The Future in Form
*RIMOWA and the Rise of a New Creative Vanguard

written SARAH ARENDTS

At the historic Gropius Bau in Berlin, the third edition of the RIMOWA Design Prize brought together emerging talents, mentors, and established voices in a shared moment of creativity and clarity.

The event honored human-centered design and celebrated the many ways design shapes experience, care, and connection. Presented by Valerie Präkelt, the event underscored RIMOWA’s ongoing commitment to nurturing the next generation of designers. Since its inception, the prize has championed students from leading German design schools, connecting them with established creatives and honoring work that seeks to improve lives in tangible ways.

This year’s first prize went to Elisabeth Lorenz and Marc Hackländer of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd. Mentored by Nic Galway, their project, hottie, reimagines how we care for the body, specifically, those who experience menstrual pain. A discreet wearable device that combines TENS technology (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) with adjustable heat therapy, hottie empowers its users with relief and autonomy. The project also confronts societal stigmas, creating space for empathy and visibility.

RIMOWA Design Prize III Ceremony
seen by Marc Krause

Karen Boros + Christian Boros

Herbert Hoffmann

“Each project presented a perspective rooted in care and function. These are works shaped by awareness and a deep sense of purpose.”

Alban E. Smajli, Editor-in-Chief LE MILE

A special mention was awarded to Tom Kemter and Niels Cremer from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar for their project Standalone. Mentored by Pierre Jorge Gonzalez and Judith Haase, the design transforms the classic forearm crutch into a sleek, ergonomic tool that stands on its own, literally and metaphorically. With its fold-out legs and elegant finish, Standalone promotes functionality and dignity, rethinking assistive design as something aspirational. The remaining five finalists—all of whom received monetary awards—brought forward bold, human-centric ideas grounded in sustainability and accessibility.

Each of the finalists received financial support for their work: €20,000 for the winner, €10,000 for the special mention, and €5,000 each for the other participants. Beside funding, the RIMOWA Design Prize offers visibility, mentorship, and a platform from which these ideas can grow into real-world solutions.

And while the projects themselves were impressive, what truly stood out at the event was the energy in the room, a sense of shared purpose, of mutual respect between generations of designers, and of hope for a more inclusive, thoughtful future.

The jury, comprised of respected figures from design, academia, and industry, including Niklas Bildstein Zaar, Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Moritz Krueger, Ute Meta Bauer, Katharina Janku, and RIMOWA’s own CEO Hugues Bonnet-Masimbert, provided mentorship, context, and a meaningful connection between established design values and emerging perspectives.

As a brand long associated with precision and modern craftsmanship, RIMOWA continues to push its legacy forward—through its products and through cultural investment. With the Design Prize, it cements its role as a maker of iconic luggage and as a thoughtful patron of contemporary design innovation in Germany.

LE MILEcAir by Pin Jan Stackfleth

RIMOWA Design Prize 2025

Compath by Jonas Kraemer + Mahret Ifeoma Kupka

RIMOWA Design Prize 2025

Hottie by Marc Hacklaender + Elisabeth Lorenz

RIMOWA Design Prize 2025

Layers by Nick Geipel + Niklas Bildstein

RIMOWA Design Prize 2025

Tonbo by Marius Kintzel + Julian Solmsdorff

RIMOWA Design Prize 2025

RIMOWA Design Prize III
Jury

LE MILE was proud to witness the beauty of this moment: creativity at its most purposeful, and design as an act of generosity. What we saw last night at Gropius Bau was a gathering of bold thinkers who dare to imagine tools for a better life and who now have the support to build them.

And that, in essence, is what design should do.