my forecast, spring 2026 Style Trends

Get ready: Spring 2026 is shaping up to be a season of bold reinvention and romantic contrasts. I’m calling it now—these are the trends that will define the months ahead.

La Isla Bonita

Sun and fun are synonymous with the spring/summer collections. To capture that OOO vibe, designers incorporated aspects of scuba and surfwear into their collections (see Loewe, Chloé, Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier) as well as tropical prints (Dries Van Noten) in bright colors reminiscent of beachside cocktails.

Not Just Hot Air

Some of the fantasy elements in the spring collections might have been inspired by the Paul Poiret exhibition in Paris. The King of Fashion, as he was once known, not only claimed to free women from corsets, but inspired by the Ballets Russes, looked to regional dress for inspiration and a brilliant color palette. In 1911 Voguereported that the designer’s “distracting jupe-culotte” was “the spring sensation in Paris that is causing a veritable war of chiffons.”

Pillow Talk

Accessing the dream world through sleep, designers did more than continue the pajama party that started at the men’s shows. Sheet-like white cotton was magicked into dresses that wrapped around the body with an offhand elegance, some featuring the textile equivalent of bed head: wrinkles. As if keeping in mind Charlotte Brontë’s reminder that “a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,” designers opted to soothe and swaddle.

Flesh for Fantasy

Versace’s Dario Vitale and Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello both imagined a pre-right swipe world in which clandestine amorous meetings were conducted in public places. At Schiaparelli a dress displayed skin through tears, while angular hip bones, and more, were revealed by bumsters at Sean McGirr’s McQueen. And then there were the garments that created the illusion of opening up and revealing (somewhat in the teasing manner of the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album cover) Sex appeal? More like sex a-peel.

Let Them Eat Cake

In what can only be described as fashion synchronicity, the spring collections abounded with panniers, petticoats, and pretty rococo flourishes just as a “Marie Antoinette Style” exhibition opened at the V&A Museum in London.

All That Jazz

This year the world marks the 100th anniversary of both Art Deco and the Jazz Age novel, The Great Gatsby. Drop-waisted dresses worthy of the book’s heroine Daisy Buchanan were revived as was the full-skirted robe de style, the rococo flourish of the flapper generation.

Club Khaki

One of the best ways to be ready for action is to adopt a uniform style of dressing. That’s what Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons suggested in Milan, and what Olivier Rousteing did at Balmain, albeit with a more bohemian slant. Who knew there were so many shades of khaki?

A Jill of All Trades

What constitutes women’s work? The range of options has long since expanded beyond the limited confines of Levittown as Miu Miu acknowledged by sending both decorative and functional aprons down the runway, perhaps as a reminder that clothes are a tool for living.

Square Roots

At Celine, Michael Rider exploded the idea of the foulard as a building block of a classical wardrobe by adapting scarf prints to full-body proportions. Scarves of all types, bandanas, and Spanish shawls were transformed into garments. Taking things a step further, designers like Ralph Lauren and Sarah Burton at Givenchy incorporated the gesture of knotting a scarf into their wrapped garments.

High-Wire Acts

At Anrealage tech-friendly designer Kunihiko Morinaga used wires, enabling clothes to move on their own accord. Others, including Courregès’s Nicolas Di Felice, Gucci’s Demna, and Melitta Baumeister, used metal, horsehair, and other supportive materials to create garments that defied the rules of gravity.

Fringe Benefits

Sashes, streamers, trains, and fringe—lots of it—floated down the spring runways. At Bottega Veneta, Louise Trotter’s recycled fiberglass tops looked like sea urchins. Softer was Rachel Scott’s silky fringe at Diotima, while at Chanel there was a feathery aspect to Matthieu Blazy’s embellishments.

Free Rein

Jersey, which both contains the body and moves with it, was cut into dance-like dresses that conjured the elegance and strength of choreographers like Pina Bausch and Martha Graham.