Fashion’s Next Chapter: Meet the New Creative Directors for SS26

Words by Hetty Mahlich

Designers revisit house codes with fresh intent, transforming heritage into something newly provocative in a season defined by reinvention, disruption and changes at the top.

Givenchy coat £6,300, necklace £2,690 and shoes £950

How do you make something old feel new again? In an extraordinary season defined by a changing of the guard, designers looked towards founding values to challenge everything we thought we knew about what household names look and feel like.

Dior by Jonathan Anderson

The best creatives learn the rules so they can break them. Jonathan Anderson mastered archive Dior codes to play with notions of dress-up, borrowing from the cantilevered hips of a 1952 silhouette for the covetable La Cigale handbag. The 1948 Delft dress informs miniskirts in the women’s collection as well as men’s stacked canvas cargo trousers. The Bar jacket – a Dior designer’s rite of passage as a defining feature of the New Look, which made Monsieur Dior an authority in post-war style – is reworked in shrunken proportions and cut from Anderson’s favourite Donegal tweed, speckled with sequins. Christian Dior’s couture legacy underpins the French maison’s future, where boys throw on checked shirts and undone sneakers while the girls don tuxedo tops.

Dior dress and shoes, prices on request, and bag £4,200

Balenciaga by Pierpaolo Piccioli

Apart from Martian sunglasses from the Demna era, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s debut at Balenciaga detours from the street-couture dialogue of his predecessor. Ever the romantic, the ex-Valentino designer opted for a love letter to elegance via the brand’s predilection for black, together with canary yellow and deep grape purple. Cocooning shapes – including a dusty-rose-pink gown in the house’s custom neo-gazar fabric – nod to the weightless innovation of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s sack dress.

Balenciaga dress £4,050, mask £5,790, gloves £795 and shoes £895

Gucci by Demna Gvasalia

Meanwhile, Demna’s self-deprecation has found a new home at Gucci. Spelling out visual codes, his teaser collection for the Italian megabrand sets the mood for what’s to come via archetypal characters – such as the Milanese woman – in an eternally chic faux-fur coat, a sheer blush-pink prima-donna kaftan dress or, for the VIP, a pussy-bow silk blouse.

Gucci shirt £1,250, skirt £1,400, earrings £575, necklace £975, bag £1,550, belt £400 and boots £1,720

Loewe by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez

There’s still fun to be had at Loewe, where play and craft go hand in hand. A scuba leather jacket sculpted in Play-Doh green and water-shoe heels capture the idiosyncrasy of the Spanish brand under its American custodians Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who made jeans from shredded leather, 3D-printed towel dresses fit for the red carpet and handblown glass clutches.

Loewe dress £2,211, sunglasses £375 and shoes £780

Celine by Michael Rider

Michael Rider joins the running for accessory of the season with the Celine Phantom bag, reintroduced with a beguiling ‘smile’ zip. It signals the return to a cool easiness at Celine, where clothing proportions have loosened – not least in the oversized cuffs of a white shirt peeking out from an ornate tan leather jacket.

Bottega Veneta by Louise Trotter

Finally, think about the way a Bottega Veneta Lauren clutch or a Veneto hobo bag can be easily slung under your arm…how the Intrecciato weave does the talking. That confidence drives Louise Trotter’s Bottega Veneta forwards. Favourites such as the head-to-toe woven-leather shirts and trousers remain, punched through with upcycled-fibreglass fringed skirts, whose wearability is boosted by Italian-wool knits. Meanwhile tailoring, Trotter’s speciality, is informed by the soft line of an archive bag, which is used to enlarge shoulders. Its desirable pragmatism feels uncomplicated – but still makes you look twice.