The autumn-winter 2026 season has been relatively subdued – save for King Charles's surprise appearance at the Tolu Coker show during London Fashion Week, and a genuinely fabulous Burberry outing.
In New York, Jamaican designer Rachel Scott made her debut at Proenza Schouler, building deftly on the stylish imperfection established by founders Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who have since departed to helm Loewe.
The real action, however, has been in Milan, where all eyes were fixed on debuts at two industry heavyweights: Fendi and Gucci.
Fendi
Maria Grazia Chiuri's return to fashion at Fendi – the house where she began her career between 1988 and 1999 – was hotly anticipated. Following Kim Jones's departure in October 2024 and months of creative drift, her arrival promised a reset. The reviews, however, have been mixed.
Those hoping for the kind of seismic overhaul recently seen at Chanel and Dior were left wanting. Chiuri sent out a long parade of all-black looks – crisp shirts, lace skirts, sheer panels, double-breasted jackets – unfussy and wearable, but conspicuously devoid of the house's famous sense of fun.
The candy-coloured pelts and decadent bags of old were nowhere to be seen. In their place, quietly beautiful Baguette bags, decked in exquisite hand-work were delivered in calm colours, offering a muted reset.
This was, unmistakably, a Grazia Chiuri collection – the same restrained hand that defined her nine-year tenure at Dior, the same instinct for the understated. Case in point, on the fur question, rather than confront the controversy head-on, she introduced a programme allowing customers to give existing Fendi furs a second life in collaboration with the house's atelier. It's a pragmatic, intelligent sidestep and entirely characteristic.
Critics have called this Dior 2.0. It isn't. It's Grazia Chiuri – and for the customer who dresses for herself rather than the front row, that may be exactly enough.
Gucci
Ahead of Demna's debut Gucci show on Friday, the house has courted controversy — not for its designs, but for flooding its social media with AI-generated imagery in the run-up.
Though clearly labelled as such, the visuals – a rearing horse, a couple in a grand interior, an Italian grandmother in vintage Gucci – landed badly. "Could you not find any models?" seemed to capture the mood.
The criticism wasn't simply about AI, but credibility. As one commenter put it: "If the products are made for real people, in real life, why create a world that doesn't even exist? Great brands don't need shortcuts. They need the truth."
Demna is a master of hype, and clearly subscribes to the view that all noise is good noise. Some of it works. A GG-logoed satellite in the same campaign is genuinely clever. But for the everyday human moments, Gucci's audience is unconvinced. When the show eventually unfolds, the question will be whether the clothes make the controversy worth it.
Prada
At Prada's autumn-winter show on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg sat front row – a curious presence, given that designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons had just told the press that AI represents one of fashion's greatest threats. Prada, though, is a house built on intellect and pragmatism. Perhaps this is simply the new reality.
The collection itself was a meditation on the real woman navigating her day – made literal on the runway, where just 15 models cycled through rapid changes to trace her journey from morning to night. Bella Hadid appeared four times, each pass stripping back a layer: a sheer skirt with heavy jacket, then sheer skirt and shirt, then a white embroidered slip dress, then a grey wool vest with nylon bloomers. As much a feat of backstage logistics as creative vision.
Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid, for example, appeared four times, a glimpse into the heroic backstage organisation as much as the design vision. In reality the models shed one layer between turns on the runway, which for Hadid meant going from a sheer skirted look with heavy jacket, to sheer skirt and shirt, to a white embroidered slip dress, to grey wool vest and matching bloomer style nylon shorts.
As a masterclass in layering, it was signature Prada — but also something shrewder. In spelling out how to maximise wear across multiple looks, the house quietly addressed the cost-per-wear conversation that luxury brands can no longer afford to ignore.
Prices are up; customers are watching. Acknowledging that with this much elegance and wit was, typically, the smartest move in the room.
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