The recently concluded Fashion Week circuit for men’s spring/summer 2026 was much quieter than usual—no Gucci, Loewe, Bottega Veneta or Balenciaga—but it might be better for that because a sense of paring things back has emerged a key theme of the season. There were still brands that trafficked in the whiz-bang vibe of the early post-pandemic years but the shows that felt the freshest were the ones who dialled into a yearning for simpler times without their visions devolving into a simple nostalgia exercise. With toxic masculinity in overdrive and men-children in ill-fitting suits ruining it for the rest of us, is it any wonder that the most contemplative minds in fashion are manifesting a reset? Their work argues for the codes of conservative masculinity to be broken down and rearranged to symbolise a new way of doing things. The starting place? Slutty little shorts.
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As with many things in fashion, the first—and most potent—sign we saw of this was at Prada. For the first time, the showspace in the Fondazione Prada was left unadorned—save for fuzzy rugs in the form of childlike flower drawings. The clothes were equally stripped back. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons opened with a camp-collar shirt and a rollneck, worn with what used to be khakis but have been cut so short they skipped past hot-pants territory right into diaper-adjacent areas. As unsexy as that sounds on paper, there is a certain appeal to that kind of visible masculine vulnerability—a liberation of the body, but also from traditional dress codes.
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As Milan Fashion Week wound down and Paris kicked off, we saw another side of that story unfold at Saint Laurent, of all places. Anthony Vaccarello’s calling card for the past few years has been the way he’s so deftly channelled the hedonistic, after-dark aesthetic of the Yves Saint Laurent woman in a contemporary way for all genders, but this season, he tapped into a new-old tension—that of the masculine-feminine divide, but contoured in a way that felt distinctly now. Saint Laurent used to borrow from menswear to electrify womenswear with his Le Smoking; now, Vaccarello has riffed on Saint Laurent’s womenswear language to expand the YSL men’s vocabulary.
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Like at Prada, the opening statement at Saint Laurent was also a shorts story—classically tailored and front-pleated, but cut extremely high on the thigh. After last season’s razor-sharp tailoring juxtaposed against kinky leather boots, this collection felt like a 180. Though its defining feature was still the same—a structured, slim, sharply protruding-out shoulder from which everything else flowed—the sensibility was much softer. Fabrics felt weightless; they draped, fell, and clung. Waistlines were left gaping and gathered like paperbags—the rawness of the gesture adding to the sensuality. The palette felt off, and was all the more compelling for it—some shades were acidic bright while some powder soft, and yet others still rich but murky. Vaccarello has proven that he can do in-your-face and sexed-up—this collection was a testimony to his range in the softer parts of sensual appeal.
And then there was the Dior show—one of the season’s most anticipated as it marked Jonathan Anderson’s debut for the House. Now with two decades under his belt, Anderson’s resume ranges from accessible Uniqlo to his mid-size eponymous brand to Loewe, the LVMH unpolished gem that ended up glittering in his hands. All that experience showed. With Dior, he proved that he could think much bigger and broader without losing his point of view. His vision skewed a lot softer and younger than Kim Jones’ Dior Men couture-streetwear sensibility, but it somehow also felt more approachable. Codes of French court dress were clashed against preppy schoolboy staples, making the former a lot more current and the latter much cooler.
The other much-watched menswear debut was Julian Klausner’s at Dries Van Noten. Here, too, was a medley of familiar things re-contextualised in a very free-association way—the casual with the ceremonial, the extravagant with the everyday. A prime example: A rugby shirt and shrunken sweats, but topped off with a hot pink silk cummerbund. Elsewhere, there were glittering embroidered flowers worn with Boy Scout-khakis; or shirt-and-ties paired with silk-scarf sarongs.
Shorts were also the cornerstone of the new Wales Bonner collection. After a blockbuster showing at the Met Gala—both on the red carpet and inside the Costume Institute exhibit celebrating black dandyism—Grace Wales Bonner wanted to transpose that kind of Superfine elegance into a more everyday context. The slim, sharp tailoring that is her signature was remixed with briefs, shorts, sweats and Adidas sneakers; with worn-in leathers and jeans. And because the collection is called Jewel, its most perfect finishing touch was also the most obvious: Brooches made of diamonds and gemstones and pearls that evoked all at once medals, heirlooms and talismans.