“The crushing weight of words,” read the seat cards at Catherine Holstein’s fall/winter 2026 show for her label Khaite. With a set—designed by her husband Griffin Frazen—featuring scrolling LED text that almost looked like it was tumbling onto the audience, and a voice on the soundtrack reading a litany of words in alphabetical order, the theme was clearly on her mind.

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Amid the endless data crawl, the torrents of texts, tweets, and think pieces now available to us at all times, the designer seemed to want to transcend speech altogether. A central conceit of her work has been finding a new visual language to project authority. “Power dressing can mean whatever you want it to mean,” she told me for a 2023 ELLE profile, and here, she nodded to several institutional images of it, spanning church and state—from gold cross chains dangling from belts to high-collared suits to military jackets with exaggerated shoulders. The military-dress motif extended to sheer blouses and dresses that were a collision of martial and romantic, while bow ties gave a menswear flair to some of the looks.

She further explored the darkness-and-light dichotomy with a black dress that exploded into ’80s-style white ruffles (the decade is a frequent reference point for the designer). Kate Moss-worthy slip dresses were interrupted with a passage of lace. And her taste for the unexpected juxtaposition came through in looks like an argyle sweater styled with opera gloves.

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At times, the show had a Gothic feel: Much like the rocker-vampires from Only Lovers Left Alive, the models seemed to have emerged from their darkened manse wearing all black, sporting big sunglasses and extended chrome claws for nails (though some also had flowers clipped to their lapels, in a nod to the holiday).

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In that interview, Holstein confided that, unlike many designers, Fashion Week is her favourite time of year, and between the clothes, the set, the soundtrack, and the sparkling cast—including Raquel Zimmermann, Doutzen Kroes, Natasha Poly, Alex Consani, and ELLE cover girl Lulu Tenney—she delivered a spectacle. And though Khaite has already become a cornerstone of New York Fashion Week in a relatively short time, this could have even been an audition for a bigger stage.

This article was first seen on ELLE US.