Shades of yellow, Regency looks and so many stripes: Bold style trends from Men's Fashion Week Spring 2026

For a few seasons now, my dispatches from the menswear shows in Europe have opened with caveats about the vibes being off, men's fashion being in a state of flux or brands focusing on pomp and circumstance over clothes. 

After observing designers' Spring 2026 presentations over the past two weeks, my biggest takeaway is that menswear is back — in a big way. Or at least it is in Paris.

Milan Fashion Week left lots to be desired. It seems every season there are fewer and fewer brands showing in the Italian fashion capital — this time there was no Marni, no Gucci, no Fendi, no J.W. Anderson, no Zegna. Some of those may be due to a brief hiatus, but it doesn't augur well for the state of Italian menswear. 

On the other hand, while temperatures soared in the French capital, the looks on the runway offered a breath of fresh air.

The talk after Julian Klausner's first menswear show since taking the helm at Dries Van Noten was that it truly moved some industry folk, bringing some to literal tears. Jonathan Anderson's highly anticipated Dior debut was well-received and artfully toed the line between his own irreverent streak and the house's storied codes. And there was a celebratory mood at Rick Owens's show, a prelude to a retrospective exhibition, which opened that same night. At Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams showed his most refined collection to date, steering the house into more evergreen luxury waters and further from the logo-driven streetwear-adjacent wares of the last several years. And younger brands continued to come into their own, including Kartik Research, 3.Paradis and Auralee. 

For the first time in a while, it felt as if there were lots of good clothes, and these were the five key trends that emerged.

Earned stripes

This trend really jumped out. There were stripes thin and wide: pin, candy and Bengal; both faded and bold; horizontal, vertical and sometimes even diagonal. 

In Florence, as the guest of honour at Pitti Uomo 108, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake offered up a particularly fun version — a two-toned shirt and shorts, which subverted the brand's typical motif with a trompe l'oeil. (It looked pleated from afar, but revealed itself to be stripes up close. More on pleats in a moment.)

At Giorgio Armani in Milan, there were diagonal stripes on a jacket, chevron stripes on shirts and spaced-out pinstripes on a suit.

In Paris, both Louis Vuitton and Dior showcased striped shirts galore, with the former applying Bengal or Regency stripes to trousers, jackets and bags. Wales Bonner layered horizontally striped shirts under jackets. Junya Watanabe's collection employed nautical stripes, while Amiri and Juun.J showed plenty of pinstriped tailoring. At Hermès, there were open-weave leather jackets with two-tone stripes, and leather pants featuring latticework with a striped effect. And at Dries Van Noten, there were stripes of all sorts: patterned, sober, colourful, horizontal, vertical and all beautiful.

Simple footwear

It's been a few years since maximalist footwear was at its peak, and the Spring 2026 collections offered a palate cleanser, with simple, timeless footwear at the fore. While we saw classic derbies and oxfords, it was the more humble options that stood out: the canvas deck sneaker and thong sandal.

For spring, Prada is backing the old-school plimsoll, which looked pre-distressed on the runway. There were also canvas sneakers with rubber soles at Dior, though Jonathan Anderson's were patterned. For years, Maison Mihara Yasuhiro has shown reworked sneakers — with cartoonish outsoles in the past — and they're taking on the profile again this season. Ami was in on the trend too, with clean, crisp numbers in a range of solid colours.

Even more casual were the thong sandals that trod down the runway at Hermès, with rope detailing around the sole; at Louis Vuitton, with thicker soles; at Lazoschmidl, where the uber-simple flip-flop was the height of fashion; at Kiko Kostadinov, where they were worn with socks; and at Officine Générale, where they looked chic enough to be worn to the office.

Pleats, please

It seemed fitting that Issey Miyake's Homme Plissé was the guest of honour at Pitti Uomo, an occasion accompanied by a stunning exhibition. The master of pleats, who died a few years ago, might have been on designers' minds this season; the folds were a fixture of many collections.

In Milan, Setchu showed pleated skirts and a sweater, while Prada's trousers and track pants had a single sharp pleat down the front. Drawing on Indian sartorialism for his latest collection for Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams presented shorts and trousers with dramatic pleats that extended up to the waistband. Hed Mayner offered up double-pleated trousers.

At both Junya Watanabe and Qasimi, there were shirts with pleated panelling on the front, reminiscent of tuxedo shirts. Jonathan Anderson took inspiration from a dress from Dior's archives, Delft, for his pleated and multi-layered shorts. At Comme des Garçons Homme Plus, Rei Kawakubo offered up pleated bottoms of various lengths, including some where zippers served as the pressed pleat on trousers. Such was the prevalence of the style that White Mountaineering, no less, married a leather look with pleating on its shorts.

And it was all yellow

From pops of school-bus yellow on a luxe track suit and hats at Prada to buttery shades of cream at Hermès, the Spring 2026 collections had hits of yellow throughout. 

There were ties, tailoring, knits and prints featuring the colour at Kenzo; Maison Mihara Yasuhiro offered up banana accessories, while fellow Japanese brand Doublet riffed on recognizable Chiquita banana branding, Heinz mustard and the yellow of egg yolks. At Craig Green, with his grand return to Paris Fashion Week, models even paraded down a yellow runway, with mustardy shades used throughout the collection. Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck turned to yellow for stripes, accessories and pops of colour in graphics and the flowers on a hat. The ultimate co-signing of yellow as the colour of the season came from Auralee — which has made a name for itself with its deft use of colour — featuring skivvies, a trench coat, shorts and shirts in a spectrum of yellows. 

Regency opulence

For a decade, fashion has been defined by a democratization of luxury, from streetwear's takeover of the runways to the meme-ification of quiet luxury. But those days might be over, with this season's clothing clearly inspired by bourgeois dress of yore.

Nowhere was this more evident than at Dior, where Jonathan Anderson's collection featured aspects of this motif, including cravats, bow ties and tailcoats. But it was the buttoned jackets and frogged vests that felt most drawn from the aristocratic closet. 

There was also plenty of frogging at Kenzo (amid a curiously scattered collection by creative director Nigo). The aforementioned Regency stripes at Louis Vuitton were also seen at Saint Laurent. Even the anti-establishment Walter Van Beirendonck used Regency stripes on trousers. A smattering of lace cropped up in the collections from Niccolò Pasqualetti in Florence and Egonlab in Paris. At Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo presented jackets that ranged from inventive takes on tailcoats to simpler, tighter jackets cropped just above the waist, which called to mind Regency-era tailoring.