“They’re Quite Extreme Silhouettes”: Martine Rose Is at Her Best for Fall 2026

Martine Rose is one of fashion’s great narrators. Her shows are transportive universes in which the cheeky perspective through which she sees the world is made material. Take the homecoming show, of sorts, that she staged back in June as a case in point: a love letter to London – not least its hoi polloi of characters, endowed with swagger and lip-biting sex appeal – it was a much-needed reminder of what fuels the city’s stubborn pride (its people), and what makes the designer one of its de facto patron saints.

The same can be said of her autumn/winter 2026 collection. Although a portfolio of images takes the place of a show this season, it’s a body of work that brims with characteristic Martine-isms: chopped and screwed sportswear, whacky trompe l’oeil constructions, gender-f*cked styling, high camp riffs on historical dresscodes. What sets the collection apart, though, is its laser focus.

“This season, there was a very intentional plan to strip everything back and really just to make it about the clothes and the silhouette,” Martine says over Zoom, fresh from the collection’s shoot. “Typically, we pull people into this feeling, and there are so many different facets that draw people in.” Indeed, a Martine Rose spectacle is as close as you’ll come to a fashion-show-as-gesamtkunstwerk experience in London; they’re holistically sensorial events that, annoying as it is to say, you have to be there to really get.

“It’s not to say that that distracts from the clothes – positioning them within a wider context and conversation is something we do intentionally. But here, we really just wanted to make them the focus,” the designer explains. “To strip it back and give it some air; to make it be about a silhouette or a person – to create a stillness and a really intentional sense of focus.”

Trompe l’oeil is a longstanding mainstay in Martine’s arsenal, but here, the what-you-see-isn’t-quite-what-you-get technique is pushed to confident new frontiers. A supple leather coat, for example, comes with a hulking faux fur collar and sleeves, the latter swelling at the sleeve head, aping the puffed-up stance of a Holbein subject; a track jacket in contrasting swatches of nylon is seemingly draped with faux pelts. “They’re quite extreme silhouettes,” Martine says, “but we really wanted to channel this sense of old-world glamour through a lens of contemporary youthfulness and lightness.” A technical detail that stands them apart, though, is that, in both cases, the pilose panels aren’t overlaid but interlocked, with the contrasting textiles expertly fused.

Martine’s preoccupation with historical garment construction also translates to a widespread study of corsetry, with boned and canvassed waists built into twill chore jackets, wool suiting, carpenter trousers and poplin shirts, their stern rigour counterposed by the comforting slouch of unconstructed tailoring and extended flannel overshirts that pour over the body. A similar contrast informs Martine’s approach to gender play – the playfulness of men’s shirts with lacy camisole appliqués sits next to the pheromonal masculinity of bombers with in-built gym towel hoods. “There’s always that push-pull, and that will always be present in my work,” she says. “They’re things I really enjoy – even when we’re like, ‘We’re going to do something totally different this season,’ that’s what we still come back to. It’s part of our handwriting.”

Handwriting feels like a fitting analogy in discussing Martine’s work. The opposite of algorithmic, what gives it its charge is the profound sense of humanity it exudes. While the intention behind this season may have been to strip it all back to the clothes, looking at these images, you can’t help but be struck by the human ingenuity that resulted in their making – and the emboldened, self-possessed sense of personality they activate in their wearers. These are clothes that speak for themselves, and that empower you to say just what you want.

This article was originally published on British Vogue.