This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the fashion world. Sign up here to get it free.
A few days after the end of the men’s spring 2026 runway season, I saw two things that made me double-take on the streets of Paris. The first was a guy leaving a Left Bank vintage shop wearing long gray trousers and a pair of white Havaiana flip-flops. The second was a dude at a bus stop in a sleek business-like suit and tie—but the tie was knotted backwards, so the label faced out. I almost asked my taxi driver to pull over.
I could only draw one conclusion: fashion is back.
At the outset of the spring 2026 men’s fashion shows, I argued that fashion isn’t cool right now. Brands have been taking customers for granted for too long, and haven’t been delivering the originality and inspiration that people rightly crave. That’s why sales are down and so many luxury houses have hired new designers. And then Milan and Paris Fashion Week felt like a big juicy celebration of personal style itself, courtesy of designers who met the moment with a vision of menswear that got our blood pumping again.
As you may have read in Show Notes, one of the big stories of the season was mandals. I even took some toe thongs for a spin after to see what all the fuss was about. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw the young man in Paris who looked like he walked straight off the Auralee runway, where designer Ryota Iwai paired bouncy tropical wool trousers with bright flip-flop sandals. None of the clothes we just saw will be available for six months, but the guy clearly didn’t want to wait. See now, wear now. It felt like a testament to the resurgent relevance of luxury menswear, and the accessibility of these desirable new ideas.
The backwards tie was another small but unmistakable example of the runway trickling down into real life: Jonathan Anderson’s blockbuster Dior debut included several neckties knotted insouciantly in reverse. As Anderson told me: “I wanted a look that had a kind of an honesty, a realness to it… I want it to feel kind of liberating of itself, and that you could see this character in Paris, in any city in the world.”
Well, bingo. The Dior clothes will be astronomically expensive when they finally land in stores. The tie guy—who looked like a twenty-something creative at an advertising firm—might not end up buying any of it. But it seemed obvious to me that he was declaring his fandom of Anderson’s Dior via the simple twist of his accessory, a meaningful sign that twisted Anglo-prep steeze might be a leading menswear paradigm going forward.
Those Auralee sandals and Dior’s messy-schoolboy styling were two of the best things I saw at fashion week, but there was a lot more that moved me that I didn’t get the chance to go deep on in Show Notes, from clothes that look set to define the way we dress to the memorable details and experiences that I can’t stop thinking about as I re-enter normal life: Bill Charlap’s moving performance of his father’s showtunes at Bode’s dollhouse presentation; the cool air inside the Versailles L’Orangerie at Jacquemus; a platter of olive oil-drenched lobster that arrived after a long, stormy day in Milan. The boldfaced highlights we’ll be talking about for months, and the tiny moments in between the social-mediagenic glitz and glamour that have their own magic.
