The Fall 2026 Collections Spanned the Decades—Liu Wen Channels Them All

In 1937, a British art historian named James Laver decided to codify the fashion trend cycle. He devised a 12-part timeline, known as Laver’s Law, that ranges from fashion that is a decade ahead of its time (“indecent”) to that which is a century and a half past its first blush (“beautiful”). His conclusion was that time is kind to old trends. The recent past, however, is a minefield.

Those low-profile, retro-looking sneakers that first surfaced last fall? In the Laver-verse, fashion that is one year out of date is “dowdy.” The athleisure craze from 2016? Fashion from 10 years ago is, in his words, “hideous.” The ’90s-era minimalism that anchored Ryan Murphy’s Love Story? At 30 years old, it would have been “amusing” to him; give it another 20, and it will be “quaint.” It’s doubtful either modifier was what the legions of fans cosplaying John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette at the Odeon last spring were aiming for.

Laver was no po-faced academic; he had previously written a sophisticated comic novel, Nymph Errant, about a sheltered young woman determined to lose her virginity, that was adapted for the stage by Cole Porter in 1933 (a film version was nixed when Hollywood deemed the subject matter too risqué). It would be a mistake to take his taxonomy literally, but it had real significance when it was created. There are various reasons why it no longer applies: the postmodern scrambling of dress codes, the warp-speed dissemination of imagery, a risk-averse industry. The trend cycle has ceased to be reliably cyclical, as have our reactions to it. It’s (fashionable) anarchy out there.

In a sense, there’s nothing new here: Designers have always drawn on the past. In Laver’s day, they riffed on the 1890s; in the 1890s, they were mad about the 18th century. What has changed is the plurality of references.­ Traditionally, designers confined themselves to one historic period at a time. Today the past is less prix fixe and more à la carte. In a development that would have left Laver bewildered, the fall 2026 collections drew on almost every decade of the past century, from the Jazz Age (Chanel) to the Y2K era (Gucci). In between, there were 1950s ladies (Dior); 1960s jet-setters (McQueen); 1970s bohemians (Chloé, Fendi, and Celine); 1980s power brokers (Givenchy, Saint Laurent, and Valentino); and 1990s minimalists (Miu Miu, Prada, and The Row).

“It’s all happening at the same time because the empire of fashion has broken up into a lot of different principalities,” says Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York. The result is that the fall 2026 collections are both a style smorgasbord and a tutorial in how fashion has adapted to women’s lives during a turbulent 100-year span that saw them win the right to vote, become heads of state, and journey to space.

Kiki Smith, the author of Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore and a theater professor at Smith College, oversees a collection that includes fashion from all walks and stages of life: maids’ aprons and caps, tailored suits, riding habits, Pop art paper dresses, evening gowns, and even Smith alum Sylvia Plath’s Girl Scouts uniform. The women who wore these garments, she says, “may never have kept a journal, or there may not be photographs of them. Clothes might be one of the last tangible connections to their lives.”

Clothes change how we walk, how we sit, how we feel in our bodies, even how we flirt. On a micro level, they tell us about their wearers. In the 1940s, when Plath was a Girl Scout, badges were sewn onto uniform sleeves. You have only to look at the badges she earned to know, as Smith dryly observes, “she was a type A personality.” But like all of us, Plath contained multitudes: Smith College also owns her prom dress, a frothy silver lamé and white tulle confection that’s light years away from the utilitarian Scouting uniform she wore 10 years earlier.

On a macro level, clothes reveal what is going on in the culture at large. The earliest period referenced this season, the 1920s, was when women were joining the workforce, driving cars, and living on their own. They wore streamlined, trim fashions that stayed out of the way—a 180-degree turn from the corsets and voluminous layers favored by the previous generation. It was smart of Chanel artistic director Matthieu Blazy to go back to this period; Coco Chanel was at the height of her powers in the ’20s, not only designing clothes for this audacious new woman but also embodying her independence. Blazy’s was not the only house that played to its historic strengths.

Post–World War II, when marriage and motherhood were once again promoted as the womanly ideal, the pendulum swung back, putting the adult daughters of those skimpily attired flappers into dresses with constricted waists and long, yards-wide skirts. This was the period that Dior creative director Jonathan Anderson used as a starting point. Christian Dior invented the New Look, which shaped the silhouette of the decade that followed its launch (and the house’s debut) in 1947. Anderson has softened Dior’s hourglass tailoring—modern women are unlikely to put up with corselets or crinolines—but the whiff of hyperfemininity remains.

Like the 1920s, the 1960s were a time of stupendous social change. In response, fashion loosened up: The rules that governed dress relaxed or were discarded altogether; skirts got shorter, and trousers for women became permissible even in more formal settings. As the ’60s wound down, the counterculture’s interest in personal freedom and alternative lifestyles gave rise to the boho style of the early 1970s, with its ponchos, bell-bottoms, and ­ adaptations of folkloric dress. This is the period most identified with Chloé and, to a certain extent, Fendi. Chloé creative director Chemena Kamali is especially comfortable with the ’70s, when fashion championed variety rather than adherence to a sanctioned look.

In contrast, the 1980s were about status and excess: Shoulders and hair ballooned; skirts shrank and prints expanded. In the United States, the more-is-better aesthetic was embodied by Nancy Reagan, whose lavish spending was frequently criticized in the press. Givenchy and Saint Laurent, houses that exemplified glamour in this era, both reveled in that extravagance this season.

The Reagans left office in 1989, and a global recession began in 1990, making conspicuous consumption seem passé. Minimalism emerged as the decade’s most recognizable trend, approvingly described by fashion writers of the era with words like “sober” and “strict.” Women wore skinny black suits and brown lipstick; even eyebrows slimmed down. Prada, one of the originators of this aesthetic, leaned in to it, as did Miu Miu. Inevitably, the tide turned again in the early 2000s. Restraint was jettisoned in favor of bombast: low rises, microminis, and a darker, more decadent vibe.

Of course, these are generalizations; the 1980s, for example, also saw the rise of designers such as Rei Kawakubo. But these were splinter groups, nothing akin to the free-for-all we have today. As the empire of fashion shattered into factions, its ability to wield centralized power declined. In its absence, all looks are valid. And they are all ones we recognize from before.

Thanks to the deluge of visuals that pours from our phones, it’s no longer just designers or historians who are fluent in fashion history. Now we’re all savvy, at least superficially, about silhouettes from the past. “There’s a kind of visual Rolodex of all these different periods that circulates, and the public is pretty accustomed to that,” says Steele. “It’s a security blanket, in a way.”

In frightening times, the past looks compelling (remember those 1890s fashions in the late 1930s?). Fashion is not alone in looking backward—architecture and interior design also valorize their histories. But because of its intimate relationship with the body, clothing has a unique power to evoke images and associations and emotions. And, for most of us, it’s easier to wear a vintage-inspired dress (or an actual vintage one) than it is to buy a period house, or drive a period car, or work on, say, a period typewriter. We can’t all be Karl Lagerfeld, swapping Louis XV heirlooms for Memphis design when the mood shifts.

Crucially, the past has already been validated. It’s a sure thing. “Although fashion is about novelty, most consumers are not real neophiliacs,” says Steele. “They’re not crazy about things just for the sake of their being new. In fact, that’s a little scary.”

There are history lessons, sure, in the fall collections. But there’s also a welcome reprieve from scary. Whether you choose Givenchy pinstripes, McQueen miniskirts, Chloé ponchos, or Gucci leggings-trousers, there’s spiritual comfort—and no judgment—to be had in vintage-inspired fashion.

Hair by Mustafa Yanaz for L’Oréal Professionnel at Art + Commerce; makeup by Emi Kaneko for Piccasso Brushes at R3 MGMT; manicure by Eri Handa for Dior at Home Agency. Model: Liu Wen at the Society Management. Casting by Ashley Brokaw Casting.

Produced By Rosco Production; Executive Producer: Kaitlyn Fong; Producer: Anneliese Kristedja; Production Coordinator: Karmel Stevens; Photo Assistants: Alex Kalb, Brooke Comegys, Casey Weis; Retouching: Anthony Rist At Output London; Fashion Assistants: Isabel Choi, Dylan Gue; Production Assistants: Drew Carter, Amy Zou, Joe Halla; Hair Assistant: Sinaïa Campora; Makeup Assistant: Wakana Ichikawa; Tailor: Isa Kriegeskotte.