NEW YORK FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2026: DAY 3

ULLA JOHNSON
review by MAREK BARTEK

all images ULLA JOHNSON via vogue.com

Ulla Johnson’s latest collection paid tribute to Helen Frankenthaler, whose dreamlike abstractions translated into weightless fabrics, feather trims, and washes of colour that drifted across dresses and even her expanding bag line. Johnson spoke about embracing prettiness and femininity as forms of power, and qualities often dismissed in high fashion but central to her vision. Three Frankenthaler works, Western Dream, Nature Abhors a Vacuum, and Moon Tide, provided both palette and spirit: boundless, blurred, unconfined. The result was airy, romantic, and assured. If softness was the message, it came with conviction, a reminder that lightness can hold its own kind of strength.

COS
review by MAREK BARTEK

all images COS via vogue.com

COS staged its Dark Romance collection in Brooklyn. It was a slightly too polished lineup of Scandi minimalism, though there was an effort to bring out that New York edginess. A palette of navy, slate, burgundy, and chocolate paired well with clean silhouettes, while basket-weave knits, plaids, and shearling added a sense of tactility and texture. Open necklines, belted waists, and a barrel coat were a nod to the ’50s New Look, abstracted into COS’s signature strive for simplicity. Menswear leaned classic with ’90s inflections, offering an array of collarless suits, Darcy-style capes, tunics with slim trousers, all softened by neat construction and adjustable details. Gustafsson’s made a clear point of making clothes that don’t overpower but amplify personality. With strong production values, COS proved that its global polish can resonate in New York.

JASON WU
review by MAREK BARTEK

all images JASON WU via vogue.com

Jason Wu built his spring collection around collage, channeling Robert Rauschenberg’s centenary and the artist’s Hoarfrost series. Prints of ’40s lingerie fell away from skirts, strips of fabric were patched beneath or atop sheer layers, and shirt dresses reworked American sportswear with buttoned panel construction. Lace spliced with prints gave prettiness an edge, while damask upholstery truly brought out Wu’s ongoing fascination with deconstruction. Models walked through Rauschenberg’s A Quake in Paradise (Labyrinth), blurring art and fashion into one installation. Wu called collage a mirror of imperfection, and here it became a manifesto: beauty found in fragments, and meaning stitched from disorder.

MONSE
review by MAREK BARTEK

all images MONSE via vogue.com

Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim marked Monse’s 10th anniversary inside UOVO Art Storage, showing a collection that circled back to the brand’s roots while pushing into new territory. The first looks were dedicated to deconstructed tailoring showcasing cropped jackets spliced into sarong-like trousers, before segueing into marinière stripes, crystal-draped nets, and pearl-embellished fisherman knits. The collection closed with series of scarf prints. Once bandana-inspired, and now reworked with seafaring emblems, it was a direct reference to Monse’s beginnings. Leather accessories expanded too, with trompe l’oeil layered totes inspiring a skirt cut like folded bags. Playful yet precise, the collection captured Monse’s spirit. It was distorted but familiar, joyful and artful. A decade on still revelling in creative disruption.

JANE WADE
review by MAREK BARTEK

all images JANE WADE via vogue.com

Jane Wade turned her focus from boardrooms to blue-collar grit, translating uniforms into inventive, wearable statements. Denim sets came distressed through a painstaking process with one skirt literally broken in with motor oil and soot. Wade’s technical detailing was playful: skirts snapping from mini to maxi and poplin shirts rigged with button harnesses for shape-shifting silhouettes. Wade describes her brand as “stylist-ready,” and the modularity proved her point. The closing look, a hand-crocheted brass dress, shimmered as the unexpected showstopper. It was a true after-hours release from the workday uniform. Wade continues to find beauty in function, and freedom in the details.