- Vancouver Fashion Week AW26: From the local to the global - 21 April, 2026
From the runway shows at Vancouver Fashion Week, Kevin Ng gives us a rundown of this season’s collections.
Vancouver is not a city many people associate with fashion — as a Vancouver native, my own clothes choices prioritise the practical. Is this warm enough for the ski slopes? Do these shoes offer the right ankle support for hiking? Will this protect me from the endless rain? Yet Vancouver Fashion Week, now in its 25th year, is the second-biggest fashion week in North America, and the biggest in Canada. Its staying power largely has to do with the fact that it has developed its own aesthetic entirely separate from the world of Paris, Milan, London, and New York.
If anything, Vancouver’s resistance to fashion trends is its greatest asset. Its outdoorsy, yoga-obsessed populace may find the frivolous femininity of Dior or the confrontational structures of Rick Owens impractical for everyday life, but there’s no denying that the city that produced Lululemon, Aritzia, Arc’teryx, and Herschel has its own sartorial force.
If Vancouver Fashion Week’s offerings are aesthetically eclectic, it’s a reflection of the city itself: one that prides itself on environmental conservation, one that attracts significant East and South Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern immigration, and one with a deeply fraught history with its Indigenous population. In a single day, you’ll see established and up-and-coming designers, local and international houses, classic and avant garde designs that emerge out of Vancouver’s layered society.
One of the early highlights was Ay Lelum, a second-generation Indigenous design house from neighbouring Vancouver Island. The designs cut and reassembled traditional Coast Salish designs, juxtaposing fabrics of different weights from copper metallics to a highlighter orange velour. There was an exceptional green satin gown, where the trigons and crescents of Coast Salish art were rendered with an art nouveau sweep.
Ay Lelum by Arun NevaderMadagascar-born Nathalie Ravaoary’s NATHEE RAV was an exciting debut, with sculpted bodices, stiff lapels, and exaggerated boning resulting in a dramatic silhouette as seen from all angles. Her collection culminated in a mantilla-like bodice in black lace that extended above the face. There was a similar emphasis on structure from Somaya Ahmadi, who combined twisted satin with sharp pinstripe suiting to create an exaggerated hourglass silhouette, and Bahare Karami, whose rigorously pleated skirts and figure-hugging peacoats were clearly influenced by the golden age of Parisian haute couture.
Conversely, CLDCMNTY’s fetishwear-inspired collection incorporated harnesses, chains, and grommets, accessorized with boxing gloves and motorcycle helmets. But the collection transcended the provocative with inspired tailoring, from a bleached cropped sweatshirt to a pair of black trousers dramatically ruched up the side seam. Best of all was a burgundy trench coat in supple leather covered in safety pins. Meanwhile, Benjamin Reitmeier’s collection explored black mesh in every possible form, whether under a pair of overalls, a sleeveless blazer, or a hooded triangular apron. This was juxtaposed with heavily moulded pinstripe suiting lined in pink satin.
Other designers chose inspirations closer to home: the Korean designer Bomin Kim’s Bluetamburin juxtaposed fur-collared Victorian military coats with the traditional gat hat, and the teenage Korean collective BLTAM ENTRE offered deconstructed hanbok through the lens of 19th-century French silhouettes. Meanwhile, Japanese designer Junko Ginoza’s collection for JII recalled the advent of Japanese minimalism, with loose, draped linens and cottons in ombré pastels.
Draped fits were a recurring theme throughout, from Manami Suzuki’s embroidered peasant smocks for Pratolina to Alex S. Yu’s ruffled terracotta skirts and cropped Oxford shirts. The emphasis on natural materials also appeared in Teori Kobo Oriiro’s collection, with its emphasis on hand-spun yarn. Most exciting were a series of shift dresses, knit on the bias and with a careful eye towards varying the weight of the knit for the appropriate drape. Their colourful knit accessories, too, were creative, whether wrapped around the head as a scarf or weaved through braided hair. Meanwhile, Alison Dunne’s focus on her Shetland heritage inspired a range of knits and felts for DUNNE CLIFF, quilted together into deconstructed cardigans and sleeveless jumpers. Draped trousers were tucked into laced, felted boots turned up at the point.
Alex S. Yu by Arun NevaderReclaimed materials were another theme, from Greek designer Sophia Chantal’s thrifted lace tablecloths stitched together into textured skirts with a casual, feminine feel to Brazilian designer Ricardo Pinto’s reused fabric discards. His deconstructed denims featured exceptional beading in swirling, floral patterns, and a diamond-pleated denim skirt was the technical highlight of the week. Julia van der Leij’s oversized padded coats and crusted skirts featured bucolic scenery, and embroidered floral motifs and faded brocade resembled reclaimed upholstery. But her exaggerated, pointed collars and dramatic floor-length sleeves were entirely modern, and the fringed Ottoman lampshades, sculpted like minarets, added a surreal touch when used as headpieces.
Many designers opted for muted colour palettes, from Ainsley McPherson’s goth-adjacent festival wear to Physalia’s sleek cocktail dresses in red and black brocade, satin, and lace. Most interesting among these collections was Bahar Kianpour’s, whose ruffled, feminine dresses and rigidly tailored blazers in black and white were shot through with slashes of blood red. But it came as a delight to see Maria Augusta Wozniak’s joyful use of colour and pattern for Augusta Fashion, with exuberant puff sleeves and rigid, upturned collars with contrasting patterned textiles.
Augusta Fashion and Textiles by Arun NevaderMexican-Canadian Eduardo Ramos’ collection was one of the most visceral: a sculpted bodice resembled the fold of a calla lily, and a stiff panelled jacket brought to mind a shedding snake. A serpent clasp at the lower back held together a sleek black jumpsuit, and a pleated collar wrapped around the torso of a black lace gown. Best of all was a textured corset with tulle wings over fringed latex trousers, resembling an iridescent beetle shedding its exoskeleton.
The Japanese designer Reiju Sato of Hypnotique Sense has an obsession with decay, and there was a through line of rust- and charcoal-dyed natural fabrics in a restricted colour palette of cream, grey, and brown. The textures he achieved were marvellous, from frayed hems to the web-like layers of gauze stretched across the face and torso to a skirt constructed out of what appeared to be discarded seat cushions. Most impressive was the way he loosely twists linen around the body on the diagonal in order to lend a kinetic sense.
In one of the most intriguing collections of the season, Swiss designer Thomas Clément displayed both technical mastery and an unharnessed creative vision. There were colourful, pixelated prints in quilted fabric worked into skirts, reinterpretations of Chanel tweeds in figure-hugging technical fabrics, buckles and zippers that transformed otherwise simple tops into intricate structures, and exuberantly feathered skirts and jackets. The finest touch were the shoes, cushioned Louis heels rendered in pleated satin.
But if I had to bet on any of the designers it would be the Dutch-trained Jef Montes, whose technique of reinforcing discarded wool with fibreglass is at once environmentally, technically, and artistically appealing. His 3D weaving marries the dynamism of Issey Miyake with the structural ingenuity of Iris van Herpen, and the combination of richly textured knits with trompe d’oeil prints into surreal, sculptural shapes is nothing short of ingenious.
All featured photography by Arun Nevader, provided courtesy of Vancouver Fashion Week.
