Finding a new balance: accessories and bags move away from minimalism

Resisting the temptation of monotony. The advice of the legendary American interior decorator, Dorothy Draper, finds a most eloquent expression in the Spring/Summer 26 collections. After years dominated by muted colour palettes and minimalist garments, tastefully tailored and stripped back to the bare essentials, the tried-and-tested formula of a cashmere jumper paired with the most classic of jeans no longer conveys a confident sense of style – almost a uniform – but rather risks suggesting, less charitably, a certain laziness. The spring collections therefore offer something decidedly more joyful: evening gowns so ruffled and voluminous that even an 18th-century courtier might pause to admire them (Saint Laurent), draped and knotted tops, resembling scarves billowing in the wind (Céline), and shimmering jackets with fringes of recycled fibreglass, as spiky as sea urchins (Bottega Veneta).

A fresh start was needed. Pieter Mulier, of Alaïa, spoke of ‘dresses that weep’, explaining: ‘I wanted to create something based on pure beauty, blended with the tension we experience today’. Julien Dossena of Rabanne echoed this sentiment: “You can’t avoid the tension, but at the same time you want to be surrounded by a luminous, almost suspended sensation.” Alessandro Michele, at Valentino, was even more direct: “It’s time to push further and further, to make people dream, to try to escape – not just from reality, but from the very idea that we can’t do anything.” Louise Trotter, from Bottega Veneta, summed up the spirit of the times with a striking phrase: “I feel as though I’m inside a box of sweets.”

This sense of gentle euphoria, as an antidote to these dark times, is perfectly captured in Fendi’s latest take on a cult bag first unveiled on the Spring/Summer 09 catwalk: the Peekaboo. A structured design, with a lemon-yellow leather handle and a refined allure, which opens to reveal an interior decorated with beads, like a sort of fashion-inspired box of surprises. Or take Chanel, where a metal wire has been incorporated into the classic 2.55 to give it a slightly worn look, as if it had resurfaced from the wardrobe of an extraordinarily chic grandmother. And then there’s the Lady Dior, reinterpreted by Jonathan Anderson in a softer, more relaxed take on the cannage motif – one of Monsieur Dior’s hallmarks, inspired by the Napoleon III chairs from his early fashion shows – here rendered in a delightful clover-green shade.

Laurel Pantin, fashion editor and founder of the by-appointment-only boutique Earl IRL in Beverly Hills, which opened in October, compares the shift to ‘a big, shaggy dog shaking the water off: it’s an awakening to something pleasant’. And she accuses the internet of having homogenised the ‘quiet luxury’ trend to the point of making it almost stifling. By contrast, she observes, the current moment ‘feels like a leap away from that prescribed good taste, towards the special and the original’.

Brigitte Chartrand, head of buying and merchandising at Net-A-Porter, agrees: “Fashion is turning a new page, with a return to colour, personality, playfulness and energy. There is a desire for expressive garments, a sign that customers are drawn to pieces with a strong statement.”