FLORENCE, ITALY — For his Autumn/ Winter 2026 outing, Hed Mayner was intrigued enough by the soft gestures of classic silhouettes and wear-anywhere fabrics that he decided to use the body as a starting point.
“It’s time to give the ready-to-wear market a shift,” he told reporters with a coy smile, standing in the Palazzina di Santa Maria Novella for a preview (it turns out Mayner has a fondness for architecture, too). He had no interest in diving into threads of modernity. Instead, he employed modular lines and architectural underpinnings within a streamlined scheme to deliver a confident, powerful punch.
Since launching his line, the designer has been transitioning from premium to more crafted offerings. Finding his happy medium was easy to spot: Mayner shrank sleeves and cinched waistlines to create figure-hugging patterns that made volumes severe and sensuous in equal measure.
To wit, there’s a piece in which the sleeve cut is extremely narrow, shrinking down toward the chest, while the back is rounded – bringing a new attitude to life and influencing how the wearer moves and reacts. “It’s about creating a certain energy and strength in the clothes, and a very forward approach,” he opined backstage. “At the same time, it creates a sort of intimacy between you and what you wear.”
Elsewhere, another shape squeezes the body and elongates the entire silhouette. “That’s the process and intention behind my clothes: it’s about creating a certain gesture that dictates the silhouette. It’s also about how we present ourselves, how we move, and how we connect to the world through that silhouette. There’s also a geometrical idea in the collection. These are clothes that need to be seen in motion and tried on.”
Speaking with palpable excitement about his decision to showcase in Florence, Mayner explained, “I wanted to show here because when you come to cities like Florence, packed with long histories, you sense a look-but-don’t-touch feeling – it can almost feel like being in a museum. But here, I felt like I was in Florence, in a train station, more connected to an everyday environment. At the same time, it fits the different personalities in the collection.”
The body remains the starting point, with gesture serving as another key component. “It’s less about topics or references drawn directly from culture. There’s also an idea of gender and the mixing of clothes.”
This season feels more grounded, as the clothes resonate with women in the same way they do with men. “This process wasn’t about amplifying the range into womenswear,” he clarified. “It was about opening the lens to different body types, which also created a new silhouette within the collection.”
Ultimately, the process aimed to narrow the shape and pare it down to the maximum. “Before, it was more about blurring. When you upscale, you blur the silhouette, the identity: everything. This collection is more defining, and tailoring, generally speaking, is about definition. It’s less about trying to create something that blurs identity, which was something I explored before.”
The rounded shoulders for which Mayner is well known remain a key element, elongating volumes and playing with proportion. And that, ultimately, explains Mayner’s ambitious new quest—one he has decidedly taken upon himself.
by Chidozie Obasi