Tailored Expositions: Wales Bonner Fall/Winter 2026 Collection

Grace Wales Bonner will soon become Hermès’ menswear creative director, and her Fall/Winter 2026 collection is the best proof yet as to why the move by the French brand is a total win. Higher waists in pants and elongated bodies in tops result in a mesh of elegant quiet luxury and restructured thinking on urban clothing. With muted colors and taut structures, the anatomical shape is respected and barely tarnished. The space surrounding the body is not taken up by the bespoke tailoring or the hand-woven cottons and knits, but rather becomes a necessary void that completes the aesthetic structure of the look.

 The African inspiration of some of her previous work can be seen here, too. The elongated figures that the garments create spring to mind the wooden statues by the Lobi people in West Africa or the Dogon in Mali and Burkina Faso. The trousers in the collection showcase the straight-cut typical of the  Aligarh pajama -the preferred bottoms of Indian poets and academics-, also using elements of the cummerbund to cut the figure in half at the waist, which makes the silhouette more stylized and glamorous. To find these qualities in clothing that is so wearable in day-to-day dressing is not an easy feat, which is why this glorious collection deserves to be Suited and Booted.