Men's Fashion Week Spring/Summer 26 has come to a close, and despite taking place in Paris and Milan, the designers took us across the globe. Louis Vuitton looked to India as a key source of inspiration, sending models down a snakes and ladders board game-printed runway—originally called 'Moksha Patam'. Emporio Armani took inspiration from African dress, Moroccan mosaics and berber tents. And Kiko Kostadinov created a fictional island town from his collection, weaving in elements of Bulgarian military pyjamas, bagpipes and Japanese suiting.
Yet while cross-cultural inspiration in fashion is nothing new, it seems more poignant now than in previous seasons. "Ultimately, cross-cultural fashion reflects both a search for meaning and a response to global uncertainty," says Prof Carolyn Mair, fashion psychologist and author of The Psychology of Fashion.
