Author: jorgia-burke

By Jorgia Burke

Willy Chavarria is no stranger to a spectacle, and his Fall/Winter ‘26 collection was living proof of this very notion. Eterno arrived as a continuation of his ongoing project: not merely staging fashion shows, but constructing environments where clothing, politics, and performance collapse into one another. The sincere meditation which anchored Eterno was one of eternal love—a genre of devotion that traverses generations, holds both beauty and suffering in equal measure, and in its final form, eclipses all else.

A film noir bookended the show, where the eyes—and the ears—feasted, providing a cinematic sensibility that privileged atmosphere over convention. With performers ranging from Santos Bravos, Feid, Lunay and Mon Laferte, whose vocals nursed the show awake. The juggernaut performance packed out 2000 seats in the Dojo de Paris—400 of which went to viewers from Lyas’ watch party, cementing Willy’s mission of inclusion. 

In true Chavarria demeanour, odes to Chicano culture were laced throughout the entirety of the co-ed collection, grounding the theatricality in lived identity rather than costume. The show drew from the emotional language of a  telenovela landscape, fusing music and fashion into a narrative form that resisted the traditional runway format. “It started out as me wanting to show the clothing in a way that wasn’t models walking around on a runway,” Chavarria said. 

Whilst clothing (to a degree) sat on the periphery of the blockbuster’s central expression, each look never strayed far from Willy’s hallmark touchstones,  all walking the line between elegance and resilience. Quintessential Chavarria silhouettes were reimagined through slim tailoring, yet fell back on his notorious accents of exaggerated collars and ‘40s reminiscent zoot suits rendered in a scheme of mint greens, chestnut browns and charcoal hues.

In the same breath, womenswear featured a synthesis of sharply tailored skirt suits, column dresses accentuated by padded shoulders in Chavarria’s recognisable vocabulary  of snakeskin, floral and leopard print. A novel sandwich dress leant towards that of a more daring silhouette—with pastel silk interjecting the primary fabric of the dress, allowing it to billow freely with each step.

Streetwear entered with Lil Mr. E and his entourage on lowrider bikes, presenting Chavarria’s signature tracksuits as both cultural markers and grounding devices. Here, Chavarria provided a brief sportswear interlude, where utilitarian detailing punctuated athletic silhouettes—demonstrating Willy’s stylistic breadth to ebb and flow fluidly between streetwear codes and formalities, never neglecting the other. 

Amidst moments of unimaginable fracture, there is a collective hunger for hope, fueled by a shared desire for love. Always carving out unexplored ways of collapsing fashion and politics, Willy proves that fashion isn’t always a medium of escaping reality; yet a means of engaging with it directly.

By Jorgia Burke

Youth is fleeting by nature. Try as we may to clench it in the palm of our hands and claw onto jeunesse as it breaches the cusp of maturity, we are only enamoured by the beauty of youth in retrospect. This sartorial banquet functions as somewhat of a retrospective as Jonny Johansson takes the legacy of Stockholm’s golden child and cements it in the language of youth–breathing truth into the hope that our legacy is not a fixture, yet harnesses the ability to morph when permitted. 

Turning 30 this year, Johansson sought to pay homage to the upbringing of Acne Studios whilst tapping a new vein, reflecting how taste matures, and then makes a return back to the grass roots of youth bearing time’s imprint. Casting an eye over to the past, this Fall/Winter menswear collection champions relics that make up the backbone of a wardrobe which is steeped in the passage of time. This concept is executed primarily through mediums of denim and leather, which reside at the crux of the season. “When enough of these pieces exist and penetrate sub-cultures and high society alike, they eventually gain their own kind of heritage and become established like other aspects of menswear,” Johansson explained. 

In an era defined by sanitisation of our consumptive desires, imperfection in the contemporary wardrobe is now a highly coveted symbol–a shorthand for authenticity, nostalgia and rarity. Sinking his teeth into this ethos, Johansson refuses to let our mind wander too far from the visual of patina, alluding to lived experience through our clothes. With said aim in mind, Johansson revived the all-too familiar ‘96 straight leg jean–heel drag and rips included–in washes that reflect age. Naturally, leather was approached with a parallel logic, injected with a sense of longevity and designed to build character. Johansson approaches these materials with an objective of participation over preservation–and positions them as materials intended to be lived in. 

Describing the collection as a consideration of how a “younger generation absorbs and reinterprets menswear codes”, the byproduct of Johansson’s intent oscillates between tropes of ‘90s grunge with ‘70s tenderness. The pendulum of tailoring swings to that of elegance, where formality is interrupted by the ease of youth. Within the ilk of tailoring, Johansson constructed hugging double-breasted blazers coupled with flared trousers, gesturing to the epoche of the ‘70s. Silk foulards were warmly welcomed, peeping over woolcoats to cleanse the viewer’s textural palette whilst cashmere was layered with argyle that reads as deliberately flawed.

Signature Acne codes of trompe l’oeil were not abandoned, yet simply reimagined. Johansson pushed the viewer to fall back on their judgement by collapsing illusion and reality through blending collaged garments and visible repairs. Accessories thematically grounded the collection, evoking lived-in and well-cherished hat rack items, including aviator sunglasses which carry over iterations of the ‘70s into the now, belts partnered with worn-in hardware and the notorious Camaro bag is reintroduced and punctuated in previously unseen colourways–think sage green, deep wine and baby butter yellow. 

Johansson’s vision for the presentation sits at the intersection of adoration and reimagination, with each garment thoughtfully balancing retention with novelty. The collection embodies–potentially more than ever–the foundational compass of Acne to exert an ambition to create novel expressions. With the pulsation of youth running through each piece, Johansson sets to keep Stockholm’s darling, forever young.