NANUSHKA SS26: THE ART OF WEAVING

Camz
Sep 27
2 min read

When heritage becomes a guiding thread

“There is design in everything: in a cloud, in a wall, in a chair, in the sea, in the sand, in a pot.” These words from Cuban-American pioneer Clara Porset served as a compass for Sandra Sándor when imagining Nanushka’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection. After encountering Porset’s work at a MoMA exhibition, the Budapest-born designer found in her modernist heritage a language that deeply resonated. “There’s a brilliance in updating traditions with a strong modernist sensibility that inspires me,” she explained during a preview at Nanushka’s Mayfair townhouse.

The mood board said it all: Latin American landscapes, animal patterns, organic textures. “The Weave”, as the collection was titled, was less of a theme, Sándor emphasized, and more of an overarching ethos.

Between craft and modernism

In a high-ceilinged Kensington townhouse, once the residence of painter Sir John Lavery, models drifted gracefully from room to room. Cold-dyed linen trousers in hazy pink echoed summer dusk, while jersey was elevated into dove-gray trousers and twisted drape skirts, pajama-like in ease but sharpened with olive-toned poplin shirts cut open at the sides.

A sporty striped cotton jersey dress gained movement with a flippy fringed hem, its pattern reappearing as a pashmina and as long dangling earrings. Leather collars, an embryonic Nanushka signature making a return, stood crisp on linen jackets before being reimagined as shell-beaded bandeaus and low-slung waist belts.

Prints collided in languid harmony: geometric lines, animal skins, ‘70s florals, and spindly earth-cracked stripes layered with lilac satins and champagne silks.

DNA, intact but expanding

Nanushka’s soft leather bombers and structured trenches remain firmly in place, but the spotlight shifts. Bags and footwear are increasingly central: the collapsible Origami and belted Harmonica bags now arrive in new sizes and natural fabrics.

On the glossy wooden floors, hand-stitched slipper-like shoes inspired by Hungarian craft and beaded mules fit for a beach club slid softly into view.

Conclusion

Twenty years in, and for its first-ever London Fashion Week show, Nanushka marked a milestone of maturity. For Sándor, who once studied in the city that shaped her perspective, fashion is about “pieces that hold the wearer through life’s possibilities.”

As the finale closed to the tune of Let the Sunshine In, the message became clear: garments as rays of light, designed not to constrain life but to let it flourish.

Nanushka didn’t just stage a show, it reminded us that weaving past and present, craft and modernism, is how fashion redefines the way we live in the world.

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