The key menswear moments from NYFW spring/summer 2026

LIKE AUSTRALIAN FASHION WEEK, there is no official men’s New York Fashion Week – womenswear gets the commercial spotlight in both markets. But the Big Apple makes more of an effort in showing up for its stylish male customer, with a handful of co-ed collections over the past week that kick off fashion month.

In terms of what this season had to say about the state of menswear, only that style more broadly is conversing across the aisle more than ever. Designers aren’t simply thinking in binaries, but what styling or design elements can help fill in certain gaps in a man’s rotation. During the menswear shows in June, for example, we finally saw thongs break from poolside attire. Initially treated as a gimmick, the question remained about how to wear them tastefully. At NYFW, several designers have a few ideas.

Below, we recap, the key menswear moment from NYFW spring//summer 2026.

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Coach

How people cultivate their personal style has been creative director Stuart Vevers’ MO for the past couple of seasons now. He seems to ask himself: Is it the way someone accessorises a bag? Is it weathering a pair of denim jeans until it’s moulded to its wearer? Or maybe it’s the unexpected application of leather in a small leather tchotchke? At Coach, it’s been all of the above.

Vevers’ spring/summer 2026 collection took its exploration of American style a step further at Pier 36 overlooking the East River, where the love-worn leathers and denim informed the industrial space around it.

“For spring, I thought about a delicate balance of polish and shine with grit, a pairing I think of as very New York,” Vevers said in a statement. “And by grit, I mean resilience, and the beauty of how the city comes back to life every morning. The glamour of the steel and glass made more beautiful by the bleaching sunlight, the patina of time, and the buff and burnish of life in our shared city.”

‘Patina’ is key here. Outerwear like moto, denim and blouson jackets in suede and nappa leather varied from waxy to buttery finishes. Jeans and trousers with contrasting Coach logo panels were kept to honey brown tones. These are pieces usually associated with a ‘wearing-in period’ when bought new, but Vevers makes that process easier to quickly work into your rotation.

Calvin Klein Collection

“Calvin Klein has always been a brand that belongs to the people and presents a true lifestyle
offering rooted in minimalism, modernity and an American sensibility,” as creative director Veronica Leoni reflected in a statement. Since taking the helm of the American label last year, Leoni’s work has been sought after by celebrities who want to feel a sense of ease in the fishbowl experience that is a red carpet.

Pedro Pascal, for instance, wore a sculpturally cut muscle tee tucked into well-tailored trousers to Cannes. Monsters star Cooper Koch finds respite in Leoni’s sturdy outerwear when he isn’t modelling for the brand’s underwear. The 6’4″ Swedish actor Alexander Skårsgard, too, makes the label’s minimalism seem saintly.

“With my second collection, I wanted to express this feeling of Calvin Klein as a way of being rather than a way of appearing, capturing its state of mind with a bold and unadorned ardour,” she continued. “The tension between a deep sense of intimacy and the taste for exposure finds its solution through craft and artisanship.”

In her sophomore collection, Leoni has continued her crusade to usher in the brand’s famed ’90s minimalism for the 2020s. Monochrome is her bread and butter, with office-appropriate sets in slate grey – so solid is the colour that you never know if it’s instead a jumpsuit. That isn’t to say Leoni is strictly speaking to the past. Here’s where contemporary styling comes in, with several looks featuring ropes of leather to slightly accentuate these otherwise free-flowing silhouettes.

Michael Kors

Thongs (or flip-flops) have been a heated topic since they appeared on the menswear spring/summer 2026 runways. While in its early legs during the June shows, open-toed footwear was treated more as a styling trick, resulting in often jarring contrasts like wearing them with leather pants. How do we wear them elegantly? was the main question. For his co-ed presentation, Michael Kors is adding his two cents.

A handful of the 66-year-old American designer’s menswear featured the models’ dogs out with tailored looks. An almost impossible-sounding combination, Kors shows it can be done when, for example, we err on the side of monochrome or if a pair of beautifully draped trousers match the ease of a strappy flip-flop. While thongs are mostly kept to water-related scenarios, Kors elevated this thinking when he designed the collection with his beach house in mind.

On the accessories front, tote bags in expandable cut-out leather echo the free-flowing cut of his tailoring – adaptable and at ease. Small leather pouches attached to necklaces are emerging as a key accessory for the season (see Coach). Monochrome styling has been filtering in from womenswear – maybe all we’re after is the practicality of a set.

Todd Snyder

The passing of Italian designer Giorgio Armani is still fresh in our minds, and that seems especially true for Todd Snyder. Armani tailoring – broad shoulders, boxy cut jackets, high-waisted trousers – more broadly has been a popular reference point for several designers as of late, but where Snyder departs from the menswear blueprint is taking the vibe to mid-century Bahamas. (Which, again, the period has been Armani’s reference point.)

While ’50s’ and ‘Bahamas’ sounds more like a pairing you’d read on a costume party invite, Snyder’s spring/summer 2026 collection was anything but. What kept it grounded were the hero pieces that’ve made the 57-year-old designer a kindly guide to the unschooled male shopper: knit polos, safari jackets, blousons, silky ‘party shirts’. Geometric prints, sun-bleached pastels, and broad plaids were what took these pieces a step outside this shopper’s conservative comfort zone. The only thing costume-y was a wide polka dot tie – not a negative.

The collection reminds me of Jonathan Anderson’s costume work in the Luca Guadagnino film, Queer, which saw Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey play age-gap lovers roughing it in ’50s Mexico City. Maybe Latin America is where menswear needs to head next. When we get there, we know where to shop.