Area Fall 2026

Nicholas Aburn didn’t just put on a show this season. He staged a spell. For Area’s Fall 2026 collection, presented on Friday night, the creative director turned the runway into a celebration of fashion’s enduring flirtation with glamour and power. “Magic” was his word of the season, a fitting follow-up to last year’s theme of “fun.” Once, glamour literally meant magic, he reminded us, a spell women could cast through the way they looked. The collection explored that idea with wit and theatricality, transforming clothes into expressions of agency.

Aburn’s fascination with scale and texture played out in denim jackets with belts that ballooned into bows, oversized rugby sweaters knotted into spontaneous shapes, and voluminous taffeta that shimmered as though alive. He described it as “Cinderella’s mice draping things around her,” a playful image that perfectly captured the show’s spirit. Personal memories threaded through the collection too, with silk scarves stitched into colourful two-pieces recalling his childhood habit of making dresses for his sister. Even a navy hoodie, his own daily uniform, was reborn as an elegant, sculptural dress.

The collection built gradually from simplicity to spectacle. Metallic lamé, gold ribbons and salvaged materials - from cassette tape ruching to feathers made of vintage T-shirts,gave the pieces an eccentric charm. At its heart was a joyful sense of resourcefulness, the idea that glamour need not be pristine to be powerful. Aburn’s woman was part sorceress, part artist, making magic out of what she has to hand.

Not everything was restrained. Some silhouettes ballooned into costume territory, and a few looks felt destined for editorials or red carpets rather than closets. But that excess is part of the point. Aburn’s glamour thrives on contradiction - wearable and impossible, high and low, ordinary and divine. His Fall 2026 collection reminds us that dressing up still holds the power to transform, even if only for a night.