You’ve done fashion weeks before. You know the drill: shows run late, the parties are loud, and you spend $50K to see clothes you could’ve seen online.
But 2026 is different. Three things are happening that won’t happen again:
- Paris: Hermès menswear is saying goodbye to its 40-year leader
- Milan: Marni is being reborn under the industry’s most exciting young designer
- Copenhagen: The sustainability conversation is finally getting interesting (and delicious)
Here’s how to choose:
If You Only Have One Week: Go to Paris
Why: Because this is the “I was there” moment of the decade.
Véronique Nichanian is retiring after defining Hermès menswear for 40 years. Her final show in January isn’t just a runway presentation. It’s the end of an era. Grace Wales Bonner takes over next, and everything changes.
The show will be at the Garde Républicaine, the same space where Hermès has shown for years. But this time, the atmosphere will be different. Clients who’ve been with the house since the ’80s will be there. So will the artisans who’ve spent their entire careers executing her vision: the embroiderers in Pantin, the leather workers, the tailors who’ve hand-finished every lapel for four decades. The silence before the first model walks will feel heavier than usual. Half the room will be crying by the end.
This isn’t a fashion show. It’s a farewell.
After the show, there will be private dinners. Small gatherings where longtime clients and artisans toast Véronique’s legacy. Not the official reception with press and VIPs. These are quieter, more intimate. Twenty or thirty people in a private room at Le Voltaire or Caviar Kaspia, sharing stories about the jackets she designed, the collections they remember, the way she transformed menswear without ever making noise about it.
For clients who commission bespoke work, this is also the last chance to work with her team on a piece from her final season. A jacket that takes 6-8 months to complete, hand-finished using techniques that may not survive her departure. The moment she retires, those pieces become artifacts.
What we can arrange: Access to the show, introductions to the atelier if the house opens it for her final season, and help navigating the private moments happening around the official schedule.
If You Want to Discover the Next Big Thing: Add Milan
Why: Meryll Rogge is the designer everyone will be talking about in 2027. You’ll meet her in 2026.
If you follow fashion even loosely, you know Marni has been chaotic for years. Creative directors cycling through. The brand losing its identity. Beautiful clothes, but no clear vision.
That ends this February.
Meryll Rogge (young, sharp, trained under Dries Van Noten) is taking over. She’s spent the last six months locked in the Marni studio near Porta Genova, rethinking everything. Her work is rigorous, wearable, and deeply thoughtful. She’s not interested in spectacle. She’s interested in clothes that age beautifully.
This is her debut. The show won’t be loud or theatrical. It will be precise, almost intellectual. You’ll watch the collection and think, “Oh. This is going to matter in five years.”
The fashion world is watching this one closely. Editors, buyers, the handful of people who actually understand where luxury menswear is heading. They’ll all be there. Not because Marni is a giant brand, but because Meryll Rogge is the kind of designer who only comes around every decade or so.
The day after the show, the Marni showroom will be buzzing. Buyers placing orders, stylists pulling pieces for shoots, serious collectors selecting what they want before the collection goes into production. At that level, you’re choosing fabrics, discussing modifications, sometimes commissioning one-off pieces. You’re wearing the collection six months before it reaches retail.
If you have time, there’s also Trivero. A small town 90 minutes north of Milan where Zegna has been making fabric since 1910. The mill doesn’t do public tours, but occasionally they open the doors for people genuinely interested in the craft. You see wool being woven on 60-year-old looms, touch fabric that costs €800 per meter, meet people who’ve spent their entire lives perfecting a single weave pattern. It’s not about fashion. It’s about understanding why Italian tailoring still matters.
What we can arrange: Seats at the show, access to the showroom for serious buyers, and introductions to the Marni studio or Trivero mill when those doors are open.
If You Want to Actually Enjoy Yourself: Add Copenhagen
Why: Because Fashion Week is supposed to be fun, and Copenhagen is the only one that still is.
Let’s be honest: Paris is exhausting. Milan is competitive. New York is chaos. But Copenhagen? Copenhagen is what fashion week used to feel like before it became an industry.
The shows start on time. They’re held in beautiful venues. Old warehouses, glass atriums, spaces that actually make sense. They’re short. Fifteen minutes max. The designers show their clothes, you see them, it’s over. No theatrics. No three-hour waits. No sitting on a folding chair in an overheated tent wondering why you flew across the Atlantic for this.
You’ll see collections from Ganni, Stine Goya, (di)vision, Saks Potts, and a handful of younger designers doing genuinely interesting things with upcycled materials and zero-waste pattern-cutting. It’s not revolutionary. It’s just well-made, thoughtful fashion that you can actually wear.
The vibe is relaxed. People smile at each other. There’s no scrum for the exits. It’s shockingly civilized.
But here’s the real secret: Copenhagen has become one of the best food cities in the world.
Noma closed in 2024, but its alumni are scattered across the city, running some of the most exciting restaurants in Europe. Alchemist does fifty-course tasting menus with projections on the walls and a dessert served inside a human heart made of white chocolate. It’s absurd and brilliant and you’ll talk about it for years. Kadeau serves Bornholm ingredients with Michelin-starred precision and a wine pairing that will make you rethink what “Nordic wine” means. Ark, René Redzepi’s new members-only test kitchen, is taking reservations for private groups. You’ll eat food that doesn’t exist yet.
Between the shows and the dinners, you’ll walk away thinking, “Why doesn’t every fashion week feel like this?”
The designers here also actually want to show you what they’re working on. Studios like Berner Kühl, where a menswear designer is re-engineering vintage military uniforms using zero-waste pattern-cutting. Or textile labs where people are creating new luxury materials from seaweed and fish skin. You see the process, touch fabrics that don’t exist anywhere else, talk to people who are genuinely excited about what they’re doing. It’s more like sitting in on a design critique at RISD than a factory tour.
Everyone in Copenhagen is under 40. They’re genuinely excited. They’re not trying to sell you anything or prove anything. It’s just refreshing.
What we can arrange: Show access, restaurant reservations (including the hard-to-book ones), and studio visits for people genuinely interested in the craft side.
The Bottom Line
Paris is mandatory. History doesn’t wait. Véronique Nichanian’s retirement is a once-in-a-generation moment.
Milan is strategic. Meryll Rogge’s debut at Marni is the kind of thing that matters in five years. You’ll be ahead of the curve.
Copenhagen is the treat. It’s where you go to actually enjoy yourself and remember that fashion can be fun, intelligent, and unpretentious at the same time.
Tell us what matters to you, and we’ll figure out the rest.
