Kiko Kostadinov Underscores the Art of Seeing For Fall/Winter '26

At Kiko Kostadinov’s Fall presentation at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, sunlight streamed through the high windows of the edifice onto Oscar Tuazon’s sculptural Nestbox installation: three stark, geometric forms of cardboard and tape that turned the space into a framework for looking—both at the garments and through them.

The women’s collection opened with utility trousers featuring deep hidden pockets for notebooks, pens, or binoculars, alongside menswear-derived tailoring with strong shoulders and clean, squared lines in matte neutrals. Then came the shift to fluidity and light play: double-layered knits, legging-jumpsuits, and soft waistcoats in shimmering fabrics stitched with practical pockets.

Dresses in luminescent iridescent fabrics emerged as the highlight of the collection. Shimmering silks and multifaceted jacquards spilled color across utility foundations, while coated cottons gleamed as if still wet from rain. Needle-punched velvet and wool sweaters with intarsia feather yarns suggested subtle wing-like textures, catching and releasing the afternoon light like the plumage of birds in flight.

This palette and surface language stemmed from Fitcher’s Bird, the Brothers Grimm tale of hidden sight, and Cindy Sherman’s 1992 photographic series of the same name. The sensibility extended seamlessly into the collection’s collaborations.

A partnership with Thai jeweler Patcharavipa begins with the photograph of a guillemot egg, whose elongated asymmetry grounds the jewelry line. From this reference emerge egg-shaped pendants in 925 sterling silver in two expressions: one punctured with portholes and marked with Patcharavipa’s signature “antre” texture, the other engraved with a line by Sylvia Plath: “I am not mystical: it is not as if I thought it had a spirit. It is simply in its element.”

An additional collaboration with Oakley introduced feather and wood motifs on custom eyewear fitted with Prizm lenses.

Often the pièce de résistance in a Kiko collection, the footwear did not go unnoticed. It was a défilé of perspex-trimmed pumps worn with glossy space-dyed socks and stretch leather boots. The renewed collaboration with ASICS revisited the tabi, combining a brogue-like front with the structure of a trail shoe at the back.

Everything meshed to bring to life the quiet majesty of birds in urban skies. In the Bulgarian designer’s vision, glancing out a window in Paris, Tokyo, or Los Angeles is not simply looking at concrete and sky—it is the art of noticing nature flashing green amid the gray. The wardrobe holds the tension between watcher and watched, framing it as the quiet question at the center of womanhood.