Well, there’s really only one way to say this here in Q1 of 2026: Calvin Klein went bicepmaxxing.
Near the end of its runway show on a frigid afternoon, a troop of models came out in sleeveless suits, their sinewy upper arms nearly at eye level with the front row. I envisioned a lowly styling assistant backstage tasked with combing out each model’s arm hair. Those models — gym-sculpted or just genetically blessed — must’ve been cast specifically for their etched biceps.
Was this the Klein designer Veronica Leoni wading into this culture moment of body optimization, peptides and protein packing? Not quite. After the show, she said she was looking to “celebrate that cult of the body that is so Calvin,” waving at the brand’s legacy of dressing everyone from Mark Wahlberg to Bad Bunny in white briefs and little else.
But the show’s Venice Beach interlude risked being the enduring takeaway of the collection. I had to revisit the show online to recall what those sleeveless suits actually looked like. When I did, I was underwhelmed. They had four buttons down the front, with the top landing at mid-sternum. I regularly come across similar suits on eBay from Armani, Versace and, yes, Calvin. They’re baggy, unbecoming and reek of the ’90s. Their ubiquity on the resale market makes a point: No one wants this.
This is the tension of Leoni’s Calvin. The designer, now about a year into the job, seems so preoccupied with the brand’s past that she fails to design for the present.
But not always. An exploded mac with a leather collar and a bomber with a purplish gray gilet snapped me to attention. Another jacket with a ruby red shearling perched on the shoulders was evidence that Leoni can push things, that she can offer the egalitarian clothes with oomph that Calvin was synonymous with — but for this moment, not 1996. Leoni should consider contempomaxxing.
Other things worth knowing about:
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Clavicular, the Kick streaming looksmaxxer (and the reason half of the internet can’t stop adding “maxxing” to words — it’s dumb, ironic and funny at the same time), made his modeling debut on Thursday night at a runway show for the very online designer Elena Velez. Joe Bernstein has the must read profile on the gigachad of the moment!
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Can ASAP Rocky interest you in a mink baby carrier? During his AWGE fashion show on Friday night, the rapper/actor/designer/father of three sent out a hard-shell stroller and some fur baby carriers — ideal for the most pampered baby in Anchorage. And here I thought my son’s BabyBjörn was sufficient.
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Before the shows on Saturday, I popped into Ven Space, the Brooklyn men’s store that remains dangerous to one’s financial well-being. There I was drawn to a pair of Italian-made Sena loafers that checked every box of a “cool” shoe now: square-toed, wafer-soled and stripped of all inessential components.
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Scanning the Eckhaus Latta celeb seating area was like mainlining eight hours of TikTok hair trend videos at once. That’s to say, it was every magnificent variety of not a mullet but also not not a mullet I’ve seen.
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A wunderkind to keep an eye on. On Saturday, after the latest showing of Lii’s bent sportswear, a friend from Paris texted that designer Zane Li was the “savior” of New York fashion. Comparisons to Auralee and Raf Simons (mostly for the graphic, primary colors) were also lobbed my way. Personally, I think Li, who is just a couple years out of FIT, is still shaking off some design school habits — interesting fits over flattering ones, mostly. But the skill is there. The finesse will come.
“I’ll do anything for the look.”
The comedian Benito Skinner, who chanced frostbite by wearing shorts to Calvin Klein on a below freezing day. He claimed he wasn’t that cold but did fess up that he would be “sprinting to the car” at the show’s conclusion.
The Indelible Fit of the Day
Here’s a crisp example of why Eckhaus Latta continues to sit atop New York’s fashion ecosystem. Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta are masterful at contorting all-too-familiar staples of American sportswear — in this case, a prismatic knit evoking ’00s Gap campaigns — until they feel vital again. The sweater’s shrunken proportions fly right into the strike zone of where fashion is heading.
Style Outside
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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