We’re wearing fringe in 2026

When I think of fringe, my mental archives conjure up the following imagery: Downton Abbey’s beaded dresses, The Great Gatsby’s dancing girls in flapper frocks, and the obligatory Coachella suede vest. Fringe has always cycled through eras, veering from the late 1800s, when Charles Worth added tiers of fringe to his salon gowns, to later in the 1950s, when Emilio Pucci used it to bring a bohemian spin to his printed resort essentials. Over the last decade, however, ready-to-wear dropped the playful tassel in favour of clean lines and a kind of flat, algorithm-safe minimalism.

Now, motion is back. According to Tagwalk, fringe surged 93 per cent across New York Fashion Week for spring/summer 2026, while Lyst listed it as a trend whose return was part of a renewed interest in the “2010s revival” wave. This time around, though, the trend is aligned with our preference for a cleaner, more modern approach to style.

The 2026 version of fringe isn’t a beaded flapper or a boho influencer. It’s sleeker, sharper, and surprisingly wearable. As demonstrated in the season’s collections, the way to incorporate it goes beyond just adding it to a hemline. Now, designers are experimenting with material and volume, playing with texture and form to dramatic effect.

Glass and armour

At Milan Fashion Week, Louise Trotter’s debut for Bottega Veneta offered fringe with an industrial edge. Structured shirts met metallic skirts trimmed with fibreglass, woven through the house’s signature Intrecciato leatherwork, threaded with glossy strands. “It has the feeling of fur, and it moves like glass,” Trotter told Vogue. The result was fringe with architectural discipline—less boho, more biomech.

At Lakmé Fashion Week, Pankaj & Nidhi said they reimagined fringe as armour. “We liked the idea of taking something known for its softness and turning it into a symbol of strength,” said designers Nidhi and Pankaj Ahuja. “Protection doesn’t always have to look rigid.” They mixed silk and tulle with metallic threads, creating a molten, light-catching surface that felt both futuristic and fluid.

After eight

From Gucci at Cannes to Schiaparelli in Paris, fringe has appeared across red carpets as a shorthand for glamour with movement. At Cannes, Dakota Johnson wore a pink fringed Gucci gown. Julianne Moore went on air for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in an all-black asymmetric Schiaparelli skirt paired with a structured blouse. Priyanka Chopra Jonas added to the list in a Burberry dress from the fall 2025-26 collection, covered in fluid fringe at the London premiere of Heads of State. In September, Dua Lipa closed the loop with a sleek black Schiaparelli dress where fringe formed the bodice too.

On the runway, too, eveningwear options abounded. Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel debut—one of the season’s most anticipated—reanimated the house’s classic codes. He introduced tweed skirts and jackets with hems that seem frayed at first but a closer look reveals intricate beaded fringes; a grown-up version of the doe-eyed Chanel girl. “It’s sophisticated. She’s the new 50-year-old,” Law Roach told Interview Magazine when asked for his take on the show.

Closer to home, Shweta Kapur of 431-88 offered eveningwear with ombré fringed jackets, sequinned bags shaped like jellyfish, and beaded blouses that looked ready for sangeet night. Designer Kresha Bajaj took the same idea to the aisle. She used lace and beads to create fringe-lined hems that turned bridalwear into something utterly fluid.

SFW (somewhat)

Thought fringe had no place in office wear? Roksanda Ilinčić disagrees. At London Fashion Week, the Serbian designer’s spring 2026 collection turned blazers, trench coats, and midi skirts into textured statements with thick fabric and raffia trims. Pieter Mulier’s spring 2026 show for Alaïa introduced thigh-high fringe leg-warmers that read like sleek trousers from a distance. Up close, the illusion broke—the fringe swayed, grazing the knees while the elasticated top clung neatly to the thigh, ideal to wear with a minidress for post-9-to-5 drinks.

The workwear conversation continued in New York, where Calvin Klein’s new creative director, Veronica Leoni, softened the brand’s minimalist codes with more crocheted fringe and bronze-toned dresses that brought the texture with a lighter hand. Michael Kors leaned more classic—waistcoats, leather skirts, and matching bags trimmed in fringe, part of what the brand called its “texture vocabulary” for spring/summer 2026. Even Séan McGirr at Alexander McQueen played along, debuting sculptural bags with chain-link and PVC fringe, a sharp, graphic counterpoint to the season’s softer takes.

Maybe it’s the end of algorithm dressing, or maybe everyone’s just tired of standing still. Either way, motion’s back in the mix, and it’s making our clothes feel alive again.