Savannah College of Art and Design Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

Reported by Vogue.

Right now, when the industry is cycling through nostalgia and anxiety in equal measure, a graduating class of designers is doing something more interesting: processing it all in real time. At SCAD's Fall 2026 student showcase — staged outdoors at the SCAD museum beneath a billowing cloud sculpture by Janet Echelman, with a performance by dancers Lil Buck and Jeremiah Ellis — more than 60 seniors put forward work that was, according to Vogue, neither naive nor defeated. "They are clear eyed but also optimistic about the future," said Dean of Fashion Dirk Standen. "Fashion matters now more than ever."

Menswear was one of the show's genuine strengths. Jimmy Kim cut beautifully in gray flannel. Jack Wilkins aged and patched fabrics into something post-Ivy and worn-in. Nicholas Oyakhire's all-black lineup moved through the stages of grief with a cutaway tailcoat as its centerpiece, while Owen Gibson rethought the proportions of bombers and pea coats, and Shaely Stabler brought womenswear construction techniques into men's eveningwear. The range was real.

Dressing Up, Taken Seriously

Standen flagged a "return to dressing up" as one of the clearest through lines. That energy peaked in a finale of six evening gowns shaped by mentorship from SCAD designer-in-residence Peter Copping of Lanvin — students were asked to interpret the house's codes, and at least one landed on Lanvin's panniered robe de style, a silhouette making its rounds across two ready-to-wear seasons right now. Romance bled into other collections: Jinseo Park's pastels are already stocked at SCAD's new Bazaar store; Gabriella Simone Fox worked raw-edged chiffon; Zoya Polivchak went full Wonderland. On the darker end, Jamie Domruse wove Swarovski crystals into a Titanic-inspired collection with real restraint, and Jane Jurchak — who has already caught the attention of FKA Twigs — sent out distressed, Southern Gothic pieces that felt genuinely unsettling.

Materiality was its own conversation. Mohan Yang worked with handmade materials sourced in China; Luca Bellini pulled from architecture for sculptural silhouettes; Lily Arnold constructed intricate snow-white knits while Ruby Yao's blood-red skeleton knit leaned into the show's "Costume Art" thread. The eco contingent was strong and surprisingly inventive — Brynn Sullivan covered a look in thousands of stickers, and Tabitha Wagner dressed woodland creatures in fairy wings cut from plastic bags that would otherwise end up in a landfill. The most unexpected concept belonged to Andrea Ibarra, a snowboarder who collaborated with a sound engineer to convert audio from the slopes into graphs, then into prints.

What SCAD's Class of 2026 makes clear is that young designers aren't waiting for permission to make fashion that means something — they're already doing it.

Read the original at Vogue.