Christopher Esber Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear

Wanderlust: We’ve all experienced it, some of us have acted upon it, and then there are others, like Sydney designer Christopher Esber, who have been inspired by it. Before his show in the Australian Embassy in Paris today, the finale of a fashion week like no other in living memory, Esber was talking through the narrative which led him to spring 2026, an ode to the call of the… well, if not exactly the wild, then whatever place takes you far, far away. “I was thinking about someone dreaming of being on vacation while they’re at their desk,” Esber said. “So a lot of the collection is deconstructing office wear and bringing an element of raw, disheveled beauty to it. And I was also looking at this idea of how women dress on the beach; the way they might wrap a towel around a swimsuit, or wear a T-shirt with a bikini.” From that everyday reality of beach life experienced by just about all of us, Esber leant into this dialog between a more considered formality and loosening it up—or vice versa. He opened with a navy suit with a trailing pareo fluttering from the back of the pants—this whole notion of trousers with some sarong-esque action going on started in New York and has since, if you’ll excuse the godawful pun, turned out to have legs—before showing the likes of a gray shirt and navy pants embellished with (yes, really) salmon skin dyed white, either as a breast pocket or as a strip which encircled the waistband, then a black lean coat with a ripped hem rising upwards as if you’d finally had enough of what you were wearing to work and couldn’t shed it fast enough as you rent it asunder.