Why Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns Still Matter
Why the best Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns still matter in an age of influencers, sponsored posts, and content fatigue.
The Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns are here, making glossy magazines thicker, prettier, and, for once, worth lingering over. And yes, that may sound nostalgic. In an age dominated by influencers, sponsored posts, and endless soft-selling disguised as intimacy, why should we still care about the old-fashioned fashion campaign?
Because, oddly enough, it remains one of the last honest spaces a brand has.
As a former advertising creative, I will always defend the fashion campaign. Not because it is pure, of course. It is paid content. It is strategic. It is designed to seduce. But unlike the blurred theatre of personal branding, affiliate links, and “just sharing what I love,” a campaign does not pretend to be your friend. It knows what it is. In 30 seconds of film or on a single magazine page, you meet a brand directly, without the detour of someone else’s personality.
Not through Vicky Montanari or Camille Charrière, talented as they are, but through image, mood, casting, colour, and gesture. Through clothes as language. Through fashion speaking for itself.
And perhaps that is why the Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns feel so refreshing this season. There is more optimism in the air. More lightness. Less performance. These are the campaigns I keep returning to.
Chanel
Matthieu Blazy’s world feels light, open, and quietly joyful. He has brought that same sense of optimism to Chanel, a house that for years seemed to be searching, somewhat anxiously, for a way to reconnect with a younger audience.
With smiles, spontaneity, and a certain human ease, Blazy has managed to refresh Chanel without disturbing its heritage. That is harder than it looks. Luxury brands often mistake youth for noise. This Chanel feels younger because it feels more alive.
Talents: models Bhavitha Mandava, Loli Bahia, Awar Odhiang and Aditsa Berzeniia. Photography: Alec Soth
Dior
Dior continues to invest in star power and cultural capital, but now with a sharper instinct. Under its new creative direction, the ambassadors feel aligned with Jonathan Anderson’s world: artistic, intelligent, slightly off-centre in the best way.
Even amid visual change, Dior remains Dior, only now it looks about 30 years younger.
At Right, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban – Image @David Sims – Courtesy @Dior
French actor Louis Garrel – Image @David Sims – Courtesy @Dior
My prediction? Striped polos worn with embroidered dresses, and long knitted capes styled with deliberate nonchalance, will become one of the season’s most repeated formulas.
Photography: David Sims
Prada
When it comes to colour combinations, Miuccia Prada is fashion’s Van Gogh. No one creates tension and harmony quite like she does. So it is no surprise that Prada’s spring/summer campaign feels like a lesson in colour psychology disguised as fashion imagery.
Hunter Schafer – Photo @Anne Collier – Courtesy @Prada
Actor Nicholas Hoult – Photo @Anne Collier – Courtesy @Prada
These are not just beautiful pictures. They are invitations. They make you want to try unusual shades in your own wardrobe, to be slightly braver, slightly stranger, slightly more awake to the emotional power of colour.
That is what Prada still does better than almost anyone: it makes intelligence visible.
Photography: Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
Talent: John Glacier, Levon Hawke, Nicholas Hoult, Damson Idris, Carey Mulligan, Hunter Schafer, Liu Wen
COS
The London-based brand is known for artful cuts and thoughtful detailing. It looks simple, but it rarely is. It looks more expensive than it is. It looks designed for people who read books on trains and know the value of restraint.
Alexander Skarsgård – Image @Karim Sadli – Courtesy @COS
Vittoria Ceretti – Image @Karim Sadli – Courtesy @COS
Which is exactly why COS chose such a compelling cast for this season’s campaign: the extraordinary actor Alexander Skarsgård, Squid Game actress Park Gyu-young, South Korean model Taemin Park, and top model Vittoria Ceretti.
Actress Park Gyuyoung – Image @Karim Sadli – Courtesy @COS
COS understands something many brands forget: intelligence is aspirational too.
Photography: Karim Sadli
Styling: Jane How
Miu Miu
Called On Cloud Nine, the Miu Miu campaign presents a woman who exists above the usual demands of modern identity. She does not need material possessions to explain herself. She is not performing status. She is simply there: luminous, free, slightly untouchable.
It is, in fact, a rather beautiful message.
Singer Sateen Besson – Image @Jamie Hawkesworth – Courtesy @Miu Miu
Set in a fictional place somewhere above the clouds, the campaign gathers a cast of creative voices, including singer, songwriter, and model Sateen Besson, actress Li Gengxi, actress, director, and screenwriter Suzanne Lindon, singer and songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, and models Rachel Agbonze and Amelie Sante.
Artist Olivia Rodrigo – Image @Jamie Hawkesworth – Courtesy @Miu Miu
What Miu Miu offers here is not escapism in the shallow sense. It is a fantasy of self-possession. And that may be even more seductive.
Photography: Jamie Hawkesworth
Styling: Lotta Volkova
Read also – How AI is Changing Fashion Campaigns
What Makes the Best Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns So Memorable
What makes the best Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns interesting is not shock value or a desperate chase for relevance. Their strength lies elsewhere: in mood, in image-making, in the ability to create a world you want to step into. There is optimism in many of them, but it does not feel forced or corporate. It feels more like fashion relaxing into itself again, remembering that clothes can still enchant, suggest a point of view, and tell a story without spelling everything out.
In a culture trained to consume everything instantly, the fashion campaign still offers a rarer pleasure: distance, composition, imagination. It asks you to stop for a second and look. That is probably why the Spring/Summer 26 Fashion Campaigns still matter. Not because they are somehow more “real” than other forms of fashion communication, but because they are honest about being constructed. They do not disguise the fantasy. They refine it.
Feature Image – Sateen Besson – Courtesy @Prada by @Anne Collier
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