At the end of Christian Siriano’s fall 2026 presentation tonight, model Coco Rocha — a recurring muse for the designer — wore a voluminous, two-tiered bubble dress, the shimmering fabric fading from blue to green. Rocha spun around and posed dramatically, as if she were some kind of high-fashion alien. Was it over? Yes, but it also drew a smile from the fashion insiders in the front row. “I wanted it to feel like a liquid painting,” Siriano said of the scene backstage pre-show. “This season, I liked things that were a little bit weird, and using clothes how you wouldn’t normally use them.”
Siriano has always had a theatrical bent, so embracing the whimsical or surreal was not a major concept for him. But it felt more important than ever to do so this season, he said, given the current — let’s say challenging — landscape we’re living in here in America. “I don’t know what my world is (right now), so I wanted things to feel like escapism and fantasy,” he said. This happened mostly in her evening wear: Siriano is best known for her red carpet dresses and statement cocktail dresses, and she aimed to infuse classic glamor with touches that feel otherworldly and deliberate.
His initial look consisted of a formal satin evening gown reimagined as a corseted moto jacket, accompanied by dress pants. Look two was a cropped tuxedo jacket, cut asymmetrically at the waist and given only one sleeve, paired with a feather-trimmed skirt. You can tell Siriano made a real effort to focus on his materials this season: his plush “faux fur” coat was actually made of feathers, meant to resemble fur, while a cropped black bolero jacket was made of gathered lace, almost resembling tulle. In previous seasons, her material choices often seemed hard to wear, but this season they felt elevated and more deliberate.
Of course, there was plenty of organza—perhaps too much organza. It’s become a signature fabric for the designer, and he’s used it (with a heavy hand) on everything from sheer blazers with boning to full-on draped gowns, with highlights on dresses with dresses. There’s something about a huge organza ruffle, flashing across the torso, that doesn’t feel very modern or sophisticated, but Siriano’s customers seem to love the extravagance, and his intention for the season wasn’t to focus on practicality. “There are plenty of brands out there that are great at what they do, and that’s what I do,” he said.
Sequins, too, pop up frequently throughout the collection, as seen on a silver sculpture with a matching skirt. It was refreshing to see Siriano do such architectural looks on a wide range of body types: he’s still surprisingly one of the few New York designers who routinely thinks about size diversity on the runway, not to mention in his core business. And she’s willing to not only cater to a wide range of clients, but to give them that exact showmanship or pizzazz, when many other designers water down their plus-size designs. This alone makes her outfit that much more admirable.
