Look closely at the runways of Milan and Paris, and you’ll notice a new menswear silhouette is quickly emerging. When fashion’s great catwalk prognosticators—Miuccia Prada, Raf Simons of Prada, Jonathan Anderson of Dior, and Demna of Gucci—all settle on a similar vision for their male consumer, it’s worth perking up and listening. So, it’s of note that those designers are winnowing down their sartorial wares, each presenting us with a shared idea of what men will want to shop—and more importantly, how they’ll want to look—in the coming months. Enter: the Slender Man.
It’s not just an attenuated, leaner look, but one with very specific proportions: sitting at or just a touch above the waist (as opposed to low on the hips) and paired with a body-hugging, cropped top. At Demna’s fall 2026 show—his official runway debut for the brand—he dropped all the drooping, flowing shapes he so favored at Balenciaga and gave us a collection that was taut, muscular, and laser-focused. One look, in particular, comprised silver high-waisted jeans and a second-skin t-shirt cropped enough to show a sliver of hip. It transmitted his new direction with a bang. It reminded me of what the designer told The Cut’s Cathy Horyn: that he was still seeking his new silhouette, but that it would certainly be “sharp.” Hm!
Then there was Anderson’s second runway show for men, also for fall 2026; he gave us a big departure from his heady debut of enormous shorts and cocooning jackets: glittering going-out tops and rock ‘n’ roll jeans, woolly nip-waist Bar coats sliced and cropped, and so on. Within these shapes, however, was a clear-eyed tailoring proposition—trousers that could only be described as downright skinny, shown with a matching suit jacket that left a channel of sensuous midriff peeking out.
At Prada, which just showed its spring 2027 collection, there was a similar bent: shrunken jackets paired with narrow matching pants—an evolution of last spring’s slender profile. Something is brewing!
Dior fall 2026.
Photo: Isidore Montag / Gorunway.com
Prada spring 2027.
Photo: Isidore Montag / Gorunway.com
Why, exactly, is there such a sudden, new attitude storming the runways? Menswear can move so slowly, inch by inch, but this feels like an abrupt changing of the guard. We’ve been in a protracted period of oversized shapes, obsessing over sweeping puddles of fabric, the elegant drape of a pleated pant, and the mushy coziness of swaddling coats. Bodies were hidden in enveloping layers of downy, plush fabric.
