Welcome to Hodakova’s House. Ellen Hodakova Larsson chose to open the doors of an imaginary home for this Fall/Winter 2026 presented yesterday in Paris, where tangible and romantically guarded fragments of memory are brought to the runway along with the looks, curated by Lotta Volkova’s styling. It is a show as exciting as it is shocking, because the incursion of furniture elements such as chairs, violin strings and carpets into the looks of the collection, worn with melancholic nonchalance and closely connected to the sense of remembrance, manages to astonish the eye of the viewer without nevertheless stunning him, but leading him gently into an atmosphere of ancient, decadent and poignant intimacy.
Structure and deconstruction, minimalist rigor and retro baroqueness such as tapestries and furs: it is a subtle game of contrasts that the Swedish designer has chosen to eviscerate, where the extreme portability of essential looks and tailoring meets, through a poetically creative approach, with a cathartic process of rediscovery, reassembly, backward exploration, like rummaging through an old abandoned but never really dead attic. The approach is textural, sartorial, that made of suits with tweed jackets, trenchcoats and the white shirt as the central element to be sported in everyday life; to this, however, must be added another way of wearing garments, which almost transcends the ordinary act of dressing to become emotional layering of a past that coexists with the present, of a memory that does not abandon but pulsates as a constant inspiration of life.
Accordion-pleated leather and hair items, with fur tops that evoke locks of hair stored in a memory book, stiff sheath dresses broken down and tapestries and antique rugs to wrap oneself in, are the score of a collection that, beyond the appearances of the more conceptual releases, offers multiple cues for a concrete, palatable, craftily complex and textured wardrobe, inviting us, once again, to look at a collection in its details and not just for its general appearance. As long as people continue to approach it superficially, scandalizing themselves over a chair on the runway, they would probably do better to refrain from judging a fashion show and limit themselves to cursory observation.
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