MILAN — It’s no coincidence that Chinese activewear giant Li-Ning is hitting Milan Fashion Week this season.
As the official partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, the brand, which was founded by an Olympic gymnast, is capitalizing on the city where the Winter Games kick off on Feb. 6, hoping to boost its European awareness and footprint along the way.
“For us, runway shows are never seasonal obligations: they are strategic statements. We choose to show when there is something meaningful to express, not simply something new to sell,” said Colin Li, the brand’s executive director and a second-generation member of the founding Li family.
“Our Paris show in 2023 marked a moment of artistic exploration and cultural dialogue. The Milan show allows us to place performance and winter sports culture at the center of our global storytelling,” he said.
Scheduled for Friday at 6 p.m. CET, the show concept is rooted “in Olympic culture and a winter sports inspiration, translated into a runway environment that evokes an ice-and-snow competition arena. It reflects a collective creative effort across our design teams, performance innovation teams, and brand archives,” Li explained.
The immersive runway experience required a dedicated set which features a vintage-inspired alpine foyer with memorabilia of past Winter Olympics segueing into a large-scale winter sports arena.
“The goal is not only to create a memorable elevated experience, but to reflect Li-Ning’s long-standing commitment to promoting sports and the spirit of continuous breakthroughs through design and storytelling,” Li said.
The overarching concept for the coed fall 2026 collection is the exploration of sport as lifestyle and mindset, the executive explained. “It’s about resilience, movement and continuous breakthroughs that resonate beyond the field of play,” he said.
Titled “The Athlete in All of Us,” it features two distinct drops including the Li-Ning China, or LNCN, collection nodding to professional winter sports such as snowboarding, skiing and ice hockey, combined with retro and archival influences and whiffs of the bloke-core aesthetics beloved by TikTok netizens and Gen Zers.
The sportswear silhouettes draw from technical podium suits worn by athletes decked in red, winter neutrals and aurora-inspired hues nodding to the signature colorways of the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The runway show is to also include outfits from the urban Li-Ning Glory range, defined by a utilitarian bent and technical fabrics applied to everyday garb.
Key footwear styles include the Ranger and Furious Ranger, tapping into winter performance and the chunky sneakers trend, respectively, the Wudao style and the Ling Long and Ling Long Racer for women.
A preview look from Li-Ning fall 2026 collection.
Courtesy of Li-Ning
In an homage to brand founder Li Ning, the Chaoran model is inspired by the shoes he wore back in 2008 for the lighting of the main Olympic torch at the Beijing Olympics.
The fall collection will also showcase the Li-Ning Glory x Jackie Chan capsule collection, a new iteration of the ongoing collaboration between the Beijing-based firm and the martial artist, actor and filmmaker, first unveiled in 2020.
Founded in 1990 by its namesake, a champion gymnast boasting 106 gold medals, Li-Ning initially set out to provide Chinese athletes with a domestic brand to wear to the Olympics and ultimately grew into a publicly traded company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of 50 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $6.4 billion.
It reported sales of 14.8 billion renminbi, or $2.1 billion in the first half of 2025, the most recent figures available. In 2024 revenues stood at 28.6 billion renminbi, or $4.1 billion, a 3.9 percent gain versus a year earlier.
Li said that Europe “plays an important role in shaping global brand perception and storytelling for Li-Ning, [but] China remains our strongest market, supported by Asia-Pacific. Our current international strategic focus is on Southeast Asia and the Middle East, with other markets under gradual development.”
Colin Li
Courtesy of Li-Ning
Since its global debut at New York Fashion Week’s China Day in February 2018, Li-Ning has occasionally decamped to international fashion capitals to host runway shows, including most recently in Paris in 2023 when it tapped Shanghai-based multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur Oscar Wang to design the set inside the Pompidou Center.
