Don’t mess with Chitose Abe because she’s in a mood. The normally chirpy designer known for her hybrid clothing and fun, textural mash-ups has taken a step back and started thinking about breaking free from expectations and conventions, and looking to destroy in order to create anew.
In the process she’s been breaking things, specifically the walls of her show venue at Le Carreau du Temple, which had big, dramatic punch marks in the plasterboard that divided the space.
“I wanted to express the power to break through the wall, to think out of the box. I wanted a statement of freedom,” said Abe, who used Muhammad Ali as inspiration this season.
She added an image of Ali throwing a punch to a black top, which she paired with matching boxing shorts. On the back it read: “What you are thinking is what you are becoming,” one of Ali’s most famous motivational quotes.
Freedom also came in the form of fusion. Abe brought her men’s and pre-fall 2026 womenswear closer together this season, creating unexpected, coed combinations.
The show opened with a long black-and-white lineup of formal shirts, ties that were casually left open and trouser/skirt hybrids, which, Abe pointed out, were made from a single piece rather than two separate layers.
She sliced up cargo pants and pieced them back together as asymmetrical skirts and layered trousers. She also created a new three-piece suit out of gray pinstripe wool. It featured a jacket, and a trouser/skirt hybrid.
Abe worked with Levi’s once again, using stiff, dark denim for tailored pieces, adding leather biker details to rounded, sculptural jackets and styling flared jeans as if they were formal trousers.
She also worked with A.P.C., creating a new fabric inspired by the French company’s patchwork quilts by Jessica Ogden. Those quilt designs surfaced on minidresses and maxidresses, puffers and skirt-y trousers with geometric patterns that resembled stained glass windows.
The designer mixed up other textures, colors and details, too, patching together a cool black-and-olive jacket from puffer quilting, leather and shearling fluff, and arranging sparkly jewels into a bib design at the front of a lumberjack shirt.
Who knows how long the rebellion will last? In the meantime it’s best to just sit back, keep the peace and think about who you want to become in those breezy Sacai designs.
