In Paris, the New York-based designer, and former Man About Town cover star, unleashed a megahit Autumn/Winter 2026 collection, bridging fashion, performance, and film.
A year ago, Willy Chavarria made his Paris Fashion Week debut. It’s was big move; one that placed him alongside some of the industry’s biggest movers and shakers. But yesterday, the designer’s Autumn/Winter 2026 runway show delivered nothing short of a blockbuster, merging performance, film, and fashion under one roof. “My favourite way to deliver emotion is through cinema, dance, and music,” the designer told Man About Town. “So all of those things combined was the best way for me to express myself.”
That roof was the Dojo de Paris events space, a hall with capacity for 1,800 people, roughly a 45-minute drive from the centre of the city, and the very spot where Alessandro Michele made his Spring/Summer 2025 Valentino debut. It was transformed into a series of mini sets, where bedrooms, bars, bus stops, and parked cars were dotted around the floor, marked like a New York street – a curated microcosm of the ground level corner apartment the designer lives in. “I think there. I watch people,” read the show notes.
This was the set for a tale of love, loss, and connection told through performances from Mon Laferte, LUNAY, and Mahmood, at first seeming intimate, before the lens was cast on the world outside, to the Big Apple that never sleeps.
Models zig-zagged across that intersection, first in boxy grey check suits, where high-waisted trousers met with sharp black shirts. Then a Chavarria-ified prepster paired his double-breasted jacket with high water jeans and loafers. Wall-Streetish double-breasted suits were worn with overcoats, and swooping navy single-breasted iterations were paired with baby pink V-neck sweaters.
As the show entered its second act, we saw Chavarria explore daywear, his watchful eye landing on well-built gym bros rocking their three-inch inseams post-session, to errands ran in swooshy and cinched black tracksuits, with sportswear configured into more tailored proportions. Then, the Big Willy crew entered on chopper bicycles, decked out in khaki and black work pants, shirts, and bomber jackets against the backdrop of an animated film. It was the hard launch of an evergreen workwear sub-label, while uplifting and amplifying Cholo and Chicano cultures and communities on the world stage.
The collection also unveiled the designer’s fourth collaboration with Adidas. It features World Cup merchandise inspired by the Mexican football kits of the past, alongside Predator football sneakers. “The collection is extremely diverse and emotional. And it ranges from streetwear to daywear to sportswear, and athletic apparel with my adidas collection,” Chavarria shared backstage. “So I really wanted to show the breadth of the Willy Chavarria brand and all of the ways that it connects with people.”
People have always been at the core of what the designer does. He often casts models from the streets, real guys from real communities (Christiano Wennmann, for example, was discovered making Pizza at legendary NYC spot Scarr’s). And the designer’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection referenced the detention of US immigrants in Salvadoran prisons, with 35 models kneeling on the floor wearing white T-shirts. Today he delivered something to uplift and enlighten, against a worsening humanitarian backdrop. This was a fashion show built on connection across cities, across day and night, across clothing.
Chavarria’s AW26 collection arrives as the industry’s behemoths are framing clothes in the context of how we live. Balenciaga showed top coats, derbies and leather jackets within a wardrobe focused on movement, presented alongside gym gear. Our Legacy revisited traditional Swedish workwear jackets, mirroring their original no-frills cut, and Louis Vuitton delivered a toned-down offering designed for life. This has always been a part of the game plan with Willy Chavarria. The brand has long presented an unpretentious vision of luxury, where indulgent tailoring exists in the same universe as a tracksuit while drawing on and elevating his own roots.
The collection was presented on a huge scale. Yes, there was hype – alongside the stacked roster of performances, Julia Fox, Goldie, and Romeo Beckham walked the show – but the clothing wasn’t outshone. It provided the perfect theatre to amplify a defined brand vision in the heart of Paris. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Willy Chavarriaverse.
