Memory, Craft & the Slow Gaze

With SS26, Ganni's Creative Director Ditte Reffstrup takes a purposeful step toward slowing things down. Instead of a full runway show, the collection was presented at the Bastille Design Center in Paris via wooden mannequins, floral installations, and a dreamy film playing in the background. The mood is nostalgic — a meditation on summers, memories, and the way time softens details. Reffstrup explains her intention as letting people see the actual product, to immerse in detail, craft, texture.

This choice of format immediately frames the collection not as spectacle, but as a conversation with clothing: how it's made, how it moves into memory, how it drapes on the body, how embellishments linger in the light. It's a turn away from frenzy, toward reflection.

The silhouettes are playful, romantic, and somewhat pliable. Trench coats double-belted, shapes pushed into pannier-like volumes; a belt-sculpted shape that echoes a tulip; smocked dresses made in recycled patent that catch the light in surprising ways. Prints— including warped florals (a motif from last season), blurred floral fields, and a new leopard print—underscore a Ganni universe of bloom and memory.

Crochet, dimensional appliqués, smocking, crinkled textures, taffeta, organza, and recycled materials all make appearances - textures that beg close inspection. A khaki-patent smocked dress plays with light, a white printed dress crinkles like peeling wallpaper.

These tactile treatments are crucial: they tether the garments to touch and memory.

Reffstrup draws from summers spent in her childhood home on the Danish coast — gardens, sea air, free afternoons. She evokes "fragments of a dream," blurred as if seen from a car window. The prints, the floral appliqués, even the crinkles in fabric, evoke time passing, and memory reshaping what we saw.

But Ganni also leans into agency: this collection isn't romanticism filtered through modesty. There's intentional femininity, dressing for oneself rather than anyone else.

Draping, knotting, corseting, bold prints — there's a sense of clothes becoming part of one's identity, not a mask for approval. Scandi layering but also letting the garment become personal through how one wears it: belt it, knot it, mix the elements.

The presentation format is more than a staging device — it's integral to what Ganni wants us to see. Mannequins, curated displays, up close and slow looking, flower installations, the ambient film. It gives breathing room. It demands attention not to spectacle but to material, seam, silhouette, detail.

In a fashion climate speeding toward ever bigger shows, ever wilder drops, ever more visual noise, Ganni SS26 feels like a counter-proposal: that fashion is also about intimacy, about detail, about what happens when you slow down, let the garment settle on you, and let you settle into it.

The tactile craftsmanship shines: smocking, appliqués, crinkles, and detailed surface work give the pieces character. The theme of memory & nostalgia feels genuine, thoughtfully expressed rather than pastiche. The collection retains Ganni's signature warmth and playfulness even while exploring more delicate, reflective territory. The choice of presentation empowers observation - gives space for details that often get lost in the fast runway rush.

Some of the more experimental or romantic looks might risk being less versatile for everyday wardrobes, depending on how wearable one finds dramatic volume or strong prints. The slower pace, while beautiful, depends heavily on presentation and lighting. On digital images or in a store context, some textures (crinkles, appliqués) might not register as powerfully. There's a tension between Ganni's signature playfulness and this turn toward nostalgia + softness; balancing that so the collection feels confidently evolved rather than hesitant will be key.

Ganni SS26 feels like a warm exhale — a breath of color, texture, craft, and memory in a season that often feels about acceleration. It reminds us that fashion doesn't always need to shout; sometimes, its power lies in what is whispered: the way fabric falls, the way light catches an appliqué, the way a print warps like a memory. This is Ganni growing up softly, but not quietly.