10 Trends From the Prada Fall 2026 Menswear Show I Am Not Ready For (Yet)

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Prada held their 2026 menswear show in Milan on January 18 and some people are absolutely raving about it. “Leave it to Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons to overturn the whole Italian menswear fashion season, with the best show, slickest collection and coolest clothes,” writes Godfrey Deeny of Fashion Network.

And look, I like the show too. Or… I will. Eventually. Sometimes — okay, most of the time (and especially since Raf signed on) — Prada is, honestly, just a little too far ahead of the curve for me. But then I give it a season or three and inevitably whatever felt like “too much” upon first viewing becomes utterly reasonable and I find myself thinking: Wow, Prada really is the brand setting the agenda for the rest of the fashion world to follow.

In fact, the more I am initially turned off by what Prada is doing (especially when it comes to menswear), the more I tend to like it a year or so down the road. So, based on past experience, I assume that this time next year I will look back on this show and see it for the masterstroke it (probably) is. I’m just not there yet. I want to be. But I’m not. And these are the ten reasons why.

1. The return of the skinny suit
Not everything in this show was skinny skinny, but enough was — especially towards the end — that I felt at times like I was looking at some resurrected version of Hedi Slimane’s Dior — albeit with a higher waist and swishier styling. And don’t get me wrong, I loved Hedi’s Dior 20 years ago when I was young enough and skinny enough to pull it off, but now this kind of aggressive slimness feels… challenging. Like, I know I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I’m pretty fit over all, so unless I start mainlining Ozempic, I fear the chances of me (or just about anyone over the age of 35) fitting into Prada’s new suits are about as slim as the suits themselves.

Also, how are the pants this skinny, but still sort of baggy and bunchy around the waist and frontal area? I fear I would have to get down to my birth weight before I could wear these pants like they were shown on the runway, which, a year from now, I may be willing to do.

2. The equally skinny overcoats
At certain moments these coats were giving “cartoon undertaker,” but at others I was actually totally onboard. I think worn open, the vibe is completely different. And as someone who never closes my coat, I appreciate how the slimness of this silhouette allows you to really show off the outfit underneath. That said, I would like the option to button my coat if needs be and I fear I would be denied that in one of these. That is assuming I could get my arms down those drainpipe sleeves in the first place.

3. Those enormous cuffs (and equally enormous cufflinks)
This is just really hard for me. I’ve never been a fan of French cuffs. I’m a relatively slim guy and I’ve always felt like French cuffs made me look ridiculous and totally warped the sleeve openings of my relatively slender suit jackets. But that seems to be the point here. Especially the way they’ve been styled to almost explode out of these skinny little suit sleeves.

That said, the more I look at it, the more it is growing on me. Even now. There is something foppish and grand about it — like a modern version of the kind of frilly, over-the-top-cuff I imagine the Sun King favored at Versailles. I’m still not ready to embrace it myself, but do you see what I mean? That’s the thing about Prada. The more you look at it, the more it gets to you.

Like here (below), in this moment, it is totally working for me. Something about the textures and the colors and the proportions — it’s all just coming together.

Prada Menswear Fall 2026 (Courtesy Prada)

Less so here. I don’t know. I just can’t get behind wrist dickies, I don’t think. Especially not with a scoop neck sweater. I do like the colors, though.

Prada Menswear Fall 2026 (Courtesy Prada)

4. All that purple
I hate purple. I just hate it. Always have. But who knows? Maybe Prada will manage to convert me. Just watch, a year from now I’ll be walking around the streets of New York like Grimace without the carbs. And Raf and Miuccia have certainly provided us with plenty of hue options to choose from — from dusty mauve to deep violet — so maybe it’s just a matter of finding the right one to help me break through.

I mean… there is something about the very specific shade of that cropped anorak cape thing that is actually super lovely. The lavender cuffs on that one look are also kind of pretty. Especially with the brown. See what I mean?! You look at it long enough and it starts to make sense.

5. Wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere
I understand that the designers were going for a kind of palimpsest, unearthed-from-a-box-in-the-attic, vintage-y thing with the deliberate wrinkles and the artfully placed dirt and mildew stains and the way the buttons and pockets and other inner workings can be seen pushing through to the outside. I get it. I just don’t really like it.

I don’t like fake dirt on my clothes. I don’t like real dirt on my clothes. And the idea of intentional wrinkles goes against everything I was taught during my years as a fashion assistant, when I spent literally hundreds of hours steaming out clothes for photo shoots.

Then again, I imagine that for the Prada customer — the real Prada customer: the one that shops there constantly, not just once a season — wrinkles and dirt and expensive clothes with intentional pressure damage might actually be a kind of pleasing novelty. They can put on their Golden Goose sneakers, their Balenciaga destroyed denim jeans, and their artfully muddied Prada shirt and head off to Erewhon for their Hailey Bieber smoothie like a sort of high-fashion Fagin from Oliver Twist.

And while I’m not on board with all the decay on display here, I do think there are some places where it really works, like in the coats with the worn areas that reveal the contrasting, patterned fabric underneath. Those moments felt really successful and couture to me.

6. Bucket hats
I feel like designers keep trying to make these happen and it literally never works. Hats in general feel like a weird fashion affectation to me. The exceptions being beanies and baseball caps, of which I own many myself. And matching your purple bucket hat to your purple nip-waist trench coat is really just taking things too far. For me. For now. It’s very Carmen Sandiego. But purple. And a bucket hat. And I’m just not there yet.

Prada Menswear Fall 2026 (Courtesy Prada)

I’m also really struggling with the squashed hats plastered to the backs of so many of the coats. I don’t imagine many (if any) will actually make it to production this way, but why then make them such a ubiquitous visual note in the collection? I fear this particular design flourish will go down in the annals of Prada menswear history alongside those frilly tutu belts from the early 2000s.

And yet, even as I write that, I’m reminded that although Prada never produced those belts or even sent them out for press (apparently a higher-up from a major department store said that if they ever left the showroom he would stop buying Prada menswear altogether), design-y kids in London just went and made versions for themselves. And, in a way, the gender fluidity Miuccia was playing with that season was really just a decade or two ahead of its time. So who knows? Fifteen years from now, you might see me walking around with a squashed bucket hat glued to my shoulder after all.

7. Square-neck tanks
I feel like this neckline really only works on guys with broad shoulders and spectacular pecs. But maybe I’m not seeing this shape’s true potential. Then again, I don’t even like v-necks, so it seems unlikely that this silhouette will grow on me any time soon. But, again, who knows? I never thought I’d be into flame graphics on half a boxy camp shirt, but Prada got me with that one too. For a time.

8. Colorful shoe laces
I imagine all these shoes will come with standard black and brown lace options when they actually go on sale. I think they would be too hard for a lot of customers to get behind otherwise. And look, there are a couple of cases where I actually think the colorful laces look nice, like in the look with the floral shirt and the long green coat. Something about that little pop of purple is really working for me. And I do appreciate a styling flourish that anyone can incorporate into their wardrobe, even on a budget. I just feel like this is one that, in the hands of most people, is more likely to go wrong that right.

9. Collarless shirts in general (and this on in particular)
They just feel so affected to me. And wierdly fussy. And the fact that this one buttons up in the back — I’m really struggling to imagine what man is going to go through that. Clothes that button in the back like this demand you have a partner (or servant) present to help dress and undress you and I just feel like that’s asking a lot. Also — and, again, this is a very personal thing — the fact that the stripes on the collar don’t line up with the ones on the shirtfront is really difficult for me to reconcile, especially at this price point. As much as I want to give Prada the benefit of the doubt that every design choice is intentional, this feels like something else. Especially since, if you look at the stripes on the sleeves, near the shoulders, while the top yellow stripe on the right matches up with the yellow strip on the front, the corresponding stripe on the left does not. Miuccia and Raf are so cerebral and eccentric that I could see this being intentional. But to what end, I don’t know. For me, if I was paying $1500 for a shirt, these are the kinds of details I would expect to be executed with laser-like precision and uniformity.

Prada Menswear Fall 2026 (Courtesy Prada)

Of course, that’s 2026 me. 2027 me could totally be like: In the age of AI, imperfection is proof of human intervention, which, in an increasingly mechanized world, is, in a way, the ultimate luxury. I can actually totally see future me saying that.

10. Those three-button suit jackets
I see tons of these three-button suit jackets at resale shops all the time. Whether new or old, I just don’t like the way they look and I feel like Prada is constantly pushing them. But who knows? Maybe that just means that a breakthrough is imminent.

After all, in a post-Covid world, suits don’t have the same significance they once did. And while the two button suit feels very formal and business-y, maybe the three button suit is a kind of character piece. And maybe I’m not that character now, but maybe, just maybe, Raf and Miuccia aren’t trying to dress the me I am now. Maybe they are more interested in the me I (all of us) will become. That’s a nice thought. And it’s why, even though I don’t really get this collection now, I’m willing to give Prada the benefit of the doubt that by the time it filters down through the culture over the next couple of years, I will. Probably.