I Lost My Luggage Going to Men's Fashion Week
Reporting from Paris — moving between showrooms, missed luggage, and conversations around slower fashion, locality, and material honesty.
Before We Start
If you’re new here, you can catch up on some recent work:
I Think, Therefore I Tastemake: My thoughts on tastemaking, influence, and intention in modern content — exploring slow style, fatigue, and what’s to come
New Year, New (Kinda the Same) Me: A year-end reflection on growth, fear, and staying honest — along with the designers and pieces that caught my eye recently
Basic? (How Japanese brands get labelled “boring” or “expensive,” and the disconnect between passion, content, and algorithm-driven taste)
I’m Not a Hater, But I Am a Hater: The current state of menswear discourse & fashion bros
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Between tracking down pieces, speaking with designers, and writing these essays, this project takes more time than my weekly screen-time report would like to admit — and your support truly does make this all possible.
Thank you for being here.
Introduction
Note: This was meant to be a quick hit for each brand — but the conversations were too good not to expand on. So, enjoy.
Let me start by saying I’ve had three glasses of wine, a sub-par steak frites, and have yet to receive my luggage since flying out on Monday the 19th and landing the following day at noon. The vibes are mild on a personal level right now — but outside of my own turmoil, the vibes are indeed high.
It’s a different environment here at A/W Men’s Fashion Week in Paris — one that feels cozier, more wholesome, and generally lowkey compared to the summer. People are bundled up, yet it’s not freezing like last January. You will see groups lingering over a glass of wine and a dessert at a local café or bar, rather than sprinting between clubs — at least from what I’ve seen so far.
This feels more my speed. For us lurkers who sit on the couch with a ginger-lemon tea, honk-shoo energy at max level, twenty tabs open trying to find the right linen jacket for the upcoming spring/summer. It’s all good, I’ve found it for you: the Linen Herringbone Zip Jacket by ssstein, of course. That said, all this cozy energy really only appears after the appointments are over.
Because once the day starts, there’s no honk-shoo energy to be found. It’s three coffees, maybe a cigarette, and Ghost Rider by Suicide playing loud enough to rattle your eardrums — anything to stay alert and engaged. You have to remain on your toes moving from showroom to showroom, interacting with designers, teams, agencies.
Thankfully, and speaking mostly from personal experience, the people you’re going to meet are far more supportive than you might expect. One common misconception I hear from people dabbling with fashion week for the first time is the fear of saying the wrong thing, asking the wrong question, or somehow getting exiled, banished, banned until further notice.
That’s simply not the case, at least within menswear and smaller showrooms. Everyone seems genuinely supportive of one another, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness. Especially in an industry that can be cutthroat, it feels like we’re slowly turning a page. From Discord servers dedicated to niche brands, to open discussions around materials and inspiration — or one of my favourite things to see — people gassing up their friends when they post a fit pic.
It’s something Oliver Warner, the founder of Conkers, touched on during our chat today. The overall level of support brands are showing one another, the lifting of years-long gatekeeping around materials and manufacturers, and the ability to share ideas freely without feeling like you’re stepping on someone’s toes. It’s a love thy neighbour type of approach — fittingly echoed in Oliver’s latest collection, titled Local.
We’ll touch on that more later.
Right, you came here for the AW26 coverage. Here was day one’s itinerary:
Day 1 — Wednesday the 21st
12:00–1:00 PM — Carter Young (Showroom)
Rescheduled after being told my luggage would arrive around this time. As Maury would say, the lie detector determined that was a lie.
1:00–1:40 PM — Rkivecity (Showroom)
2:30–3:00 PM — Conkers (Showroom)
3:30–4:00 PM — Tarvas (Showroom)
5:00–5:30 PM — Lea Boberg (Showroom)7:00–8:00 PM — J.L.A.L. (Runway Presentation)
As much as I wanted to attend, I didn’t have the strength to follow through — unfortunate, as it would’ve been a departure from typical Duchump coverage, but one that added real diversity in approach and style.
Rkivecity
“They don’t make sense to everyone — and that’s okay,” says Ritwik Khanna, founder of the Delhi-based brand rkivecity, while breaking down what he refers to as his art trousers. Inspired by the Jodhpur — a pant traditionally worn for polo — the silhouette carries a looser, wider fit through the waist and seat before tapering toward the calves and ankles. Constructed from various pairs of paint-splattered Dickies, the piece serves as a clear entry point into Khanna’s broader practice: rkivecity does not build collections from scratch.