Christian Cowan Gives His Abuela's Outfits a Downtown Fashion-Girl Twist for Spring 2026

There’s a viral TikTok trend in which people identify which designers truly love and appreciate women — which male designers love and appreciate women, in particular. Most of the time, that’s based on how the clothes fit the models, which colors the designer uses and the silhouettes they explore. Christian Cowan, for his part, has focused his last several shows on the adoration he has for the ladies in his life.

For Fall 2023, the designer paid homage to “the heroines of the dawn of pop culture; Dietrich, Garland, Baker, Mansfield, Kitt, Crawford, Monroe.” Cowan’s Fall 2025 presentation was dedicated to his late friend Abbie McLaughlin and her “unique quirks,” as he shared with Fashionista.

For Spring 2026, he drew upon the strength of the mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts he grew up with. “I was raised by a bunch of amazing women — some of them were here today and hopefully they liked [the show],” he told Fashionista backstage. “The gist of the collection is taking childhood memories of the women in my family and re-imagining what it’d be like if those memories were in my modern-day life here in New York City, in my fashion designer career…how those two worlds fuse together in a dream state.”

Cowan referenced the bandanas he remembers his abuela wearing while “working with her chickens or digging up maze” in Northern Spain: “She’d literally be working, wearing a pencil skirt and earrings and a gold necklace.” He wanted to depict how a similarly busy woman in the New York fashion scene might style those same pieces. In this case, the bandana becomes solid, creating an effortlessly cool accessory for Cowan’s idea of a more youthful pencil skirt, made from flowy, silky satin and equipped with a bow-adorned garter belt. Naturally, it’s a cropped silhouette that leaves the wearer’s midriff bare; her top is then obscured by a furry, club girl-approved bolero.

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Cowan’s connection between a strong woman working on a farm in rural Europe and a just-as-powerful woman conquering the streets of Lower Manhattan was also underscored by his show venue — a graffiti-covered alleyway downtown — and soundtrack. “I was very fortunate to collaborate with the Frost Children,” said Cowan. “I’ve loved their work for a long time. I’m gagged they even said yes.”

Dance-heavy beats scored the models’ dramatic walks, seemingly enjoyed most by me and Cowan’s partner, singer Sam Smith, along with fellow musicians Ben Platt and Noah Galvin (side note: what a great double-date pairing). Also notably in the front row were Broadway legend Kristin Chenoweth and reality TV superstars Meredith Marks and Gabby Windey.

The real showstopper, however, was when a floor-length dress made from striped latex made its way down the pavement ever so slowly. I asked Cowan if that was perhaps a metaphor for being a woman (feeling restricted, having to move through life extra carefully, being in pain but putting on a brave face, etc.). I was way off base: “The genesis of that look is from maritime stripes. The latex was not part of the story, but a big part of my memories was being in the ocean,” Cowan explained. “We’d wear wetsuits a lot to go diving, and it was kind of an homage to that.”

Cowan also shared that it was that specific model’s first-ever fashion show, which was surprising, given how expertly she navigated the runway in that look: “We spoke to her about cutting it shorter, and she was like, ‘No, it’s amazing long.’ So we kept it. Not all dresses are for sprinting. Some of them are for posing, and that is definitely one of those.”

Ahead, see every look from Christian Cowan Spring 2026.