From a London studio to Copenhagen Fashion Week, Paolina Russo’s Autumn/Winter 2026 collection explores the memories of a first trip, showing how community-led, sustainable design can drive fashion forward.
On the day of departure, boxes half-packed and rails still brimming, Paolina Russo’s Central London studio hummed with the charged calm that only comes before a show. Two weeks ago, I got to visit the duo in the final hours of the studio that housed the brand for 18 months, at the Paul Smith’s Foundation Residency at Smithfield Studios. Today, they present their Autumn/Winter 2026 collection, a celebration of the evocative feeling of a first trip and the discoveries that come with it, as part of Copenhagen Fashion Week.
Paolina Russo worked on a capsule collection with Adidas and launched her namesake label in London shortly after graduating at Central Saint Martins, in 2020. The project became a partnership in 2022, when fellow CSM alumna and French designer Lucile Guilmard joined as co-founder. For Russo and Guilmard, fashion has never been just about clothes. Instead, their work focuses on developing new textiles, prioritising sustainable practices and building a community through working with local craftmakers. Through their signature knitwear and folkish but futuristic pieces, Paolina Russo clothes feel familiar yet uncanny, as if unearthed from collective memory and reimagined for the here and now.
Russo, raised in Markham, Ontario, didn’t set out to be a designer: fashion design wasn’t presented as a career option in her small town. She experimented with thrifted clothes and handmade pieces, building her own visual language online through a blog long before she knew it could be a profession. After moving to London to study at Central Saint Martins, she discovered the breadth of creative roles within fashion and found her calling in design.
Guilmard’s early years were shaped by watching her uncle sew, who was a fashion designer for pregnant women, and by the natural craft of making that surrounded her family. She remembers designing a whole collection out of boredom one weekend when she was five, and always knew she wanted to do this.
In 2023, Paolina Russo was shortlisted for both the LVMH Prize and the International Woolmark Prize, putting their vision on a global stage. That same year, they won the inaugural Zalando Visionary Award, which included a runway opportunity at Copenhagen Fashion Week, introducing their work to wider audiences and financing the brand’s first show.
Since then, Kylie Jenner or boyfriend Timothee Chalamet have both been photographed wearing the brand, but behind the scenes, the brand’s community is intimate and interwoven. Russo’s partner, photographer and director Aidan Zamiri, or casting director Emma Matell, are friends and frequent collaborators of the brand.
This season, the brand grows. As two people who weren’t raised in a big city, with their AW26 show they are honouring the feeling of leaving home for the first time: a suburban school trip, coach journeys, and pockets full of bus tickets, printed napkins, keyrings and even foreign coins. These are “all things found and gathered during this time”, artefacts of possibility, mystery and magic.
Accompanied by a performance by French singer Oklou at the French embassy, that world is brought to life through classroom silhouettes, badges and patterns that take on a tribal feel. Corduroy appears softened by repeated hand-drawn hearts and flowers, alongside new colour stories of rainbow knit pastels, brown and fuchsia. Classic denim arrives in a dark wash, etched with rainbow crayon-like patterns.
A collaboration with Maison Anaychay, a Franco-Peruvian creative studio connecting designers with artisan communities in Peru, underscores Paolina Russo’s commitment to regeneration, craftsmanship and local fibres. Pieces made of 100% wool jersey are ethically produced in Portugal by Positive Material.
There is also a subtle layer of tech magic woven into their textiles. The brand introduces uniforms adorned with wool and woven badges with NFC chips developed with Avery Dennison. “We don’t see technology as separate from craft,” the designers explain. “It’s what allows it to survive.” When scanned with a phone, they open a digital portal into the ever evolving Paolina Russo world – and website.
When I ask what has changed since they joined forces, the answer is surprisingly simple. “We don’t really change,” they explain. “We’ve found our system, our community, our family. We build the season around a theme, gather references from our own wardrobes, fit on friends, adjust, photograph, evolve. It just works.”
Today’s show is not only a presentation of ideas, but of a model for how fashion can grow. Rooted in collaboration, sustainable production and innovation, Paolina Russo shows that the brands shaping the future are those that invest in people as much as product. Here, progress feels collective, and that is precisely where its strength lies.
Words – Moira González
