August is usually the quiet month between couture and the September shows, and this year it was a month of festivals, campaigns and one divisive museum announcement. Charli xcx and Tate McRae dressed Lollapalooza, Copenhagen Fashion Week turned 20, the Met’s next subject started an argument, and two musicians became faces of fashion houses. These are the six moments that mattered, in the order they happened.
Aug. 3: Lollapalooza Dresses Up for the Rain
Nylon ranked Charli xcx’s headline set No. 1 for its opening trench coat and vintage Saint Laurent heels, and a closing outfit of a tattered white T-shirt, fingerless gloves and an oversized belt. Jennie wore Ann Demeulemeester’s white military jacket, Sombr wore Valentino lace and a feather-trimmed jacket, Lorde opened in a pink Pleats Please Issey Miyake hoodie and Adéla wore custom pink Christian Louboutin boots. Tate McRae closed the festival in all white by Ludovic de Saint Sernin. Military jackets, lingerie layers and sunglasses were the trends, and rain delayed Saturday’s program. Full story.
Aug. 3 to 7: Copenhagen Fashion Week Turns 20
Collina Strada, the New York label, was the week’s International Guest Slot and showed a waterfront collection in tinsel and glitter with two puppies on the runway. Nicklas Skovgaard sent models out of vintage cars, Anne Sofie Madsen’s show was scored live by the recorder player Michala Petri, and Birgitte Herskind’s label closed its show to Madonna’s “Danceteria.” By Malene Birger returned after six years with a sunset show closed by the model Mona Tougaard. The Zoe Report called the week “playfully wearable.” Designers must meet transparency guidelines to show. Full story.
Aug. 6: The Met’s Galliano Pick Gets Louder
Days after the Costume Institute named John Galliano: Horizons as its 2027 exhibition, W laid out the debate: the third living designer the Met Gala has honored, and one dismissed from Dior in 2011 after an antisemitic tirade. The museum says the show “will directly address the rupture caused by his antisemitic, racist, and anti-Asian conduct in 2010 and 2011.” Anna Wintour said in a statement that “The exhibition won’t shy away from any of the darkness in John’s past. It’s part of what has shaped him.” The show runs in three “movements,” and the gala is Monday, May 3, with the dress code and co-chairs still to come. What we know.
Aug. 24: Lil Yachty Becomes the Face of Loewe
The collection is by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, and the campaign’s star came from a viral clip: a rapper’s yellow jacket at a Loewe show, which Loewe turned into the color of its Fall 2026 campaign. Talia Chetrit shot Yachty and Julia Garner at Pointe Helbronner on the Mont Blanc Massif, with Théodore Pellerin, Laïka Blanc-Francard, Beau Gadsdon and the artist Cosima von Bonin, whose work shaped special editions of three bags. Loewe says the images revisit its earlier motifs, with colored ice cubes that “now resemble miniature mountain peaks.” Full story.
Aug. 25: Tate McRae Dances for Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein’s campaign was built around a dance, not a pose: Carlijn Jacobs directed it, Sergio Reis choreographed it and it was set to Deee-Lite’s 1990 “Groove Is in the Heart.” A teaser a day earlier hid her face but let fans guess by her voice. “I loved being able to move, dance and bring my own energy to every look,” McRae said in a statement. It is the first chapter of a rollout that the brand says will bring in more global talent over the next month, and it followed her first Grammy nomination, for “Just Keep Watching” from F1: The Movie.
Aug. 26: Jonathan Saunders Starts at Kate Spade
The Scottish designer, who had announced in June that he was leaving & Other Stories for a move back to the U.S., began as Kate Spade’s executive creative director on Aug. 26, working from the brand’s Hudson Yards headquarters in New York. He reports to Kate Spade’s president and CEO, Eva Erdmann, and was the second major designer move of the summer after Olivier Rousteing’s Rabanne appointment in July.
What came next
September brought the women’s shows, with Rihanna, Rosalía and LISA in the front row. Here is how Paris Fashion Week SS27 looked from the front row.
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
