Save your tears, because it’s only laughter here, and there’s a party going on. That’s the post-show backstage vibe at Isabel Marant, where after 30 years Marant is stepping down from designing her own label, a label that singlehandedly exported the idea of the Cool French Girl (or indeed Cool French Boy) to the world, and by doing so, was often imitated but never ever bettered. (Marant will still be working on the label behind the scenes, just not designing.)
Now her creative director Kim Bekker will take the spotlight—and take charge—and we’ve just finished seeing her terrific spring 2026 collection, a sun-kissed, pack-your-bag ode to wanderlust, rich with suede, lace, and leather, much of it patchworked and embroidered. Tonight isn’t even a bittersweet moment, but a fully charged, fully go-for-it leap into the future. As I was leaving, Marant was all smiles. “That,” she said approvingly of Bekker’s collection, “was so Isabel Marant.”
Indeed it was. Bekker knows the brand like the back of her hand, and her collection impressed because she never put an espadrilled, wedge-muled, slouchy-booted foot wrong. At a preview, Bekker expanded on the collection’s starting point. “This season was about the idea of a journey—and the journey I’m on,” she said. “It’s the idea of traveling from place to place, on the road, sunburnt, with a backpack filled with clothes she has picked up on the way.” This idea of the freewheeling nomad saw Bekker take the Marant classics—utilitarian blousons, cargo pants, surplus shorts, romantic blouses, slouchy coats, wispy dresses, and army shirts (based on the vintage ones Marant herself wears)—and bleach and bronze them in weathered shades of cream, ivory, sand, khaki, brown, blue and black, an earthy distillation of the perfect summer wardrobe.
Yet these clothes were even better close up. Bekker had worked hard to layer them with all sorts of detail: flying jacket zippers and double layering on blousons; intricate patchworks that brought different textures (shine and perforated) together; and embroideries of baubles, shells, and tassels, all mining a more elevated idea of craft. Her men’s, meanwhile, harked back to the early ’80s vibe of square-cut roomy jackets with slouchy pants, and Berber stripe double-breasted tunic shirting.
To carry all this around, on the back of a motorbike, say, or on a bus shaking its way across the desert (or you know, more likely a packed subway car) there were suede crescent moon bags with gilded straps and capacious backpacks. It’s unlikely Bekker’s going to be hitting the road any time soon, what with the demands of her new role, so she said it’s more a case of traveling in her mind. That said, right now, she’s more than happy to not be going anywhere. She has found her spot in the sun.
