Australia · 2026 to 2027
Spring Summer
Leadership Style
Radar
Every spring a client asks me what she should be buying, and every spring I tell her the same thing. The season you are shopping now was decided twelve months ago, on the other side of the world. This is what it decided, and where to find it here.
It is not your taste that changed
Nothing in the shops might be speaking to you right now, and there is a reason for it that has very little to do with you.
Of 380 Australian womenswear brands, only 5 per cent of design codes are still classified as corporate. Nearly two thirds of the mass-market labels are described as relaxed.
When I first read that number I took it as a shortage, and it is an easy read to land on. It is fair, but it is not finished. The corporate uniform is being retired on purpose. Soft tailoring, ease, texture and controlled colour are replacing rigid suiting across every market that used to sell the suit, and what sits underneath that shift is agency.
Nobody is handing you a template.
Which is harder than it sounds, because a template is a kind of shelter. The question underneath your spring wardrobe has moved from what you are supposed to wear to how much of you comes into the room with you.
SOURCE: Modus platform, 380 Australian brands, relayed in the AFW Resort 2027 trend report
The mechanism
You are a year early
The season shown in New York, London, Milan and Paris in September 2025 reaches Australian stores from August 2026. Sydney's own resort showings in May refresh it for the deep summer. Copenhagen has already shown Spring Summer 2027.
So when you walk into a store this September, you are looking at a season that has already been through a northern summer. Everything in it has been tested, discounted, restyled and written about for a year before it reaches you. That is a considerable head start, and in twenty five years of dressing for rooms I have never once heard a retailer explain it.
Colour
The four safest colours
Pantone published one palette off New York and another off London. Twenty six colours between them, and only these four turned up on both. Two independent sets of designers reached for them in the same six weeks.
Where I would spend
Twelve colours from the two lists work as garment colours at senior level. The four above, plus Caramel, Burnt Sienna, Coffee Bean, Chocolate Truffle, Evening Blue, Marina, Sage Green and Shale Green. The rest I would take in accessory doses only.
Colour shifts on a screen and on paper, so the code beside each name is the exact shade. Show it to a tailor or a fabric shop and they will match it precisely.
SOURCE: Pantone Fashion Color Trend Report SS26, New York and London
Shape
Tailoring got softer
The heavy canvassing and the thick shoulder pad have come out of the jacket, so the shoulder now sits where yours does instead of being built out above it. The waist has moved slightly higher than natural and the leg has widened through the thigh before tapering back at the shoe. It is a quieter shape, and it asks more of the fit than the old one ever did.
Volume only works if the fit is exact.
Collarless blazer
The season's tailoring tweak. Reads current without reading young.
Statement midi
Texture, fringe, bubble hem, asymmetric drape. The fastest exit from the trouser suit.
Soft suiting set
Longer blazer, defined waist, softer shoulder, fuller leg.
Knit co-ord
Finished without being stiff, and the right weight for a Sydney October.
Column dress
Elongated, asymmetric drape, minimal construction. Everywhere at Sydney.
Tonal outfit
Head to toe in one colour family. Named by the office franchises and the Sydney runways, separately.
If you only buy one. Make it the collarless blazer. It lifts everything already hanging in your wardrobe, and it asks you to change nothing else you own to look considered.
SOURCE: SS26 tailoring reporting, Who What Wear office trends 2026, Style Arcade citing Google and Trendalytics
The edit
The season in ten pieces
Everything here is available in Australia now. The point is not the individual garment, it is how consistent the shapes have become across price points, so you can buy the idea at whatever level suits you.
Some links earn a commission at no cost to you. Every piece was chosen because it belongs in the season, not because it pays. Stock and colour move quickly, so follow a link for what is in store now.
Cloth
Linen you can wear to work
The technical story of the season is that Italian mills fixed linen's one disqualifying flaw. Blended with cotton and silk in Prato, it creases far less and handles softer, which is what moves it from holiday fabric to boardroom fabric. That is the difference between a jacket you take off at eleven and one you keep on.
- Linen, silk and wool blend. The texture of linen, the sheen of silk, the wrinkle recovery of wool. If you learn one fabric name this season, learn this one.
- High-twist wool. Tightly twisted yarns, open weave, breathable, packs without permanent creasing.
- Lightweight wool with shantung silk. Airy summer suiting.
- Tencel and Modal. Next-generation cellulosics, for cooling and a silky hand.
Both are true at once. Maximal texture surged and minimalism rose across the same four runways in the same season, which means the season has not decided either. If you have ever been told your style needs to pick a lane, this is the year the runways stopped agreeing with that.
SOURCE: Italian Fashion Sourcing, Terzy, Tagwalk-derived data via nss magazine
Finish
The detail worth copying
The soft pouch
Cinched and unstructured, replacing the hard clutch. Prada in satin, Loewe in leather, Valentino beaded. Colour went saturated, bright and primary.
The flat and the kitten heel
Ballet flats and loafers stay essential on Australian buy lists, with sling-backs, satin sneakers and platform loafers gaining.
Statement jewellery
Oversized gemstone necklaces at Gucci, sculptural pieces at Saint Laurent, chunky bangles, layered beads, vibrant stones.
The silk scarf, as a tie and as collar pins
Styled exactly that way on the Sydney resort runways. Personalisation without volume, and the single most directly usable detail of the season at this altitude.
SOURCE: W Magazine spring 2026 accessory trends, AFW Resort 2027 runway trend report
Where to buy it
The labels to look at
Not verified current stock in the season's colours. Brand links open the label's own site, where the current season and its images live.
Invest Camilla and Marc
Core Viktoria & Woods, Blanca, Cue
Accessible Country Road, Witchery
Invest Scanlan Theodore, Lee Mathews
Core Elka Collective, Cue
Accessible Witchery, Seed Heritage
Invest Beare Park, Esse Studios
Core Saba, SIR, Jillian Boustred
Accessible Assembly Label, Trenery
Invest Jac + Jack
Core Bassike, Anna Quan, Nagnata
Accessible Seed Heritage, Country Road
Invest Bianca Spender, Christopher Esber, St Agni
Core Silk Laundry, Cue
Accessible Witchery
Invest Camilla and Marc, St Agni
Core Bassike, Elka Collective
Accessible Assembly Label
Scarf Ngali, Trenery, Silk Laundry
Bag Oroton, St Agni, Viktoria & Woods
Shoes Alias Mae, Edward Meller, Tony Bianco
Invest Reliquia
Core Sarah & Sebastian
Who to see about the fit
A garment on a rack is cut to a standard block, not to a person, and that is a fact about how clothes are made rather than anything about your body. Every woman I know who dresses well has someone who alters her clothes. It is the least glamorous line in the budget and the one that changes the most.
E Nolan Melbourne, sizes four to 24 · P Johnson Sydney · Effie Kats Melbourne · Oscar Hunt
The last layer
Built from the inside out
Presence isn't something you either have or you don't. It's built from the inside out, and style is the outermost layer. It comes last because it is the part that carries everything underneath it into the room.
Which is why this season matters most to the women who have already done the work underneath. You know what you stand for and you have stopped asking permission, and the wardrobe is the last thing still speaking in a voice you have outgrown.
The most powerful outfit is the one that lets you forget about your clothes. That is what these shapes make possible, and it is the whole reason to bother with any of it.
If something here was useful, hit reply and tell me which piece you are buying first. I read every one.
Sonya x
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