Dear Shaded Viewers,
For Fall/Winter 2026 Couture, ASHI explores the transformation that takes place when clothing becomes a form of reinvention. A garment can alter posture, create a new presence, and allow the wearer to inhabit a different version of themselves. Titled A Different Skin, the collection examines fashion as a space where identity, memory, and imagination intersect. “A mask lets you live in a different skin,” says creative director Mohammed Ashi. “I was thinking about a warped kind of historicism, how you borrow from another century without being bound by it. The ball, for me, is where that becomes possible.”
Following the Victorian atmosphere of his previous collection, Ashi expands his universe into a gathering of historical and imagined figures: the ghost of a Napoleonic officer, a court ambassador, a broken doll, and characters who seem to have wandered between forests and ballrooms. Each silhouette carries its own persona, creating the feeling of a surreal court where time and identity quietly begin to shift.
Inspired by the spirit of a legendary Surrealist gathering imagined by Salvador Dalí, A Different Skin approaches decadence as a way of altering reality. Materials transform into unexpected forms: leather takes on the appearance of ceramic, beaded surfaces reflect the glow of glass, and opaline textures merge with metallic details. Japanese paper painted as fallen leaves drifts across hems, while hand-painted insects appear captured within the folds of fabric, blurring the boundary between the natural and the imagined.
ASHI suggests that adopting another persona can become a path toward understanding the many selves that already exist within us.
Yours digitally,
Pedro
