So. Many. Toes. Unless you’re new here, you know that the spring 2026 menswear collections offered up flip-flops galore. We should have known when pastel thong sandals hit the Prada runway in Milan that fashion had found its new It-shoe. It was certainly undeniable after the Paris collections, where they were seen at Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Lemaire, and menswear fan-favorite Auralee. But the rise of foot cleavage was far from the only headline at the men’s shows.

Jonathan Anderson’s debut at Dior sparked much conversation, even before it happened. Would it still be called Dior Men or just Dior, sans “men”? Who actually got one of the 600 golden tickets to attend? (Shows like this one make the fashion hierarchy painfully evident, which we all like to discuss ad nauseum.) And, of course, what would it look like? Unequivocally Anderson-esque, as it turns out, from his own interpretation of the Bar jacket, which he paired with 16-meter pannier cargo shorts all the way down to the utterly wearable—and buyable—ready-to-wear.

For those who expected an esoteric, concept-driven opening statement, it was the opposite: a how-to-get-dressed tutorial for men featuring an entirely new, yet familiar formula of formality: tuxedo shirts and jeans, cravats without shirts, and loosened ties. “For me, style is how you put things together,” Anderson told Sarah Mower. “Over the next period, that’s what I want to work on.” What we didn’t foresee was just how American the whole thing looked. In fact, the boy next door was a key motif this season, Dior to Paul Smith to (yes) Hed Mayner.

Julian Klausner’s debut men’s collection for Dries Van Noten was also on everyone’s lips. It was the designer’s first shot at menswear ever, which makes this proposition all the more impressive. On top of those wonderful, and very Dries-y, sarongs—every inch as sexy as that photo of Matthew McConaughey the internet is obsessed with—Klausner proposed tiny shorts, biker shorts, and boxer shorts to wear with jersey cummerbunds and the most beautifully zesty coats. The thigh is the erogenous zone of the season: hemlines were higher than ever at Wales Bonner, Magliano, and Prada, who did actual bloomers. Sex does sell in menswear, it just needs to be truly sexy. Or kooky, like the many nip slips that winked on the runways, from Rick Owens to Saul Nash.