Karen Walker’s New Zealand Fashion Week show, held at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, promised a ‘Grand Tour.’
A meandering trail through the gallery’s spaces to find our seats felt like a fitting start, especially following cheerful flag-waving ‘tour guides.’
It was a delightfully social scene-setter for a show that captured the exciting, bustling energy of a trip almost anywhere.
Also grand in scale, the show featured 80 models – including actor Thomasin McKenzie, musicians Benee and Princess Chelsea and former Miss Universe New Zealand Lorraine Downs and her daughter, Jasmine Mexted – who walked the interconnected galleries hosting hundreds of guests. They dawdled slowly at first, but by the end were hustling and bustling at speed, like commuters traversing busy transport hubs.
Outfits were familiar in the sense they embraced Walker’s love of unexpected contrast, in this case, mixing flouncy, feminine shapes with technical sportswear and outdoorsy accessories.
Partnerships with adidas Originals and Levi’s were adapted to meet the vision, the premium Japanese denim of Levi’s Blue Tab covered in a passport of patches done in travel souvenir style.
Train-spotting fans of the brand would have recognised a number of familiar styles from the brand’s archive cleverly woven in, too.
Walker’s show notes said the approach was drawn from the ideas of both modern travel and the Romantic Age, where ‘curious, culture-hungry wanderers collected ideas, artefacts and knowledge.’ The designer suggested those tourists would have felt at home exploring the galleries of night’s venue.
Grand in scale and big on fun, the show also held plenty of essential ‘ooh, I want to wear that’ moments, too.
Some of the looks from Karen Walker’s 2026 NZFW show:
Photos / Radical
