The starting point for Paolina Russo’s spring 2026 collection came during a research trip to Ilsan, northwest of Seoul—a city known for its vast array of vintage shops. “They have these mountains of vintage, from America, the UK, everywhere,” the brand’s namesake co-founder Paolina Russo said in a preview. The brief? To find archival designs that read “Laura Ashley meets sport”—which, unsurprisingly, was a near-impossible task. “There weren’t any clothes exactly like that, but we were kind of clashing together silhouettes,” Russo explained.
Laura Ashley’s ditzy florals might seem a million miles away from Paolina Russo’s trademark jersey tops and optical illusion prints, but Russo and co-founder Lucile Guilmard wanted to explore a more feminine side this season. This could be seen via the lightweight chiffon handkerchief dresses, adorned with a combination of Liberty-esque florals and graphic sports jersey numbers—collaged together using blown-up photographs of archival designs from previous seasons. The pastoral theme (also reflected by this season’s deliberately low-fi lookbook, featuring photographs taken by Russo during a hike in Wales) continued with the pair’s “girly” take on a tracksuit, in the form of an elasticated maxi skirt and matching zip-up jacket, featuring distorted picnic blanket checks.
The brand’s lighter, more wearable knits were also new for this season—painstakingly developed in collaboration with a vertical factory in Hong Kong that manufactures everything from “fiber to final garment.” While in the past, Paolina Russo has arguably found more success with its fall collections—thanks to its popular warrior princess knits and laser-printed denim—spring 2026 marked a pivotal moment in the brand’s development. “We feel like it melds all the things that we’ve been building for the past few seasons, but it’s now more of an expanded wardrobe,” Russo said. “It’s one of our favorite collections.”