At Paris Fashion Week, Ujoh showcases a wardrobe for a feverish planet
For its SS26 presentation at Paris Fashion Week, Ujoh reimagined elegance for a world grown warmer.
The Japanese summer has become unforgiving. A climatic reality that now grips cities from Paris to Milan to New York. As the air grows thick and the heat intensifies, the very notion of getting dressed can feel like a burden. Yet Ujoh resists this surrender, proposing instead a summer uniform that is light, ingenious, and elegant. A way to maintain one’s style even as the climate becomes more extreme.
A marine inspiration runs throughout the collection. Sailor collars gain structure, fastenings recall a plastron, and trousers open like sails. The house’s signature layering evolves into a study in breathability, while between skirts and trousers, new hybrid forms emerge from a design process that allows unexpected volumes to blossom.
Ujoh SS26 at Paris Fashion Week
The fabrics embody the essence of summer. Ujoh’s tailoring becomes lighter, realised in airy gabardine, fluid poplin, and cotton and linen blended with rayon to preserve a graceful drape. Mesh and technical textiles are strategically incorporated to create zones of ventilation. Every detail serves daily life. Pieces are easy to care for, practical, and perfectly suited to the pace of urban Japan, without ever yielding to mere informality.
Each piece stands strong on its own by design, yet together they compose the unique harmony that defines Ujoh. A shirt unfolds into a boat neckline; a mesh top is re-conceived as a polo; a scarf-cap reinvents the accessory as a modular object.
The sea returns as a recurring motif. A net-dress reimagines a fishing net as delicate lace, while embroideries sketch the outlines of tropical leaves. Stripes evoke the classic seaside elegance of Italian lidos and retro swimwear. Against the skin, silver jewellery—cuffs, bangles, rings—captures the shimmer of water, echoing the simple, soothing joys of summer.
The collection’s palette remains rooted in the urban landscape: a sober trilogy of black, white, and beige that is radically Japanese and unbroken by the heat. Within this framework, Ujoh inscribes a singular note: a distinctive blue, poised between a lilac-grey and a deep navy, which serves as the signature hue for the collection.
Final thoughts
What emerges from this sober palette and thoughtful construction is nothing less than a blueprint for elegance in the Anthropocene. This collection rejects the false choice between style and practicality. Instead, Ujoh SS26 sketches a summer that is both resilient and joyful, where lightness means not surrender but vitality. Clothing that breathes, adapts, and elevates the everyday. True to its DNA, the house offers a silhouette that is fully dressed, deeply elegant, and universally relevant for the world we now inhabit.