In Best of the Best, we honour the brands and people behind the most covetable products. Here are the fashion powerhouses that earned a spot on our 2026 list
Best Stealth Luxe: Hermès
With Hermès ready-to-wear, textile innovation and quiet confidence go hand in hand. It’s luxury at its most assured, never reliant on logos or spectacle, but expressed through impeccable craftsmanship, materiality, and a sense of restraint.
Long before ‘quiet luxury’ entered the fashion lexicon, Hermès had already mastered its codes. That conviction is evident in the Spring/Summer 2027 menswear collection. Marking the transition between longtime artistic director Véronique Nichanian and her successor, Grace Wales Bonner, the collection was entrusted to the brand’s in-house design studio. Rather than signalling uncertainty, the decision underscored the strength of the Hermès vocabulary: refined enough to transcend any single designer, yet distinctive enough to remain instantly recognisable.
Presented in Paris, the 40-look collection drew on the sun-washed ease of southern France, translating light, movement, and landscape into fabric with remarkable subtlety. Dots emerged through perforation, embroidery, weaving, knitting, and imprinting, while precise pattern-cutting revealed itself gradually through considered lines, layered textures, and fluid construction. Nothing clamoured for attention, yet every detail rewarded a closer look. It’s this confidence in craft over spectacle that sets Hermès apart.
Best Contemporary Elegance: Dior
Ever since Jonathan Anderson heralded a new era for Dior, the brand has introduced a new point of view to modern-day fashion. Dior’s storied codes remain omnipresent, but they are married with irreverence and sartorial curiosity, questioning what menswear could evolve through an inquisitive lens.
The Summer 2027 menswear collection continues that line of thinking, bringing together references that shouldn’t work but somehow do. A beautifully cut tuxedo is deliberately slouched. Houndstooth is printed instead of woven. Polka dots become a continuous field of sequins, while an embroidered silk shirt revives a trompe l’oeil scarf motif lifted from Dior haute couture
in 1979.
The same tension runs through the accessories. Nineteenth-century embroidery is painstakingly recreated by hand on a suede lace-up, boots arrive with intentionally unruly woven uppers, a vintage zigzag blanket is repurposed into a bag, and cannage is translated onto a soft denim tote. Heritage here isn’t treated as precious, but as material to be reshaped.
Best Denim: Celine
American designer Michael Rider has been at the helm of Celine for only about a year, but it hasn’t taken him long to demonstrate a peerless understanding of what guys on both sides of the Atlantic want. His ultra- wearable Autumn 2026 collection made a strong case for denim as the backbone of a well-curated wardrobe, not merely something you might wear on the weekend. He applied a decidedly French rigour and precision to the casual fabric: jeans in straight cuts, only occasional embellishments, and a broad array of washes. To drive home the importance of the Celine jean, Rider stacked them, totem-like and almost to the ceiling, in the company’s Paris headquarters. The point? These are closet staples intended for the long haul, crafted with a deftness that makes them look like you’ve already had them for years.
Best Luggage: Louis Vuitton
At this point, no one should be surprised that Louis Vuitton can create innovative suitcases. For the 10th anniversary of its Horizon rolling cases, which were made in collaboration with design star Marc Newson, the brand crafted a version in lightweight aluminium that’s stamped with its signature monogram. Newson’s design is otherwise unchanged. The telescoping handle still runs along the exterior of the case to maximise space for your belongings, the wheels are still incredibly quiet, and each corner is still capped in leather—a throwback to the French house’s original steamer trunks. The impressive metalwork is the icing on the cake and makes this covetable case an instant piece of status luggage.
Best Off Duty Wear: Giorgio Armani
The late, great Giorgio Armani was rightly celebrated for his generation-defining tailoring, but his off-the-clock garb is no less worthy of acclaim. The look that stuck with us from his Spring 2026 menswear collection, his final for the house, was this brown field jacket—officially, in brand parlance, a hemp blouson. The four-pocket style is unlined, except for the yoke, which gives its shoulders some structure but allows the rest of the light construction to drape easily. It’s packed with smart details: a zipper pocket on the left side of the chest, slanted pockets below for easy access, and an interior drawstring to give the waist a little definition, if you wish. It’s the perfect thing to wear on travel days, or any time you have more to carry than your trouser pockets can handle.
