Lazoschmidl rejects the traditional show format for SS26. Instead of a runway, they stage a live installation that centers on the private act of dressing, and turns it public. The collection, titled Rendezvous, unfolds in real time as ten male models slowly transform inside translucent mobile booths
A lyric sets the emotional tone: “California skies, Paris nights. Baby, we can leave tonight.” That line captures the mood of the season, restless, romantic, suspended between here and elsewhere. Rendezvous traces the rhythms of long-distance love, the kind shaped by work trips and waiting rooms, by getting dressed to impress, or to imagine. It’s a collection shaped by contrast: banker stripes next to rainbow glitter, Manga prints layered over officewear. One outfit tells the truth. The next, the story you want to live.
The collection draws from personal histories shaped by club scenes and academic inquiry. London’s Nu Rave energy surfaces in bold colors and playful surfaces, while Japanese pop literature informs the more introspective layers. Archival imagery from the designers’ fanzine Unpublished Material returns as DIY iron-ons and digitally printed mesh, grounding the pieces in past work without leaning on nostalgia. These references stay active, feeding into a live, improvisational process that feels both immediate and exposed.
The Paris courtyard setting reinforces the tension between privacy and exposure. The audience watches as each model steps into view, undresses, changes, and moves again. These booths aren’t backstage, they’re part of the show. The entire GRWM sequence plays out slowly, stripped of filters, edits, or staging tricks. The process itself becomes a central part of the performance.
This interplay pushes the audience to examine their own gaze. What does it mean to watch someone dress? What do we project onto the person in front of us? The models decide how much to reveal. The spectators decide how much to see.
Lazoschmidl draws on the intimacy of pre-date rituals: changing shirts, second-guessing, chasing the right version of yourself in the mirror. “We wanted to take this daily moment of performance and make it visible – make it art,” they explain. Their palette moves through soft, washed-out tones, blues, pinks, greys, punctuated by hyperreal color: bleached yellow denim, high-saturation red. Tailoring stays loose enough to shift with the body, sharp enough to hold its place.
The collection folds in layered references, from Haruki Murakami’s dream logic to Wolfgang Tillmans’ everyday eroticism. Miley Cyrus becomes a symbol of unapologetic self-styling, her defiance and emotional transparency channelled into the clothes without imitation. These influences speak through mood, not literal forms.
For the designers, the collection circles one idea: temptation. Taste the forbidden fruit. That impulse fuels each look. Not to shock, but to reveal what dressing up can do, how it flirts with identity, how it tests the space between reality and desire. Lazoschmidl lets that tension play out in the open.
