NYFW: Our favourite looks from Sandy Liang SS26

Sandy Liang’s SS26 collection makes you feel like you’ve accidentally walked into your mom’s childhood pictures. A 1980s birthday party turned into a runway where everyone’s secretly a NYC baddie, wearing kitten heels, and talking about the Yoshitomo Nara book they just got.

For this collection, she continues to fully embrace her inner child, girl-child specifically. It landed her somewhere between Harajuku chic and (let’s assume ironic) tradwife cosplay, and make it pin[terest]-able. The dress-up box energy was intentional; it was about the translation between childhood and future. Care Bear colour palettes (pastel pinks, baby yellows, icy blues), ¾ lace leggings, puff-sleeved maxi dresses with Peter Pan collars all glided through a lacy runway. Care instructions, blown up to daily-planner scale and stitched on the outside of the dresses (as if a child put on the dress inside out) read like poetic affirmations: “Ah, Forgive Me For My 1st Kiss.”

Our winner of the collection: the kitten heels with one oversized white button perched on the top. Such a satisfying punctuation mark to an outfit! Like a lost treasure from a dollhouse drawer, suddenly reimagined into an accessory for grown-up dressing. More childhood memorabilia were featured in a PVC-paneled skirt with pouches, showing off tiny “prized possessions” (stickers, charms, mementos). Liang understands that identity is something you curate, obsess over, and sometimes sticker-bomb into existence. Real ones have been doing this since they were little. All adult fashion girls were once… girls. 

Another standout was the slip dress with a single spring onion printed across the front – a bit absurd, and held to the body with the see-through shoulder straps (the ones that pulled us through the 2000s bare shoulder era really havent gotten enough credit for their work until this hommage made me realise it). The sandals with little bows are another sweet spot, we’re calling it now: your Pinterest will be flooded with them next spring. 

We all know her audience loves to pair a Tabi ballerina flat with her outfits, so why not make her own version instead of becoming a billboard for margiela’s? Of course, Margiela doesn’t own the split toe, and in fact, tabis are rooted in Chinese heritage (even before they were Japanese). If anyone were to reclaim that lineage, it might be Sandy. Still, she’s usually more playful than referential. Her cut-out ballet flats nailed the ballerina vibe in a way that felt distinctly hers. 

Luckily, just when we were deep in doily territory, she hit us with a tailored grey suit. It might’ve looked like an outsider in the collection, but it served as a sweet reminder of why we fell for her in the first place: the designer that made us all fall in love with grey.