Sergio Soldano Returns
There are fashion comebacks — and then there are resurrections.
Last evening at Printemps New York on Wall Street, the long-dormant Italian house of Sergio Soldano re-emerged after nearly five decades, opening New York Fashion Week with a presentation that felt less like a debut and more like a carefully staged reawakening.
Presented in partnership with Fashion Group International, the Fall/Winter 2026–2027 collection unfolded inside Printemps’ second-floor Boudoir — an Art Deco jewel box of a space that lent itself beautifully to Soldano’s renewed point of view. Guests ascended the grand staircase into an environment that was part salon, part installation. Select looks hovered overhead. Others lined the perimeter like sculptural sentinels. At the center, models moved deliberately through a live artistic performance, transforming what could have been a static showroom into a living tableau of fashion.
We were there as the first notes of violinist Lauren Cauley filled the room, joined by the haunting vocals of Minda Larsen — a theatrical pairing that underscored the house’s emphasis on emotion over spectacle.
Under the direction of co-creative directors Giovanni Premoli and Dario Di Bella, the 107-piece offering signaled not nostalgia, but intention. Rather than mining the archives for retro silhouettes, the designers approached Soldano’s legacy as what Premoli described to us as “a living visual language.” Prints — some originating as oil paintings on canvas before being transferred onto silk — carried the weight of memory without feeling referential. “It was never our intention to reference the past through literal forms,” Premoli noted. “Here, memory becomes vision.”
The collection’s four thematic chapters — from the sculptural restraint of The Architecture of Black to the poetic revivalism of The Time of Sinopia — were cohesive without being predictable. A leather anemone motif emerged as a quiet signature, symbolizing rebirth. Architectural tailoring, geometric precision, and noble materials anchored the collection firmly in Italian craftsmanship, yet the attitude was unmistakably contemporary: urban, fluid, self-possessed.
Di Bella reflected on the evening with palpable emotion. “Fashion holds an emotional truth,” he shared. “It is one of the most authentic languages through which culture, memory and imagination can be expressed.” Standing amid Manhattan’s fashion leadership — from Maryanne Grisz to Fern Mallis — that sentiment felt genuine rather than rehearsed.
Founded in 1968 and once beloved by icons including Elizabeth Taylor and Gina Lollobrigida, Sergio Soldano was known for bold geometry and fearless color. This revival, however, is not about reenactment. It is about recalibration.
If this presentation was any indication, Sergio Soldano’s return is not a nostalgic footnote to fashion history. It is a deliberate re-entry — measured, artful, and unapologetically Italian — positioned for a new generation of women who understand that elegance and power are not mutually exclusive.
And if opening night at NYFW is any measure, the house is not merely back. It is ready.
