Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2026 Will Fuel Your 2016 Nostalgia

With the new year comes a new wave of nostalgia. If you’ve been online in the past two weeks, you may have noticed friends and colleagues posting throwback photos of 2016 filled with dip brows, cut creases, chunky dad sneakers, and the inklings of high-fashion streetwear’s soon-to-be logomania craze. And it seems like Pierpaolo Piccioli was, as usual, several steps ahead of us.

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Balenciaga’s pre-fall 2026 collection is the freshly debuted creative director’s second offering for the brand. His inaugural runway show, which boasted a surprise appearance from Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, paid homage to both past and present. There were nods to Cristóbal Balenciaga in silhouettes like the Sack Dress and to Piccioli’s immediate predecessor via chunky flip-flops and alien bug-eyed sunglasses.

The collection notes described his vision as a convergence of sports and technology—an imagining, perhaps, of how Cristóbal would interpret digital overload today. In many ways, that idea was realized via references to Demna’s many -isms. See: a revival of the exaggerated dad sneaker, oversized basketball jerseys, and the particularly viral passport and plane-ticket wallet, which were then tempered by pillbox hats and bejeweled heels courtesy of a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik. The brand also introduced its new sportswear category, TechWear, made from ProBody performance fabric.

Even at this point—a mere decade out—references to that era already feel retro. In contrast, the archival deep dives play into the current craze for vintage, “house codes,” and our love for the cocooning shapes of the ’60s.

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