Sia Arnika SS26
Early teenagehood is not a time that many would wish to return to. A jungle of insecurity, social politics and hormones (though the same could be said about adulthood), it’s a period of indiscriminate angst, of rebelling without knowing what it is you’re rebelling against.
This chaos and adolescent awkwardness is exactly what Sia Arika brought in her Spring/Summer 2026 collection, a personal coming-of-age story based on her teenage girlhood in rural Denmark. “It’s this whole thing of ‘Who am I?’” the designer told Vogue Runway. “I want[ed] to be someone I’m not.”
Held in an industrial warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin, the catwalk became a 2010s high-school hallway with ultra-skinny denim and micro-skirts with pockets hanging out. Midriff-baring halter necks were straight from a Christina Aguilera music video, whilst mesh one-pieces and skin-clinging trompe l'oeil tees felt like summer beach day.
In Arnika’s depiction of a time navigating changing bodies and pressures, a combination of barely-there clothes in block pastels gave the impression of awkward, almost too-soon sexuality. Cut-outs were dramatic, shirts bare-chested and bralettes miniscule. This provided a glimpse into Arnika’s own audacious character as a teenager. She was the type, she told Vogue Runway, to show up to dinner with her boyfriend’s parents in a see-through shirt and push-up bra. On the runway, there was a dual sense of discomfort and exposure, but also empowerment in the agency and ability to express oneself how they deemed fit, no matter the judgment.
Also impossible to ignore were Arnika’s shoes. Variations of towering platform heels, its upward-facing toe meant the wearer had a dangerously little amount of foot on the ground at any one time. Models teetered and tottered on the rubbery material, as if a teenager in their first pair of heels.
Arnika’s closing all-black looks were a marked shift from the delightful adolescence that dominated the collection. More formal and serious, she showed an array of flowing dresses and balloon-style feathered pieces. But still with her signature cut-outs and risque, it was easy to see the same rebellious young girl, all grown up.
Words by SHARYN BUDIARTO
