Fifty Shades of British Restraint
A memorable New Yorker cartoon from the golden Barneys New York era once depicted a saleswoman holding up a sweater and deadpanning to a visibly unimpressed customer: “It comes in cement gray, charcoal gray, light gray — or gray.”
For Dunhill Fall/Winter 2026, creative director Simon Holloway leaned fully into that idea — and elevated it into something quietly powerful. Under the rarely obliging London sun, Holloway explored every imaginable nuance of gray, proving that restraint, when handled with intelligence and sensual precision, can be the most commanding statement of all.
Installed on Stockman mannequins inside the well-lit salons of Dunhill’s grand Milan headquarters, the collection revealed its true strength up close. This was not about color, but about surface, weight, and tactility. Shades of gray unfolded in layers — sharkskin, bird’s-eye, nailhead, Prince of Wales checks, and houndstooth — punctuated by verdigris, midnight blue, deep brown, and the occasional pulse of burgundy or Windsor blue.
Holloway understands that modern masculinity doesn’t require spectacle. It requires confidence in detail.
Texture ruled — especially in trousers, where corduroy, flannel, fluid cavalry twill, suede, and leather coexisted with effortless elegance. The blazer emerged as the quiet hero of the season, exalted not as a formality but as a daily instrument of style.
“A blazer always looks very chic and polished,” Holloway said. “But it’s very adaptable. Somebody recently said it was the Swiss Army knife of the tailored wardrobe.”
That adaptability defines the collection’s appeal: clothes designed to move between day and night, structure and ease, tradition and modern life.
As ever, Holloway’s references were deeply personal and historically grounded. This season, he looked to Anthony Armstrong-Jones, the late British photographer who became Lord Snowdon after marrying Princess Margaret in 1960 — a figure synonymous with a zesty, transitional moment in British menswear. One image on Holloway’s mood board showed Armstrong-Jones astride a motorcycle, wearing a suede field jacket.
Naturally, Holloway reimagined it — for Dunhill, and yes, in gray.
The designer also returned to the house archive, reviving Dunhill’s iconic car coat in multiple lengths and textures. These pieces didn’t shout heritage; they whispered it — the kind of luxury that reveals itself only to those who know how to look.
Dunhill Fall/Winter 2026 is a masterclass in controlled elegance. It proves that a man doesn’t need color — only the suggestion of it — and that when texture, cut, and history align, gray becomes anything but dull.
Creative Director: @mrsimonholloway
Photographer: @ethanjamesgreen
Stylist: @tom_guinness
Grooming: @pawel_solis
Model: @henrykitcher
