Tag: Spring/Summer 2026

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

In the days leading up to his Spring/Summer 2026 New York Fashion Week show, I interviewed designer Jonathan Simkhai about his upcoming runway collection. Jonathan – a 2015 inductee to the CFDA incubator program and the Founder and Creative Lead of the Los Angeles-based fashion house Simkhai (created his namesake) – spoke candidly about living bicoastally, chasing full-circle moments and designing clothing for everyday impact. Simkhai presented his runway collection on Thursday.

Rebecca 

Tell me about your background as a designer. You have spent long periods of time living both on the West Coast and the East Coast. And similarly to you, Simkhai has always been bicoastal: you started the brand in New York but it is now based in Los Angeles. Can you tell me about how the two coasts have impacted your creative output as a designer, and your process of building your brand? 

Jonathan

I started the brand in New York in 2010 and then I moved out to Los Angeles, probably 10 years ago. I always have been just inspired by the urban lifestyle and being rooted in New York City, the concrete jungle, there’s an edge and a tough side to my brand. But then moving to LA, where it’s sunny and people dress more effortlessly and just more relaxed, it’s really helped me just have a good understanding of lifestyle, and variety in lifestyle. 

It’s helped me create this really beautiful juxtaposition through my designs of a strong, confident person, while also effortless, easy and relaxed. That’s really what we think about when we design the collections. If it feels cool, if it feels urban, but then if it also has an effortless ease to it. 

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

Scroll to continue reading

Rebecca

Absolutely. That idea of cultural narratives is a driving force in much of your work. In your words, how would you describe the cultural narrative of New York versus that of Los Angeles?

Jonathan

New York, it’s about commuting: you either walk everywhere, or you take the subway, and even if you’re taking an Uber, you’re still walking a significant amount of footsteps. Sometimes you will be working all day, and you end up meeting a friend for a drink right after work, or going to a gallery opening without even going home first. You kind of just go right from work. 

People in New York wear these ‘18 hour outfits.’ It’s this idea that you’re leaving at 7:00 AM and sometimes don’t get home until 12:00 AM or 1:00 AM. So you have this multi-layer approach to dressing, where you can take things off and easily convert them based on what it is that you’re going to be doing at that part of the day…a great outfit solution that will get you through your meetings, to your dinner, to maybe going out for a drink. 

 Whereas in Los Angeles, people are very intentional with where they’re going and how they’re getting dressed to go to that one place. You get in the car, you go to dinner and that’s your big activity. People are a lot less jumbling 10 activities into one, each thing is its own solid individual activity, and you have the ability to dress for each occasion independently. 

To me, lifestyle wise, it’s a bit more intentional on the West Coast. I think that in New York, you have to be able to wear something to get away with a lot of different scenarios.

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

Rebecca 

It’s so interesting to me that the geography of a city, the physical makeup of how a city is laid out, can impact fashion and daily habits and lifestyle so much. 

I can imagine how busy and hectic everything must be right now, as you prepare for New York Fashion Week. Tell me, do you design everything in Los Angeles and then bring it to New York? Or are you designing in New York? How does that back and forth process happen?

Jonathan

We have an atelier in Hollywood and we have our offices there. We do all of the collection building in Los Angeles and then we bring it to New York. We also have an atelier there, a temporary pop up in New York during Fashion Week. Probably two weeks before [the runway show], we’ll finish the pieces. If we need to add one or two things or make adjustments, we have the team on deck and ready to make any changes.

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

Rebecca

And tell me more about your collection. What is the message behind it? From where did you draw inspiration?

Jonathan

This collection was inspired by the idea of coastal living. Living in California, there are those days when you leave the beach and your skin is glowing from the sun and your hair is a little sticky and dewy, and you just feel really warm and energized. It’s all of those beautiful memories of coastal living – being at the beach or being by water – that give me so much joy. Whenever I kind of, like, look out into the ocean, I feel so calm but so happy and energized. I wanted to bring that energy and that glow and that happiness to the runway. 

I looked a lot at surf culture and even marine biology, just different types of things that surround the water. We have some really beautiful towel-inspired knitwear. We have some beautiful sculpted hardware. And a lot of swimwear-inspired necklines and some really cool board shorts in unexpected fabrics for both men and women. 

I think it was 2013 spring/summer, when I was inspired by Lords of Dogtown, and at that time was showing collections at milk studios. It was a milk made program – a subsidized show opportunity for young designers to present their collections amongst other young designers. At that time, we were so young and resources were really tight. We had to do the best with what we had. And I did this kind of surf/skate inspired collection and there were so many things that we couldn’t do because we didn’t have the resources, or didn’t have the knowledge. Being able to revisit that inspiration for that collection was really fun, because now we have so much more knowledge, so many more capabilities and sourcing. It’s almost like giving a gift to the younger version of myself: that through hard work and commitment and continuing to persevere, I’m able to take another stab at a collection that I wasn’t able to execute to its full potential in those days. 

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

Rebecca

I love that full circle moment story. Can you tell me a little bit more about some specific details that were in your previous collection, that we might see reemerging this week?

Jonathan

There’s definitely some leather board shorts in both collections, which was fun. Some fun floral motifs, like Hawaiian floral motifs – though different approaches to it. But I definitely think that this collection is more refined and more grown up. 

Rebecca

Thinking about the runway presentation itself, can you tell me a little bit about the staging? Will there be music? Will there be lighting effects? In your words, how would you describe what you intend the viewer’s experience to be?

Jonathan

With the lighting, we’re trying to create a motif that feels very radiant, and sunny and beautiful – the way you feel on a beautiful day at the beach. But then also, it’s in downtown New York, and it’s in a very raw space. So there’s that juxtaposition that’s so important to me about that concrete edge and the urban edge, but then again, something that feels very optimistic and beautiful. I think that it’s really about my East Coast and West Coast time, coming together and having that balance between beauty and radiance but also something raw and undone.

Credit: Davit Giorgadze

Rebecca

It sounds like a beautiful combination of the two. As we conclude, thinking about our current fashion ecosystem – a very broad term, I know – in terms of collections that have been emerging this past year and the other collections that will be presented at Fashion Week this fall, what makes your upcoming collection unique or stand out? And in what ways does your collection drive the apparel and the art conversation forward?

Jonathan

What I think is really exciting about what I do is that I can do good with my collection. I can’t save the world, I’m a fashion designer not a politician or a doctor. But what I do is I make beautiful clothes that people wear and suddenly feel like they can take on a challenge, or something they’re not looking forward to. 

If I can really empower someone to walk into a meeting and feel confident, or walk into a restaurant where they’re going to meet someone for a date and feel beautiful, that’s what I love to do and what makes me excited about fashion. Anyone who buys clothes, I hope that they wear their clothes and feel good wearing them. 

So many times I’ve met someone who will share with me the story about how they wore one of my dresses when they got engaged, or they went on an interview and were wearing a jacket from my collection. Hearing those moments about what I – or Simkhai as a brand – was able to be for them really makes me find purpose. It makes me feel good about designing, about fashion and about the collections that we’re putting out there. 

I’m very connected with the customer. I spent a lot of time in the stores, and I really love to learn about them and what their needs are. I use that feedback, their reaction to themselves as they look in the mirror for the first time, as information to design the future collections. People have to love to wear the clothes, they have to be excited about wearing the clothes. I’m not someone that designs clothes to make them overly conceptual, overly complicated or overly fussy. I just want people who wear the clothes to feel beautiful, and that they’re excited about wearing and having them. That’s what I stand for as a designer.

Rebecca

Jonathan, thank you so much for your time today. Wishing you all the best with your show on Thursday.