SIMPLE PROJECT's AW26 collection, titled Soft Construction, begins from a quiet proposition: that softness is not the absence of structure but a slower form of it. Where the brand has long held cut and colour as its constants, here it lets the materials themselves decide where a garment holds and where it gives, so the silhouette stays restrained while its boundaries turn gentle.
The collection's colour is drawn from the Korean painter Ha Tae-Im, whose Un Passage series layers transparent arcs of pigment over one another until order and freedom settle into the same frame. SIMPLE PROJECT reads this less as decoration than as method. Colour is built up through fabric, texture and layering rather than printed onto a surface, so a tone tends to resolve only once one piece is worn against another.
That thinking carries directly into how the clothes are made. A crisp coated nylon shirrs of its own accord, a fine knit turns semi-transparent, a heavy denim is washed until it drapes. The structure, in the brand's own words, is redefined by the materials themselves, fluid within something stable. What follows are four pieces that show the idea at work.
The Coated Nylon Jacket states the collection's case most plainly. Cut cropped and fitted with a classic two-way lapel and a windshield flap set over the placket, it reads at first as a piece of familiar utility outerwear, structured and a little technical.
The material quietly undoes that expectation. A 100% nylon outer with a crisp, lightly coated surface shirrs of its own accord as the body moves, while large side-opening cargo pockets, leather-reinforced buttons, a hanging loop at the inner collar band and neatly bound seams reveal themselves as considered rather than rugged. It is a jacket with a clear architecture that refuses to hold entirely still.
In Copper, it grounds an outfit while carrying the season's central tension: structure you can see, softened by the way the cloth behaves.
If one piece holds the collection's thesis, it is the Double Layer Tee. Built as a layered two-piece knit, it makes visible the idea that colour lives across layers rather than on any single surface.
Semi-transparent mohair yarn is spliced into an intertwined hollow-knit pattern, so light and the tone beneath read softly through the fabric. An asymmetric wide neckline, exposed armscye seams, spliced three-quarter sleeves and rolled edges at the cuffs and hem keep the construction open to view, while a stretchy, woollen-textured hand holds it close to the body.
In Camel, Stone, Basil, worn over a second tone, it lets the Un Passage principle play out on the wearer, the colour resolving only once the layers meet.
Every collection this considered needs a still point, and the Washed Black Denims provide it. A straight-leg, mid-rise cut in soft, draped denim, they are the quiet ground that the louder tones layer against.
The detailing rewards a closer look. Distressed rusty tack buttons and studs, contrast sewing threads, a classic five-pocket construction and a monochrome leather patch at the back waist give the piece its character slowly, in keeping with a brand whose detail is discovered rather than announced.
In washed Black, restrained and hard-wearing, they read less as a statement than as a foundation, the piece that lets the rest of the collection speak.
The Short-Brim Beanie is the collection's smallest gesture and one of its warmest. A slouchy shape with a rounded crown and a short brim, it carries the tactile warmth the season returns to again and again.
A soft, puffy wool-blend yarn is worked into a textured stockinette knit, with a denser rib along the under-brim and a fine aluminium wire set into the brim so it keeps its line without stiffening. Soft, but shaped.
In Camel, Charcoal, Aubergine, it finishes an outfit quietly, the considered last note that the collection's larger pieces set up.
Across the collection, Soft Construction makes a single, patient argument: that softness, handled with intent, becomes its own kind of structure. Nothing here is soft by accident, and little rewards the first glance more than the second.
As ever with SIMPLE PROJECT, the pieces are built to be read in relation to one another rather than in isolation, colour finding its place between garments and structure emerging from the cloth. A wardrobe that unfolds slowly, and holds its shape as it does.
