In the Spring 2026 collections, many fashion houses began to pay attention to the “back effect” - the moment when the model leaves, leaving a final echo of a design. In today&#39;s flat and two-dimensional world, the back of a garment, which has often been overlooked, is now becoming the new focus of fashion.

Ala&iuml;a&rsquo;s cocoon jumpsuits seemed to cling to the models&rsquo; bodies until they turned their backs, revealing daring cleavage and a clever &ldquo;window&rdquo; to the waistband of their jeans underneath. Balenciaga&rsquo;s tunics, on the other hand, were demure, but with a turn of the body, the plunging slits at the back instantly made the whole design sexy.
This spring, it could be said that the &ldquo;back&rdquo; has become the main character of the runway - an element that was once forgotten, now brought back to the centre of the fashion conversation. &ldquo;The back has always been important, and that has been true since I started working at Max Mara,&rdquo; shares Creative Director Ian Griffiths. He recalls the teachings of a veteran head tailor: &ldquo;If a designer only thinks about the front and forgets the back, he should only get half the salary.&rdquo;
&ldquo;In fact, thinking only about the front and the back is still too two-dimensional,&rdquo; Griffiths adds. &ldquo;To be a good designer, you have to imagine the garment in full space. Because in real life, people are seen from all angles, including from behind.&rdquo;

In his latest Max Mara collection, Griffiths showcased backless designs, accented with crisscrossing elastic bands that resembled belts. &ldquo;The back is always important, and often surprising,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I like it when something interesting is revealed when someone turns away.&rdquo; Even in his earliest sketches, Griffiths always included a back view, even if it was just a small sketch in his notebook.
Not only Max Mara, but also many other fashion houses exploit the beauty hidden behind the body, such as Schiaparelli, Bottega Veneta, Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto, Rabanne and Alexander McQueen, where the once bold "bumster" pants icon was revived.

In a more daring twist, Vetements turned its entire Spring 2026 show into a visual game: the clothes looked &ldquo;normal&rdquo; from the front but were almost naked from behind, recalling the scene in Eyes Wide Shut where Nicole Kidman lifts up her evening gown to sit on the toilet. &ldquo;I was thinking about how modern images have become so flat,&rdquo; says creative director Guram Gvasalia. &ldquo;Nobody cares about the back anymore&hellip; so I thought, &lsquo;Why not make it more interesting?&rsquo;&rdquo;

On the show, designs fell forward, cleverly revealing the buttocks and delicate seams of the stockings; dresses were also worn in true Eyes Wide Shut style . Men's jeans were denim in the front, but transparent PVC in the back.
Carla Sozzani, president of the Azzedine Ala&iuml;a Foundation and one of the late Tunisian designer&rsquo;s biggest supporters, said the current exhibition in Paris, celebrating his 2003 couture collection, demonstrates his &ldquo;360-degree&rdquo; design thinking. &ldquo;When you look at these clothes, the back is almost more interesting than the front,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;For him, that was very important.
Ala&iuml;a always emphasised: 'A woman is not a photograph, she is life. It is the way she moves that creates beauty. And the back is where that sensuality is.' He was like a sculptor, and the woman's body was his work, the back was the soul of that work."

Throughout the 2003 collection, the techniques of lacing, pleating, seaming and godeting were used delicately, bringing new life to jeans, skirts and leather jackets. All reached their &ldquo;peak&rdquo; with tailored jackets made from crocodile skin; the tail of the skin was left intact to create a unique lobster tail effect.
After decades as a buyer and founder of 10 Corso Como, and now collaborating with Dover Street Market, Carla Sozzani shares that she always pays special attention to the back of the garment: &ldquo;Because it defines the whole shape. If the back is empty, the garment can become dull or meaningless. The back of the shirt is very important for the body line and makes a woman feel more feminine.&rdquo;
She cites Crist&oacute;bal Balenciaga and American costume designer Adrian Adolph Greenburg, who were renowned for their ability to emphasise the back of a garment. &ldquo;In the 1970s, it seemed like no one cared about the back anymore,&rdquo; she recalls. Designer Azzedine Ala&iuml;a once said: &ldquo;I always look at a woman from behind, so as not to be distracted by her eyes. The back is as important as the front.&rdquo;
According to Griffiths, today&rsquo;s customers are very sophisticated in looking at clothes from every angle: &ldquo;If you notice, when women try on clothes, the first thing they do when they come out of the dressing room is turn around and look at the back,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They want to make sure it&rsquo;s flattering.&rdquo;
Fashion historian Alexandre Samson, director of the contemporary collection at the Palais Galliera, says designers who work directly on mannequins, creating three-dimensional shapes, tend to consider the garment from all sides. He cites Ala&iuml;a and Rick Owens, and says Moschino is a brand that sees the back as &ldquo;a blank slate for unexpected and interesting messages.&rdquo;

The &ldquo;backside&rdquo; of fashion had its moment in the sun in 2019, when Samson organised an exhibition at the Mus&eacute;e Antoine Bourdelle in Paris that celebrated the importance of the back. The exhibition featured designs from Comme des Gar&ccedil;ons to Zara, from 13th-century floor-length dresses to modern-day football jerseys.
The catalogue for the &ldquo;Backside&rdquo; exhibition opens with Yohji Yamamoto saying: &ldquo;The back is the centre of my design structure, right near the collarbone. It is there that the emotion of a garment is determined. I believe that clothes should be constructed from the back, not the front.&rdquo; Samson believes that the back has always been a symbol of vulnerability, &ldquo;because it is the only part of the body that people cannot touch themselves.&rdquo;
The back has been a focal point in many fashion eras, from the 18th-century sack-back dress to the 19th-century bustle dress to the famous backless dresses of the 1930s&mdash;a trend that continues to this day. &ldquo;That moment opened a whole new chapter in fashion,&rdquo; says Samson, referring to American socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig, who was the first to wear a backless evening gown at the Metropolitan Opera House in the 1910s, stunning the audience.

He also notes that throughout the history of fashion, only women's clothing has had zippers or buttons at the back (the only exception being a brief period in the 19th century, when the Saint-Simonian community in France allowed men to wear waistcoats that buttoned from the back, requiring assistance to put on).
To protect copyright, French couturiers like Madeleine Vionnet used to photograph their dresses from three angles-front, side, and back-and archive them in the Paris courthouse in the early 20th century. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen recently reinterpreted this three-view structure in The Row&rsquo;s Spring 2026 lookbook, featuring designs with elaborate back treatments: drape, cape, pleat, cutout, and racer cut.
Samson said the &ldquo;Backside&rdquo; exhibition attracted about 90,000 visitors, which surprised him. &ldquo;I was really surprised, because at first I thought no one would be interested in this topic,&rdquo; he said.
So how can we get more attention to the back of a garment? Griffiths of Max Mara notes that fashion show attendees tend to only see the garments from the side. &ldquo;I think editors should turn their heads a little more,&rdquo; he says, half-jokingly.

The Back Takes the Spotlight in Spring 2026

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