At Bacchanalia Mayfair, inside the Apollo’s Muse Room framed by monumental sculptures, DI PETSA unveiled its Autumn Winter 2026 collection, Medusa’s Lover, during London Fashion Week on February 23, 2026. The setting amplified the mythic charge of the collection. Figures in stone surrounded the runway as if caught mid-gaze, echoing the narrative thread that shaped the season.
FALL WINTER 2026 COLLECTIONS
Medusa anchors the collection’s premise. The designer draws on the myth of a woman transformed into a monster who converts her curse into strength. The serpent becomes both symbol and structure. In this staging, the sculptures inhabiting Apollo’s Muse Room read as Medusa’s former lovers, frozen in time. The show unfolds as an awakening, with the central figure confronting memory, desire, and power.
AW26 frames eroticism as transformation. The collection develops this idea through new draping techniques that mimic snake skin at the moment of shedding. Fabric gathers and stretches across the body as if caught mid-metamorphosis. The house’s signature Wetlook evolves through prints that shift from serpent scales into nude illusion, creating hybrid forms that suggest a half-woman, half-snake anatomy. The finale introduces a leather wetlook dress punctuated by decorative gussets, a detail repeated throughout the collection in silver and gold. Sea-inspired pendants attach to these gussets, turning construction into ornament.
This season concentrates on bodysuits as complete silhouettes. Instead of separating garments into tops and bottoms, DI PETSA builds the look around the body as a single form. Cut-out patterns slice across fabric like ritual markings, intensifying the tension between exposure and concealment. The hips act as the anatomical anchor of the collection, treated as a site of sacral transformation and physical power. The emphasis reshapes proportion and directs attention to movement and stance.
Menswear continues to develop under the concept of the Modern Ancient Male Figure. Wetlook tank tops carve out the torso and pair with black wetlook trousers, reinforcing the sculptural vocabulary. Draped torsos tie at the back in corset-like constructions, introducing couture references into masculine silhouettes. The result frames masculinity as fluid and structured through the same language of drapery and surface tension that defines the women’s looks.
Beauty extends the narrative. Make-up artist Bea Sweet creates a lived-in finish where skin appears luminous with fresh sweat. Body shine, amplified using products from Ples’Jour, produces a high-gloss serpentine effect. Models appear with newly inked tattoos, marking skin as a site of renewal. Raw crystal headpieces obscure or shield the eyes, staging the negotiation between danger and seduction embedded in Medusa’s gaze.
Jewellery from AWE Inspired Fine Jewellery threads through the collection, with Medusa signet rings, snake rings, layered chains, and Goddess medallions reinforcing the mythic theme. Mule heels by Western Affair arrive in patent black, red, and white, punctuated with gold and silver spikes that sharpen the silhouette. DI PETSA also acknowledges Chateau Denmark for hosting pre-show preparations in a baroque and gothic interior that mirrored the collection’s tone.
With Medusa’s Lover, DI PETSA consolidates its wetlook identity while advancing a narrative of power rooted in transformation. The collection situates myth within contemporary desire, turning the act of shedding skin into a charged visual language for AW26.
