Knitwear Is in Its Sexy Era

Out of total blackness, a model at Schiaparelli emerged on the raised platform runway wearing an oatmeal-hued cable-knit sweater, split smack down the middle with a totally sheer, revealing mesh panel. This was during the fall/winter 2026 show, and one might consider it just one of the nods to the new knitwear. Tom Ford later led the charge for spring/summer 2027 with an extravagantly sheer, knit bodysuit and see-through paneled tops. “I am not interested in provocation. I am interested in the risk of being free,” read Tom Ford creative director Haider Ackermann’s show notes. Chunky, lumpy cardigans are no more. The new era of knitwear has never been as light, dimensional, and dynamic as it is now.

Designers are rethinking traditional knits in every way. Brands like Diotima, Emily Dawn Long, and Eckhaus Latta are the leaders to follow for quirky, lightweight sweaters, sheer crochet dresses, and exaggerated V-necks. Zimmermann also sent sweaters with the deepest V-necks down the fall/winter 2026 runway, as did Prada. One could say it’s a trend that’s been a few years in the making. Back in 2019, Khaite’s signature Eda cashmere bra went viral and sold out after actress Katie Holmes was photographed in New York City hailing a cab while wearing it.

For Schiaparelli’s aforementioned sweater, creative director Daniel Roseberry mused on the opening of “Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art” at the V&A Museum in London and the ways in which Elsa Schiaparelli transformed and questioned the medium of fashion itself. “In every piece, in every accessory, there’s an apparent contradiction,” he wrote of the new collection in the show notes. “Take, for example, the look which I call ‘impossible knitwear’: traditional Aran cable knits juxtaposed with panels of illusion tulle, which creates the effect of something heavy that seemingly floats on the body.” Radical, yes, but also deeply wearable depending on who you ask.

Meanwhile, Kiko Kostandinov’s womenswear line has built its empire largely on this kind of thing: cool knits that are so uniquely shaped, sculpted, and curated that you basically no longer even recognize them as traditional sweaters. Maybe they aren’t obscenely sexy, but they have a quiet kind of sensualness instead and truly feel designed for the female form by the female gaze, in a nontraditional, new way. They are almost the opposite of the aforementioned glaringly body-first designs created for Tom Ford by Ackermann.

“I think we have been able to explore a need to develop a silhouette to explore transparencies,” Deanna Fanning, one-half of the twins who design the womenswear line, told ELLE ahead of their spring/summer 2027 show. The designer duo often mixes eras, from medieval to retro-futurism.

There has been a lot of talk about sexy, undone dressing this year. But for all the discourse, knitwear has proven that it too is not immune to a lighter, softer, more sensual treatment. Consider a sexy knit the answer to the more real-world version of the sheer dress.