Balenciaga Pre-Fall 2026 Will Fuel Your 2016 Nostalgia

With the new year comes a new wave of nostalgia. If you’ve been online in the past two weeks, you may have noticed friends and colleagues posting throwback photos of 2016 filled with dip brows, cut creases, chunky dad sneakers, and the inklings of high-fashion streetwear’s soon-to-be logomania craze. And it seems like Pierpaolo Piccioli was, as usual, several steps ahead of us.

Balenciaga’s pre-fall 2026 collection is the freshly debuted creative director’s second offering for the brand. His inaugural runway show, which boasted a surprise appearance from Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, paid homage to both past and present. There were nods to Cristóbal Balenciaga in silhouettes like the Sack Dress and to Piccioli’s immediate predecessor via chunky flip-flops and alien bug-eyed sunglasses.

Looks from Balenciaga pre-fall 2026.

The collection notes described his vision as a convergence of sports and technology—an imagining, perhaps, of how Cristóbal would interpret digital overload today. In many ways, that idea was realized via references to Demna’s many -isms. See: a revival of the exaggerated dad sneaker, oversized basketball jerseys, and the particularly viral passport and plane-ticket wallet, which were then tempered by pillbox hats and bejeweled heels courtesy of a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik. The brand also introduced its new sportswear category, TechWear, made from ProBody performance fabric.

Even at this point—a mere decade out—references to that era already feel retro. In contrast, the archival deep dives play into the current craze for vintage, “house codes,” and our love for the cocooning shapes of the ’60s.

Looks from Balenciaga pre-fall 2026.

The eveningwear followed similar cues. Its colors complemented the hues of the initial collection, bouncing from deep plums—at one point contrasted with teal opera gloves—to the iPhone 17 orange that continues to persist across our runways and screens in a dress that singer Laufey debuted at the 2026 Golden Globes on Sunday.

The result is an overwhelmingly Back to the Future–esque aesthetic that bucks against the prevailing popularity of uber-streamlined taste. But there’s an important distinction between retrofuturism and minimalism. Though neither the palette nor the silhouettes were subtle per se, the foldable ballet sneakers possessed a certain modularity, whether you’re time traveling or just packing a gym bag tomorrow. In Pierpaolo’s effort to straddle past and present, he falls somewhere in between. It just so happens we’re all currently yearning for the same thing.