Yuhan Wang Spring 2026 Reimagines 'Mulholland Drive' From a Hyperfeminine Perspective

For Spring 2026, London-based designer Yuhan Wang took inspiration from David Lynch’s 2001 film “Mulholland Drive.” The Hollywood-set thriller stars Naomi Watts as an aspiring actress who gets into a car crash, leaving her amnesic and having to figure out what exactly happened to her through various clues and nightmarish sequences.

“I feel like this movie moves between reality, dreams, illusion, collapse, exposing fractured identities of women whose fate is actually scraped by the male gaze,” Wang explained to Fashionista following the show. “I tried to challenge this theme and represent it [from] a woman’s perspective…she’s her heroine, she’s armored herself [with] beauty, romance — all these things on her own terms.”

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The show started with an almost exact play-by-play of the film’s car crash scene, opening with an injured model getting out of a smoking car and stumbling down the runway. But rather than outfitting the leading lady in a simple little black dress like in the movie, Wang had her don a lacy striped T-shirt and matching micro shorts that read, “Doppelgänger” and “Club Silencio,” respectively. The use of the word “doppelgänger” refers to the mirroring throughout the project, specifically of the two main female characters. “Club Silencio,” of course, is a callback to the fictional hotspot featured in the picture.

Other graphics throughout the collection also relate to various plot points, like tank tops that say “Winkie’s Diner” and “sleeping girl,” among other hyperfeminine designs such as ruffled blouses, lace-trim mini skirts and bow-adorned camisoles.

Yuhan Wang Spring 2026.

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Wang reimagined these traditionally soft, delicate materials as armor, attempting to completely redefine visual representations of women’s strength. For example, halfway through the runway show, a model appeared wearing American football-style shoulder pads covered in black lace — a quite literal depiction of the ‘femininity as protection’ idea. However, Wang let go of the metaphor altogether at various points in the collection, showing actual knight-like metal panels in the form of knee-high boots, breast plates and boleros. (Some models also held real swords in place of traditional fashion accessories.)

Wang also offers some kitschy jewelry for spring, along with a leather-belted skirt whimsically pierced by multicolored charms. Wang explained that these embellishments tie into the film’s “blue box to another world. It’s like your life,” she said. “You cannot expect what’s happening next. It’s like your fate.”

See every look from Yuhan Wang Spring 2026 below.