By Filza Marri
Jorge Luis Salinas, the visionary Peruvian designer behind J. Salinas presented his SS26 collection at Milan Fashion Week, known for bringing hand-knit traditions to the runway, this season Salinas refined his vision, presenting a collection that was both sensual and textured, light yet strong.
The opener Look 1, a pleated white mini dress, stood like architecture, upright, and bold for such a short silhouette, showing that Salinas was not approaching light fabrics with softness but with form and control. Soon after, the collection shifted quickly into his signature territory: layered in scales and ripples that clung to the body like armor, handwork here was not decoration but construction. Look 7, with its winged shoulders and sculpted surface, became the collection’s statement piece. crochet elevated to couture proportions.
The palette stayed light: pistachio, lilac, soft peach, lemon. These colors spoke of spring but thanks to the sharpness of the cuts and the grounding force of the shoes, they held their edge. Look 28, an orange crochet bralette and skirt, brought a direct, youthful energy into the mix, while later a black bubble mini broke the pastel rhythm and shifted the mood entirely. That single piece showed how quickly Salinas could move from ethereal to gothic without losing coherence.
Texture was everywhere; pleats running vertically along gowns, crochet built into scallops and shells, ruffles stacked at the shoulders. At moments the repetition risked uniformity, but Salinas played with proportion to keep the collection alive: long column gowns against abbreviated minis, fluid organza breaking away from dense knit, jackets layered over tiny skirts. The shoes carried as much narrative weight as the dresses. Flat gladiator sandals, laced high up the leg, gave the women a sense of movement and resilience, evoking both antiquity and practicality. Against the surface beauty of crochet and chiffon, the sandals gave the collection its edge, offsetting the craftsmanship with movement and ease.
What makes Salinas stand out is not only the surface but the system beneath it. Around fifty Peruvian craftswomen built these pieces, and their presence in Milan made the show more than symbolic. The work was not treated as embellishment, it was construction, identity, and continuity. What came through most clearly was that Salinas’s strength lies in construction. Every piece was built, not decorated, and that distinction gave the collection its power.