Simone Bellotti’s debut for Jil Sander is a compelling study of judicious reduction. But is minimalism still a compelling and fresh idea?

Two months before the Jil Sander show for spring/summer 2026, the brand released a teaser in the form of a music video, Wanderlust, featuring the city of Hamburg, where Jil Sander opened her first store in 1968. Concurrently, the brand put out an EP, simply titled JS EP*, created in collaboration with the Italian electronic musician Bochum Welt, who goes by the lengthier stage name of Gianluigi Di Costanzo. The seven tracks are generally spare, melodic, and awash with sounds that easily suggest a less harried side of city life. Similarly, the video in which the track Wanderlust appears shows individuals wandering—destination unknown, projecting spare silhouettes against a far more complex cityscape. Sonically and visually, both make total sense.

The Jil Sander preview of their new creative director’s first collection was totally unlike those of other brands also debuting new CDs, such as Dior, whose Jonathan Anderson-led designs have been worn by at least half a dozen celebrities on assorted red carpets. Not all of the early adopters were studies of perfection. So many of these ore-season appearances have been curiously lacklustre, drawing online concern for Mr Anderson’s unclear vision. The strategy of using celebrity-outfit teasers, a common marketing tool, has in this case drawn criticism because the fragmented looks seem to communicate a message defined by a troubling lack of clarity.

By contrast, while Mr Bellotti did not reveal much, the MV and the EP are, simply put (as it must be when describing Jil Sander), evocative. They were not about product; they were about atmosphere, and the wind-in-their-hair individuals who enjoy the latter. They set a mood, referencing the brand’s Hamburg roots and its intellectual, artistic soul. In this manner, the Jil Sander launch succeeded in defining the brand’s identity and values long before a single garment was revealed, creating a sense of anticipation rooted in something deeper than just a mere new look.

Mr Bellotti’s approach is to return to the old Jil Sander, but he is not so literal. In fact, his work has more in common with Raf Simons, who led the brand from 2005 to 2012. Both speak to a shared sensibility that goes beyond a literal revival of the Jil Sander brand. When Ms Sander herself was designing, it was primarily about pure, reductive minimalism. It was severe, even ascetic. The emphasis was on architectural but not rigid tailoring; luxurious, sometimes technical, fabrics; and a very specific, almost monastic, uniform for the modern, powerful woman. It wasn’t about a story or an artistic reference point (although she did later refer to art). The clothing was the point, a stark and elegant solution to the excesses of fashion.

Like Mr Simons, the new creative director employs the classic Jil Sander silhouette as a starting point, a clean canvas, on which to work his detailed manoeuvres. Mr Bellotti’s flair in tailoring is evident, with its gentle nipped waists (controlled by the centre-back seam) and shortened lapels with a whiff of the Edwardian, is highly refined, but they are not rigid or constrictive. It is a space for self-expression, not a straitjacket. The shrunken knitwear and coats in vivid colors are also a direct echo of Mr Simons’s use of unexpected, energetic colour within a minimalist framework. It’s a subversion, just like the skirts with slashes, of the brand’s historical strictness.

Despite the appreciable spareness and the fineness, we find ourselves asking: are we still enamoured with minimalism today? For a while now, fashion has been dominated by “dopamine dressing”—bright colors, oversized anything, and an aesthetic designed to be impactful on social media. While that trend still exists (especially with Gen Z’s thirst for more-is-more aesthetics), there is, we feel, a growing fatigue with the unceasing visual noise. Minimalism offers a sense of calm and clarity. But, we are not simply returning to the pure, unadorned minimalism of the ’90s. We seek, instead, the antidote to the chaos of the digital world, a serene equipoise. Simone Bellotti’s debut is not a return to the past; it’s a re-imagination of a core fashion philosophy for present times. It is minimalism with a pulse—intelligent, emotional, and technically brilliant.