Tuck, Tuck, Tuck

It was belts galore at AW26 - and where belts go, tucks follow. We are not talking about the French or side tuck (the former, where only the front is folded in, has been dubbed the ‘millennial tuck’ by Gen Z), but a full 360° commitment. Shirts and blouses, specifically, were rarely left loose on the recent season’s runways. 

Obviously, tucking tops into bottoms isn’t anything new. For much of the 20th century, it was simply how clothes were worn. But in recent years, the untucked hem has reigned supreme.  Indeed, a New York Times article from 2018 declared that ‘untucked shirttails hit the front row and red carpet in the mid-aughts and never went away.’ Perhaps the cat got out of the bag that the ‘effortless chic’ look, of which the untucked shirt is a hallmark, has never been quite as effortless as it claims.

AW26 runways made it clear that it is now cooler to keep shirt hems out of sight. We saw it at Gen-Z favourite brands Miu Miu and Marni, where shirts were buttoned to the collar and neatly tucked into pencil skirts. Givenchy offered up a more relaxed counterpoint: high-waisted, loose-fitting trousers cinched with wide belts contained voluminous, sculptural blouses. Burberry and Diesel leaned into something more off-duty with half-buttoned shirts tucked into narrow, low-slung denim and leather, secured by skinny belts. At Rabanne, too, belts reigned strong, and blouse hems disappeared beneath waistlines. 

The resurgence of the belt feels key. 

A tucked shirt and cinched waist reads less “I just threw this on” and more “I mean business”. The full tuck mirrors a broader shift away from orchestrated nonchalance towards deliberate dressing. Glamour, for example, was also big this season. 

Whether you’re here for the full tuck or not, it does offer a second chance for those too-long shirts buried at the back of your wardrobe.