Elle Canada April 2026

THERE ARE SHOWS we see and others that seem to see us. Heated Rivalry belongs firmly in the second camp. Yes, there’s that electric tension, those steamy scenes and a chemistry that set the internet ablaze and fuelled collective fantasies. But if this series stayed with us long after its final episode, it’s not just because of what it showed but because of what it did beyond our screens. Heated Rivalry gave us a depiction of masculinity in which strength and vulnerability could happily coexist. Scott, the character played by this month’s cover star, François Arnaud, for instance, is undeniably tough yet deeply sensitive too. And it doesn’t make him any less of an athlete or a man—quite the opposite. I mean, how many of us couldn’t wait to debrief…

UNDER DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES, I would have been nervous. My voice would have quivered, and my hands would have trembled. My eyes would have darted around, scanning the other women in line outside the fashion show, processing their looks to pinpoint what they’d gotten right and what I hadn’t. Instead, though, I looked straight ahead with my chin up, my heels planted as firmly as possible on the icy sidewalk and one steady hand holding my phone displaying my ticket while the other clutched the top handles of my new Saint Laurent Sac de Jour handbag. It was 2016. I was six months into a new job as a fashion editor at a media company and attending New York Fashion Week for the very first time. In an effort to calm…

I AM NOT A NOSTALGIC PERSON. I suspect that you aren’t either since you’re reading this and, it seems to me, being interested in fashion means being curious about the current moment. When we choose our outfit each morning, we are expressing something about how it feels to live in the world at this very minute. Fashion is a live conversation about the mood on the street and about what seems beautiful, important or valuable to us. Fashion writers like me are basically current-affairs journalists in disguise. But here’s the funny thing: Fashion is alive with ghosts. For the past year, the most vivid personalities on the catwalks have been characters from yesteryear. During fall/winter 2025/2026 Paris Fashion Week, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s last ready-to-wear collection for Dior gave us Virginia…

WHEN MIUCCIA PRADA urged us to “read literature,” she reminded us that clothing should help define who we are so we might learn to live better—a sentiment that reflects a broader cultural shift: Fashion is courting the novel. Jonathan Anderson’s Dior scarf emblazoned with a first-edition cover of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, studious eyeglasses and dog-eared paperbacks slipped into designer bags have become It-girl currency and male-thirst-trap capital. Between bookish social-media posts and brands mining literature for meaning, the book is emerging as a contemporary talisman. This lit-chic movement has found an unlikely leader in Kendall Jenner, who has normalized the book as a fashion object. Her viral holiday-season post of herself wearing a dazzling red sequined mididress, a voluminous black feathered coat, white-and-black cap-toed pumps and a quilted silver…

FOR WANZE SONG, the process of creating has always kindled her curiosity. She has an early memory of learning origami at school in China; the transformation of a flat piece of paper into a three-dimensional object through a series of precise, calculated folds captivated her. As a designer and the founder of her eponymous label, Song applies this focus on meticulous craftsmanship to her work, combining traditional garment-making techniques with thoughtful functionality. After studying fashion at Toronto Metropolitan University, Song continued to hone her skills both at home and abroad (namely, London and Shanghai) with stints at Beaufille, Kiko Kostadinov and Xiao Li. When the pandemic brought her back home in 2020, she was overwhelmed and burnt-out by the demands of the fast-paced industry, so she paused to rest and…

PICTURE IT: A twentysomething woman is posing in front of a mirror in her bedroom, modelling a Y2K-era red dress that she’s selling online. But the woman isn’t real and the room isn’t real—only the dress is. And it’s actually brand new, ready to be “drop-shipped” via a fast-fashion website the moment it’s sold. It’s the latest scam in the world of second-hand shopping, one that couldn’t have existed six years ago. And not just because there was no accessible AI to create it but because the premise—that a used dress could be more in demand than a new one—was unthinkable. But tastes are changing. According to online thrift shop ThredUp, resale grew eight times faster than the broader retail-clothing sector in 2024 and the global second-hand apparel market is…