Taipei Fashion Week SS26 opened in cinematic style on October 16 at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. This season’s theme, “Fashion, Action!”, reimagines fashion as a form of storytelling, with an opening show that seamlessly fused Taiwan’s television drama culture with the runway—dissolving the boundary between image and dress.
“Fashion is a mirror of culture” — Dressing as an expression of time and society
At the opening, Li Yuan, Taiwan’s Minister of Culture, remarked: “Fashion has never been merely an expression of aesthetic beauty in clothing; it is a cultural reflection of its time. Since its inception, Taipei Fashion Week has embraced cross-disciplinary collaboration and cultural innovation, exploring the deeper connections between fashion and everyday life.”
Reframing the film cue “Action!” as a seasonal manifesto, Taipei Fashion Week SS26 celebrated Taiwan’s creative force and fearless spirit of experimentation. Under the banner “Drama × Fashion,” the opening show dissolved the boundary between runway and stage, drawing the audience into a living narrative.
With lighting, music, and costume moving in cinematic harmony, the production became film itself—fashion that breathes, speaks, and stirs emotion. Through fabric, construction, and silhouette, designers infused each look with dramatic tension and a distinctly Taiwanese cultural pulse.
Six Designers, Six Dramas
For the grand opening, six of Taiwan’s leading designers joined forces with six acclaimed television dramas to unveil a total of sixty looks. Lead actors from each series stepped onto the runway, reimagining their on-screen personas through fashion—bringing their stories vividly to life beyond the screen.
【DYCTEAM × The Outlaw Doctor】
Opening the show, DYCTEAM transformed The Outlaw Doctor into a second narrative woven in cloth—true to the brand’s belief that “seams are a language of memory and renewal.”
Designer McFly Chao translated the doctor’s integrity and quiet rebellion against the system into tailoring: suiting fused with jacquard denim, two-tone patchwork, and asymmetric cuts that embodied a dialogue between order and freedom. The washed textures suggested traces of healing and time, as if the fabric itself were stitching memory back together.
Across the lineup, DYCTEAM’s functional code intersected with its conceptual core.
Oversized coats and relaxed jackets enveloped the wearer’s inner life, holding a quiet tension against the outer world. The models’ composed expressions and the minimalist set recalled a clinical space—humans moving through it with emotion carefully contained.
【WEAVISM × The Cleaner】
Next, WEAVISM reinterpreted The Cleaner through the lens of renewal and continuity, crafting utilitarian silhouettes from recycled materials. Gloves, protective masks, and even vacuum props transcended function to become symbolic tools—cleansing the “traces and memories” that linger within us.
A palette of greys and black, punctuated by strikes of yellow, evoked the realism of a worksite while preserving a quiet warmth beneath the surface. Designer Tony Chen described the collection as “a process of organizing memory and purification to move forward.”
On the runway, models appeared like characters stepping out from the screen. Actor Rhys Fang embodied a rugged tenderness, merging body, garment, and narrative into one still, contemplative moment.
【Dleet × Us Without Sex】
Dleet translated the unspoken distance between people—the delicate tension between intimacy and separation—drawing inspiration from Us Without Sex. Designer Baron Lee distilled the fragile boundary between friendship and love into a minimalist, poetic language of form.
A restrained palette of black, white, and a whisper of lustrous grey hinted at complexity beneath composure. Sheer, weightless fabrics and soft drapes blurred the body line, evoking relationships left unresolved and emotions left unsaid. Linear cuts combined with supple materials expressed Dleet’s quiet balance of reason and feeling—minimal surfaces alive with hidden emotion.
With guest Greg Hsu on the runway, every lingering gaze and unhurried gesture carried a muted, cinematic tension—an exploration of ambiguity that is neither love nor mere friendship, but something deeply, unmistakably human.
【RAY CHU × Holiday】
Like soft weekend light, RAY CHU opened a tranquil space for freedom within everyday life, drawing inspiration from Holiday.
The collection balanced ease and polish: structured jackets in airy materials, silhouettes that embraced movement, and gentle tones of beige, cream, and sand—sharpened by black and cobalt accents for a modern edge.
Gender-fluid shapes dissolved the body’s fixed lines, celebrating a freedom where anyone can dress as themselves. Short suits, satin dresses, and oversized ensembles stood together as a tableau of coexisting diversity.
With appearances by Sun Shu-Mei and Lien Chen-Hsiang, natural expressions and unforced gestures revealed the quiet beauty of daily life. The clothes did not perform—they simply lived.
【NIKI YEH × Tabloid】
Bathed in a sharp, luminous truth, NIKI YEH reconstructed Tabloid’s story of exposure and sacrifice through fashion.
Through the lens of a reporter tossed by scandal, the collection explored the pursuit of truth—and the solitude it demands.
A gradient of pink, red, lavender, and black conjured tension within glamour. Soft drapes on feminine silhouettes traced the border between fragility and courage, while metallic and leather textures quietly declared resistance. In these contrasts, NIKI YEH revealed a deeper, more resilient strength in women.
Mantid-inspired forms—antennae and jointed geometry—signaled vigilance and awakening. Layered constructions carried a restrained emotional charge, while black bodysuits and cutout dresses became less about exposure than about armor—acknowledging vulnerability yet insisting on forward motion.
With Ko Shu-Chin and Allison Lin on the runway, a charged stillness conveyed dignity and pain behind the news.
【oqLiq × The World Between Us: After the Flames】
In oqLiq’s “INTERLACE” collection, conflict simmered beneath quiet surfaces. Drawing inspiration from The World Between Us: After the Flames, the brand delved into ethical dilemmas, social divides, and the possibility of renewal that bridges them.
Modular coats and segmented tailoring visualized fracture, while hybrid fabrics embodied the force that binds opposites anew. Technical precision remained true to oqLiq’s signature calm.
A muted palette of khaki, smoky blue, and charcoal was pierced by reflective silver—a line of hope suggesting subtle resilience amid contemporary unrest.
Actors Lan Wei-Hua and Summer Meng brought a haunting presence that blurred the line between fiction and reality, letting character and clothing respond to one another on the runway.
Taipei Presents Fashion as Narrative
In those moments where performance and dress became one, the audience could feel this season’s thesis—“Drama moves fashion”—on their skin. What unfolded was not merely a show, but a cinematic runway where stories clothed themselves and living emotion took form.
It was a vibrant opening that only Taipei Fashion Week could stage—a convergence of culture, creativity, and vision.
Up Next: Eleven Individual Shows
Following the opening, eleven brands will present individual runway shows from October 17 to 19, bringing together emerging talents and established designers to project the depth, maturity, and diversity of Taiwan’s fashion culture to the world.
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