Come May, visitors to the Met’s “Costume Art” exhibition will see how the human form has been depicted in art and fashion over time. For fall 2026 Zoe Whalen explored the same subject, but from an inside looking out perspective. “It’s a real love letter to a body—and probably my body in particular,” the designer said of her new collection, titled Birthing Circle. Both childbirth and growing her Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen brand were on her mind. “I feel I’m in this transitional point in my practice where I I’m at the beginning of a new rebirth; the beginning of a new chapter,” said Whalen, who presented a page-turner of a show.
Part of what made it a breakthrough was that the emphasis was on the clothes first, and communal experience a close second. Change was evident from the first exit, featuring a torqued sweater with a single hook and eye slit, possibly meant for breastfeeding. There were pants and much more tailoring, like a snug fencing-inspired jacket and another (look 2) with beautiful seaming front and back. It wouldn’t be a ZGAW show without milkmaid skirts and corsets, and Whalen admitted she is “still obsessed with a small little hip pad situation, but it’s all very soft and loving and still quite small and subtle.” (A woman’s waist to hip ratio is often associated with fertility.)
Less lowkey was a top with a wired waistline that curved up, as if it would fit over a pregnant belly. Drama was delivered through the palette. The show opened with white looks, and then moved into innumerable shades of red (all dyed in the studio) then black. The reference was to blood related to reproduction (menstruation, birth, abortion). “I’m really into the idea of pushing more opportunities for exposing the body,” said Whalen, “and not shying away from the body’s functions. At the moment, I’m noticing such a rise in covering and hiding the body that I want to push in the opposite direction as much as I can.”
This wasn’t an abstract notion. At the close of the show, the designer, all in white, submerged herself in the claw-foot tub placed at one end of the runway. She emerged wet and triumphant, having enacted a rebirth in public at the close of a show built on decisions she has made regarding her own bodily autonomy at a time when Roe vs. Wade has been overturned and many women have limited access to obstetric care.
This beautifully executed collection that elevated the brand to a new level came with a message. It spoke of elasticity, possibility, positivity, community. In this era of looksmaxxing, when some people are altering their forms from without, with filters and elective surgery, Whalen celebrated how the body has “this incredible ability to transform” naturally, and demonstrated how fashion can change along with it.
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