Rocky Turned an Arena Into a Runway: AWGE's Anti-War Uniform

The week's biggest menswear story arrived by surprise. On September 30, A$AP Rocky staged a runway show for AWGE — 'ANTI WAR GLOBAL ECONOMICS' — inside Paris's Accor Arena, hours before his sold-out Don't Be Dumb concert at the same venue. Tyler, The Creator guested; Rihanna and Pharrell sat front row.

The clothes were a military-utility takeover: layered tactical vests, trench coats, gas-mask coats (including a deep red gas-mask long coat), gold-embroidered military marching-band jackets, glossy leather capes, oil-dipped headwear, army boots. The staging's warship vocabulary was deliberately set inside the anti-war concept — fashion working through contrasts rather than clean categories.

Rocky used the moment to debut product: a new PUMA Straycat sneaker and a navy Puma Suede 'set for release later this year,' plus — as Ray-Ban's creative director — new lightweight aviator frames with reflective lenses. The article drew 6.7K views in its first day, the hottest PFW story of the week.

The through-line from gorpcore to the approach shoe is complete. This week packed three technical-footwear drops into five days: Salomon's X-ALP Expedition (dropped October 1–2, $200) — heritage '80s/'90s climbing-gear aesthetic, burnished suede, rope laces, on an approach-shoe chassis, named one of the week's best drops by Highsnobiety.

ASICS x Above The Clouds' GEL-SD-LYTE (global release October 3, $300 AUD) followed with a woven-leather upper and gunmetal snakeskin-print overlays. And adidas x Entire Studios' Feroza Low (dropped September 29) — a brand-new racing-inspired silhouette and the second chapter of their FW26 partnership — saw US mens sizes sell out at speed.

The code is consistent across all three: rope laces, burnished suede, hiking hardware worn on city pavement. SneakerNews and the DraftKings October calendar both place this week among the densest drop windows of the fall.

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez's third LOEWE collection, shown October 2 at the Château de Vincennes, distilled their sport-forward vision into its most meme-ready images yet: a black leather swim cap paired with scuba-style moccasins.

The collection traded ornamentation for slick materials and color — minty green, yellow, blue, red-orange — with metallic collars, shell jackets and utility coats. The details carried the aquatic theme: branded leather caps resembling swimming caps, scuba mocs in tan, black, pink and yellow with discreet toe-box logos, LOEWE tags sewn onto trouser flies.

The womenswear reveal ran louche — an ultra-mini leather dress, sheer spaghetti-strap dresses rolled to the chest, sheer tank dresses in translucent glass beads — but the menswear thesis was undone dressing as sensuality: bare chests under open zip jackets, floral underwear waistbands showing, braided belts. The Impression scored it 9/10.

Outside the Courrèges show on September 30, the formula was legible: keep one traditional anchor and break the rest. A guest wore a black blazer, black baggy trousers, a black-and-white tie — and clear-framed sunglasses, with baggy proportions doing the disrupting. Checks met stripes, oversized shapes met fitted pieces; the season's new uniform is relaxed tailoring with one rule broken.

AWGE's boardroom moment proved the runway agrees: an oversized indigo suit, white shirt, black tie — the suit stays, just bigger. And Glenn Martens at Margiela offered the counterpoint — a 'remarkably regular' gray suit, near-untouched tailoring inside a deconstruction house, as deliberate anti-spectacle (The Impression 8.9/10).

The lowest-lift jewelry play of the week sat on the same streets: a single decorative floral brooch pinned to a fitted brown blazer — one pin doing all the talking. No verified shoppable brooch surfaced this pass; the wrist does the work instead.