Saab Suits Up: The Tuxedo Hits the High Street

Elie Saab has dressed red carpets for four decades without ever cutting a suit for a man. That changed on October 22, when his H&M collaboration — the house's first menswear, full stop — landed online and in selected stores.

The men's range is unapologetically evening: a double-breasted wool tuxedo jacket with matching trousers and a crisp cotton dress shirt, plus louche monogrammed silk separates — jacquard pyjamas, a silk tie, a cufflink set, a reversible leather belt and a stand-collar leather jacket.

The reaction was immediate. Shoppers queued outside H&M's Regent Street store before the 9am opening, and launch-event carousels from Kuala Lumpur to Kuwait are doing five-figure engagement. H&M creative advisor Ann-Sofie Johansson told press she is partial to the menswear herself — the fit, she said, is the point.

Fall 2026 is the season the suit relaxed. Across the autumn collections, designers are trading rigid formalwear for softer tailoring: extended shoulders, no ultra-slim lapels, trousers with a real break at the shoe.

The pattern story is heritage with a twist. Tartan, windowpane and Prince of Wales checks are everywhere — at D&G, Zegna, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Rabanne and Burberry — but handled like graphics: blown up large or shrunk to near-solids, sometimes with an unexpected colour dropped in.

Colour is doing the quiet work. Brown — chocolate, chestnut, cognac, tobacco — is taking over from navy as the default dark neutral, and olive is functioning as the season's alternative black. On Instagram this week, an olive double-breasted suit reel passed 34K likes in two days.

Eight days out, Halloween dressing is having its most fashion-literate season in years. The direction of travel is dark-romantic rather than costume-shop: velvet tailoring, lace cravats, dramatic collars and deep burgundy, built on pieces that survive the 31st.

The references are literary and cinematic. Wuthering Heights and the new Bride! film have pushed corsetry, lace and windswept Victoriana back into the conversation, while the 'haute gothic scholar' mood — velvet blazers, tweed, signet rings — is built for candlelit rooms.

The rule is restraint. One gothic element against an otherwise sharp outfit — a velvet tuxedo blazer over a plain black shirt, a brocade jacket with dark denim — reads as style, not costume. That is the version worth buying.

October's drop calendar is stacked, and the throughline is collaboration. Song for the Mute's take on the adidas Samba OG might be the cleverest: a collapsible heel that turns the terrace icon into a slip-on, in lush faux nubuck.

The gorpcore lane keeps delivering. Salomon's XT-4 OG gets the full fall treatment with a waterproof GORE-TEX membrane in a moody Paloma/Cloudburst/FTW Silver colourway, while Saucony and Highsnobiety's Endorphin Pro 5 goes the opposite direction — sleek, minimal, run-club ready.

And Jordan Brand's fourth J Balvin collaboration, the Air Jordan 4 'Amazonas' in croc-embossed leather, is already showing stronger early demand than the Royal AJ1 reissue, per resale data. The AJ4 remains the silhouette of the moment.

Two launches this month point the same way: the dress watch is going oval, and the interesting part is on the dial. Noah and Timex's third Ellipse-style collaboration, the Boatswain, strips the dial back to essentials — eggshell background, Roman numerals — with one quiet flourish: the minute track is patterned like coiled ship's rope.

At $228 it is the entry point into a partnership that has been running for over a decade, and the case profile openly nods to the Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse. Pre-orders are live on Noah's site, with shipping estimated for June 2027.

At the other end of the spectrum, Temporal Works — the watch brand from The Armoury's Mark Cho and Elliot Hammer — teams with London designer Lee Yuen-Rapati on the Series A: Romanesque. Its 'Colonnade Romans' reduce numerals to architectural strokes, laser-cut through a sandwich dial. Fifty pieces at $2,500, launched October 16.