According to Frances Bronet, President of Pratt Institute, the school’s collegiate runway show is the longest running in the United States, dating back to 1899—a decade and change before Coco Chanel freed women from the confines of their corsets. That means Pratt students have diligently shown their designs through countless revolutions, fashion and otherwise: two World Wars, the emancipated flapper, Dior’s New Look, hippies, the Japanese avant-garde, grunge, the rise of the Internet and social media, and so on. And yet the class of 2026 may face the most unprecedented times to date. What would their collections reveal about the minds of young people today?

These collections serve as the students’ senior theses, and as such, they are often vehicles to tell their personal stories—their own histories entwined with clothes. Additionally, sustainability and climate change, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the immigrant experience were major themes. Aesthetically speaking, dense, almost chaotic patch-working, tweaked and pulled silhouettes, and layers of loose, flowing shapes were well represented.

Each of the 28 students who showed presented five to seven outfits, a quick snapshot of their developing practice. Ava Wilson was a standout with her lingerie dresses padded at the hip and breasts, festooned with ribbons and topped with shaggy fur stoles and jackets. Backstage, she said she was inspired by ideas of vintage Black glamour—Eartha Kitt, Donna Summers, and Diana Ross. Often hair was a major component of Black beauty, and so she wove in tracks of hair throughout her finely made boudoir corsets and slip dresses edged in lace. It was frisky, winking, ironic, and gently batted at the meaty subject of Black beauty standards.

The show opened with the blocky, experimental work of Xingui Liu. Liu said her work was informed by her itinerant life as a student from China. A boxy blue babydoll made from upcycled shirts was heat-pressed to create creasing that mimics that of garments trapped in a vacuum-sealed bag. It had a Marc Jacobsian, off-kilter charm. The constant packing and unpacking of her clothes ultimately led her to the idea of packing her own body, the result of which was a flattened, folded square printed with a nude female form, as if exposing the model’s anatomy within. Another yanked and dangling shirt contained the chaos familiar to anyone stuffing their carry-on in a rush. Elsewhere, Amina Walker took pastoral toile de jouy and prairie prints and assembled them into a beguiling patchwork long-sleeve dress with a gently cinched waist and a pleated skirt. Naisa Agrawal’s romantic, vaguely Edwardian shapes, understated embroidery (based on cracks in the soil), and rich palette of burgundy, moss, and umber were inspired by, of all things, her allergies.

And so it went. Many students were keen to really show their design work, with the addition of flaps, folds, and other extras. Many of the collections felt closer to art projects than commercial endeavors. Taken together, it was a good reminder that, sometimes, simpler is better, as with designer Shannon Bollin, who showed a filmy, cropped button-up shirt with low-slung, wide-cut trousers in marigold. For just one moment, the future looked bright and easy.