Notes on Style at Frieze 2026

There was plenty to look at beyond the art at Frieze this year. From flamboyant collectors to fashion designers dressed down, we survey the flashy, the furtive and the very expensive outfits on display

It’s Wednesday, the first of Frieze’s VIP days. The international art world has funnelled into two enormous white tents in Regent’s Park where some of the world’s most interesting art is being flogged for eye-watering sums. Frieze London, the contemporary art tent, is heaving, but nobody seems to be in much of a hurry. I discover this while running late for a Ruinart champagne reception, attempting to dash through a wall of dawdling collectors who appear to take personal offence at my haste.

There’s plenty to look at beyond the art. Fashion and art have been in bed together for centuries. Consider the exquisite lace collars of Old Master portraits, the magnificent ruffs of the Dutch Golden Age or the yellow and blue headwear in Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Clothes have long served as shorthand for wealth, status, vanity and taste. At Frieze, the tradition continues. Only now, the subjects are wandering around looking at the paintings.

I had anticipated a rippling ocean of Issey Miyake Pleats Please, that unofficial uniform of the culturally employed. There was less than expected, although pleats were still plentiful: voluminous trousers with crotches hanging somewhere around the knees, cropped three-quarters down the shin to reveal an assertively coloured sock. Ladies wore brightly coloured silk scarves knotted at the neck despite the unseasonably warm October afternoon.

The art crowd are much less afraid of prints. Some florals, painterly, bohemian, abstract geometric shapes in vibrant colours, some of them clashing from head to toe. Accessories pop against otherwise loud outfits. Then there were those who dressed like people with money – cashmere aplenty. One woman, swaddled in the stuff, hurried past me upon discovering a sign for what she called the “lavatorium”. Some men favoured chinos and washed-out linen shirts, creased around the waist where they had presumably attempted to tuck them in that morning before changing their mind.

While the collectors go hell for leather on colour and pattern, the people actually responsible for making fashion seem to have sworn the stuff off. Raf Simons pottered around in a slightly crinkled black blazer over a black jumper. Dries Van Noten wore his familiar navy sweater, a white T-shirt peeking out beneath, topped with a workwear jacket. Daniel Lee was in beige, which always looks gorgeous against his ginger hair.

Fifteen minutes away, across Regent’s Park, Frieze Masters operated at a different tempo. Beige carpets, subdued lighting, plentiful benches and an abundance of plummy accents gave it the air of a particularly well-appointed private members’ club. The interiors seemed to adopt the dress code – a bit more understated, expensive. Here, the art spanned several millennia and the clientele appeared perfectly happy to spend another one considering it.

Frieze is open until 18 October