From introducing the masses to beloved designer labels like Marques’Almeida and Alameda Turquesa, to providing production resources for countless others, Portugal plays a key role in the global fashion industry. So it makes sense that Lisbon Fashion Week would be a discovery platform for promising design talent.
For the last 65 years, twice a year (March and October), Lisbon Fashion Week, or ModaLisboa, has served as a global mainstage for local talent of all sizes and stature. The four-day-long event takes place in the Patio da Gale, at the heart of the instantly recognizable city center, and includes a mix of shows, presentations and showroom visits to introduce media from all over the world to Portuguese creatives.
“Moda Lisboa brings together fashion shows with thematic debates, workshops and exhibitions — precisely the method that enables the creation of new concepts, new languages, new visions,” Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas explains.
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At the forefront of this venture is spotlighting new designers and recent university grads. One way is through the The Workstation Design program. Supported by hair-care brand Jean Louis David, this platform was created to propel burgeoning talent into the industry, while providing a business framework. It provides access to venues, technical production, support teams and professional hair styling to participants. For Spring 2026, they included Arndes, Bárbara Atanásio, Mestre Studio and other rising stars.
There’s also Portuguese Soul: a creative venture by APICCAPS, the Portuguese Footwear Association, in alignment with sustainability initiative BioShoes4all project, which curated designers (Ambitious, Carlos Santos, Leather Goods by Belcinto, Helena Mar, Miguel Vieria, Penha, Sanjo and Valuni) to participate in a group presentation to highlight the country’s legacy of craftsmanship and agility.
Fashionista was boots on the ground all week and has returned with a curated list of the brands worth having on your radar for the Spring 2026 season. Keep scrolling to meet them all.
Béhen Studios
Photos: Ugo Camera
Founded by Joana Duarte, Béhen is an ethically-produced label committed to celebrating (and protecting) the designer’s Portuguese roots and fair trade background. Apart from incorporating the stories and embroidery from her family into her ultra-feminine pieces, she continuously invests in artisan communities and their ancestral techniques while also exploring the intersection of tradition and technology for long-term cultural preservation.
On the rooftop of MUDE, Lisbon’s Museum of Design and Fashion, the brand presented a romantic Spring 2026 collection of flocked frocks and bubble hems, aptly named “Loves Me, Loves Me Not.” Duarte transported showgoers back in time with a lineup of unique creations, mostly crafted from antique materials and found treasures in the brand’s Lisbon atelier. According to the show notes, “each piece reflects the skill or craftsmanship and dialogue between memory and contemporary forms.”
The soundtrack outlined the details of each piece as it came down the runway, similar to salon-style shows of decades past. Standout pieces include a brocade dress with a matching pocketbook, as well as a pink floor-length embroidered gown with a fringed shawl-like panel across the waist, that’s inspired by traditional Portuguese folk scarves. Those in the United States and surrounding areas can shop the designer’s collections at multi-brand retailer Simonett in Miami.
Bárbara Atanásio
Photos: Ugo Camera
A former intern for Marques Almeida, designer Bárbara Atanásio best describes her namesake brand as “a multidisciplinary work of upcycling, deconstruction and humor.” The brand’s identity is equal parts punk and preppy, which is made clear through the use of flannels and cotton denim. The creative does a standup job of repurposing everyday staples like T-shirts, hoodies and rugby shirts, transforming them into more dynamic pieces filled with raw emotion and reflective of the chaos of daily life.
Part of ModaLisboa’s Spring 2026 Workstation Design program for emerging talent, Atanásio’s “Anarchy of Innocence” collection brings her signature grungy edge to the runways. Between the hiked-up striped tees and sweaters worn wrapped around the ribcage, most of the pieces remain wearable. Oversized knits are slashed, while frayed jeans were layered underneath baggy shorts; both had been carefully distressed to feign constant wear and tear. This disheveled-ness extended to the styling, too, with models walking the runway with dirt on their face and the clothing strewn across the body.
Arndes
Photos: Ugo Camera
Photos: Courtesy of ModaLisboa
Finding the balance between ’90s minimalism and futurism, Arndes, another participant of the Workstation Design Program, is aimed at an audience that values craftsmanship and unique silhouettes. Founder and designer Ana Rita de Sousa created the label in 2022 with sustainability at the forefront, transforming deadstock fabrics and existing pieces into the new collections, in order to reduce the amount of waste during the production process. “The idea is to have a laboratory environment where exploration and experimentation are valued,” says de Sousa of her label. “It creates a commitment that articulates the aesthetics, functionality, quality, and impact of its products throughout their life cycle, based on environmental, ecological, and social sustainability.
“This collection suggests a summer of contrasts, rustic and sophisticated, traditional and technological, memory and experimentation,” the show notes described. “It is the celebration of a plural summer, one that is not bound to a single way of living or dressing, but that opens itself to mixture and transformation.” The lineup is defined by open-back dresses and tops, fringed leather belt skirts, and a high-neck jumpsuit with a drawstring waist that now sits at the top of my shopping list for the season ahead.
Roselyn Silva
Photos: Luis Miguel Fonseca
Photos: Courtesy of ModaLisboa
Engineer-turned-designer Roselyn Silva founded her eponymous brand in 2015, and every collection since is created as a love letter to her Afro-European roots. In fact, although ModaLisboa has been the premiere showcase for Portuguese fashion designers for more than 60 years, Silva’s presence during the Spring 2026 edition marked the first time that a Black-owned brand has ever presented during the event.
Though born in São Tomé and Principe, Silva has lived in Portugal since the age of 4, providing her with a unique point of reference for designing. Each season, this manifests as refined tailoring and classic pieces, such as polished pussybow blouses, pleated tea-length skirts in African motifs and luxe fabrics such as velvet and duchess satin. Over the last decade, Roselyn Silva’s eponymous label has flourished by embracing this duality of Silva’s heritage and translating it into the present day. Her latest collection feels reminiscent of 2000s-era Carolina Herrera — in shapes and silhouette only, because everything else is so distinctly Silva.
Francisca Nabinho
Photos: Ugo Camera
Photos: Courtesy of ModaLisboa
Francisca Nabinho’s namesake label is the definition of whimsy. Nature and visual arts are the driving force of inspiration behind Nabinho’s designs, leading to exaggerated proportions, unexpected color and print combinations, and intricate detailing such as weaving and embellishments. Some elements require a second or third look to get the full effect; think: mirrored paillettes, feathers and tiered ruffles.
The new collection for Spring 2026 was dubbed “A alegria é a coisa mais série da vida”, which translates to “Joy is the most serious thing in life” in English. The phrase is based on a statement Portuguese painter José de Almada Negreiros gave in 1932 on the concept of happiness: “In his speech the artist distinguished joy from superficial laughter, positioning it as a conscious, courageous, and structuring attitude toward life,” Nabinho explained in the show notes. “His formulation reveals an understanding of joy not as something incidental, but as a vital force capable of guiding the individual in the face of life’s challenges.” The lineup uses color, rhythmic repetition, and playful prints to further prove Almada Negreiros’s notion that joy is both communal and an act of resistance in unprecedented times.
Nuno Baltazar
Photos: Ugo Camera
As one of the most tenured designers on the roster, Nuno Baltazar has been showing at ModaLisboa since 2004. Dabbling in everything from eyewear to bridal, Baltazar is a stylist to the stars, too, and brings a precise eye to traditionally feminine silhouettes in gorgeous color stories and sequins.
To finish out Lisbon Fashion Week, the designer invited guests to MUDE’s rooftop garden at sunset, with the bustling city center as the backdrop. The models walked out in exuberant ensembles inspired by a chic dialogue between style icons — fictional and otherwise — including Carrie Bradshaw, Diana Vreeland, Edith Beale, Iris Apfel and Baltazar’s mother.
Hosiery has remained a throughline in Baltazar’s runway collections for the last few seasons — sheer knee-highs to be exact. But this season the designer cut the feet off of colorful denier tights, in a stirrup-like fashion, layering them under well-tailored pencil dresses and tea-length skirts. The maximalist nature of his muses truly manifested in the sequined opera gloves, belts and “Grey Gardens”-style babushkas.
“I don’t want to talk about colors, fabrics, silhouettes or other details,” he said after the show. “The collection is what you want to see. For me, it’s an open door to a world of possibilities.”
Mestre Studio
Photos: Ugo Camera
Beyond just creating clothing, Mestre Studio‘s creative director Diogo Mestre aims to deeply immerse his audience into his universe. The brand is primarily focused on knitwear and the deconstruction of traditional techniques, highlighting his passion for yarn weaving and formal education in sculptural art from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon.
Mestre Studio’s latest collection is titled “Trugia” — a word that refers to a set of objects without use or value, and that, despite no longer serving a purpose, remain in your possession. Each look revisits forgotten, seemingly useless objects that are only present as proof of the past. “It’s the doll we once played with every day, the suitcase with worn corners, the pile of old clothes and the box where they rest, covered in dust — objects, fragments of our history that no longer have function, yet we keep them,” says Mestre. “All of these elements compose the silent landscape that inspires the collection.”
As far as the looks themselves, sheer lamé dresses with wired hems and striped knit sets were styled with rainboots, basket bags and fringed folk scarves reminiscent of something you’d find at your grandmother’s house. This also highlights the collection’s own ephemerality with the awareness that these pieces, too, will one day become “trugia,” or destined to be forgotten, yet always capable of being rediscovered.
Disclosure: APICCAPS, the Portuguese Footwear Association, provided my travel and accommodations to attend and cover ModaLisboa.
Source: Fashionista.com
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