Photographed by Jet Swan during the collection’s presentation at the Palais d’Iéna, Y-3’s Autumn-Winter 2026 campaign entrusts its image to a skater rather than a model. A choice that says more about the line than a runway show could.
A regular rather than a face
Mark Gonzales is no newcomer to Y-3. The brand presents him as a long-standing friend of the line founded in 2002 by Yohji Yamamoto and adidas, not as a one-off seasonal signing. This status changes the nature of the image: the campaign does not seek to introduce a new face, it extends an already-established relationship between a skater turned cultural figure and a house that has built its wardrobe on the hybridisation of Japanese tailoring and sportswear.
A setting that contradicts the subject
The choice of shoot location deserves attention: the Palais d’Iéna, seat of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, a building designed by Auguste Perret, whose concrete architecture and classical rotunda have nothing of a skatepark about them. By photographing Gonzales in this institutional setting rather than in the street, Y-3 shifts the reading of the collection: the pieces are no longer shown as a street uniform, but as a wardrobe capable of moving through a seat of power without borrowing its codes.
A deliberately raw photographic eye
The choice of photographer Jet Swan is not neutral either. His work, closer to documentary than advertising staging, frames Gonzales in unchoreographed poses, far from the usual commercial smile of ready-to-wear campaigns. This stance serves the same idea as the setting: to show an individual rather than a model, a presence rather than a pose.
What the images are wearing
The selection of pieces confirms this shift. The knit jumper with frayed hems and stretched Three Stripes, the biker leather jacket adorned with a motif by artist Chito, wide-leg wool trousers with an urban print and a selection of denim pieces compose a wardrobe that alternates structured silhouettes with relaxed cuts. On the footwear side, the Diagonal Stan Smith, the Tokyo Warped and the Nisi High confirm that the line continues to rework its own archive — the Stan Smith foremost among them — rather than multiplying new models.
The presence of Chito’s work — an artist known for a graphic vocabulary close to tagging and avowed vandalism — on a leather jacket crafted with the rigour of tailoring, sums up Y-3’s proposition rather well: making two languages that, in theory, exclude one another, coexist. Since its creation in 2002, the collaboration between Yohji Yamamoto and adidas has never abandoned this balancing act between sportswear and fashion garment. Twenty-four years on, entrusting an entire campaign to a skater rather than a fashion model is not an anomaly, but a reminder of the line’s origins.
The campaign launches on 15 July, with no accompanying runway show. It remains to be seen whether the wardrobe will hold, on the street, the same tension it displays against the rotunda of the Palais d’Iéna.
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