The Tamesis
We’re back again: to snowy Berlin for Fall 2026 Fashion Week, and if the Ioannes show on day one is anything to go by, a throwback to the 1990s. The angular minimalist palette comes in black, brown or ivory. Slim jackets and even slimmer bootleg pants with seams that snake around the body. A shaggy shearling coat or what was called a horsehide coat at the time, except it wasn’t, it was made of leather and looked just like it. A tight cardigan that takes a lot of effort to put on. Micro bra as a top. One-shoulder shirt with flowy trailing panel that can be worn with more kicks. Pointed-toe stilettos with straps that wrap around the ankle, ballet-shoe style. Killer shades. Hair slicked back. Sparkly eye-catching earrings. Sex comes with a gravy of menace. You know: nineties.
For Ioannes designer Johannes Boehl Cronau, it’s not just an exercise in style references from the decade. He founded his brand in Paris and over the six years or so he allowed himself to look back a bit to realize this collection. “I was thinking about what motivates me, and what motivates me is memory,” Burr Crono said. “This is the series that I’ve listened to the most to myself. Yeah, it does feel like the most personal one I’ve ever done.”
When he looked back, he found that it was the 1990s that he remembered; remembering his mother at that time, who looked gorgeous and chic in simple, fashionable clothes and pointed shoes. The idea, he said, was to take the fragrance of that memory and make it powerful and real today; understandable and relatable to his sisters, the women he worked with, the women around him, the women he considered friends
But he cares about more than just the important women in his life, or the halcyon days of the last decade of the 20th century. His years in business also showed. To be honest, although Boehl Cronau’s collections are full of 90s style, this is really the pinnacle of Boehl Cronau: strict linearity mixed with skimpy lingerie; simple, sexy, and the preference to set aside any fuss to achieve a certain sophistication. This is what he’s built his brand on, and now, it feels right to delve further into the designs he loves.
As he works, he also has in his mind the challenge of running a brand like his, an independent David, in a world of corporate Goliaths today, and it’s safe to say that this will only be echoed in the fall 2026 season and beyond. “I think there’s a question of how small brands that love fashion will work in the future,” he said. “So this series is also really a love letter to an industry that is sometimes hard to be a part of. It felt like the right moment to really go the extra mile and do something with the utmost joy and generosity.”
