Designers have been engineering drama above the wrist for centuries. The gigot sleeve of the 1830s was so exaggerated it needed whalebone or down to hold its shape, YSL brought the leg-of-mutton silhouette back for his Fall 1971 “Proust Ball” collection, pulling Belle Époque proportions into the ’70s.
More recently, the romantic puff sleeve re-entered fashion through collections like Céline Spring 2016, before spending the latter half of the 2010s becoming almost shorthand for the Instagram-friendly dress.
But for the very reason we love a good comeback, the sleeve has returned in recent years as more than one recognisable shape — this time, designers are treating it as an entire area of experimentation. We saw it across regional presentations at Riyadh Fashion Week in 2024 and 2025, from Tima Abid and Khawla Alaiban to Atelier Hekayat, each pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in that shoulder-to-wrist space in their own way.
Spring 2026 had designers using wire, horsehair and tulle to make sleeves and bodices physically stand away from the body, by Fall, the proportion play had become harder to miss. Collina Strada went Victorian with puffed sleeves, Balenciaga opened with a leather balloon construction, and at Copenhagen’s latest shows, Caro Editions referenced Princess Diana through broad shoulders and puffed sleeves.
We’re talking ballooned, elongated, tightly cuffed, cape-like, occasionally enormous — not one dominant shape, but a renewed interest in what happens when designers move the silhouette outwards again.
And there’s good reason behind it all. Fashion has spent several seasons obsessed with the body itself, sheer dressing, cut-outs, exposed lingerie, micro proportions. The sleeve offers an opportunity to bring fabric, texture and form back into focus. You can change the entire architecture of a look without relying on how much of the body is on show.
Lady B, Oscar Kraye’s latest haute couture collection, is another literal case in point. Created between Beirut and Dubai, Haidar Krayem builds the collection around two very personal references, Beirut itself — long spoken of in Arabic as a woman — and the rounded shell, wings and markings of the ladybug.
Those ideas come through in cocoon shapes, architectural capes and exaggerated volumes.
One of my favourites, and easily the collection’s biggest statement, features a dark column framed by vast crimson sleeves, densely ruched and looped from shoulder to floor until the sleeves become the entire point of the look.
There isn’t one shape we’re all being asked to wear, designers are only rediscovering just how much can happen along the length of an arm. Turns out, it was very good fashion real estate after all.
