Mad Beats Magazine

Tokyo James Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:32Z

February 28, 2026

Iniye Tokyo James delivered a visually strong and materially substantial collection this afternoon. His work is always informed by his Nigerian identity, and this time there was another more personal layer woven into it that was the result of time recently spent with his Belgium-based father, Doye.

Going through a trove of photos of Doye in his pomp inspired James to revive elements of his old man’s personal style, reflected in the kicky swagger of his suiting shapes and the matching supersize scarves that cloaked several of the looks. These were especially impactful in a gold-hued look cut from a dense velour, almost ruglike fabric. That same fabric was used as the foundation for a new take on James’s emerging latticed-leather trademark pieces. The suiting was often underlaid with opaque chiffon shirting to add a straightforwardly effective sensual touch.

The knitwear and much of the other craftwork was made in Lagos to a high standard. Particularly attractive was a dress in a multicolored woven fabric into which diagonal loops of colorful yarn were inserted to create fringing around the body. The designer evolved his wood beadwork pieces, cutting trousers in leather and a leopard print that were all bead south of the knee. Other womenswear standouts included a pleated skirt printed with a solarized color flash of red and yellow. A dress, skirt, and shirt shaped from grids of metal-hued, pearlescent-beaded floral cutouts were arrestingly layered over more chiffon. James’s leather accessories featured his usual punky abundance of metal hardware.

The designer reported before this afternoon’s show that the shape of his business is changing. “We’re seeing a lot of new sales from across the continent: Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa. It’s really interesting. Whereas a few years ago, around 60% of sales were from Europe and 40% from Africa, it’s now the other way around.” Wherever you’re from, James is an independent designer whose appealingly distinct vision is well worth looking into.

Philipp Plein Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:33Z

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MSGM Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:34Z

Massimo Giorgetti took over Fondazione ICA for his fall outing, turning the space into a kind of art-meets-fashion playground. The backdrop came courtesy of Brazilian artist Marina Rheingantz, whose abstract, memory-soaked paintings—think a more emotional little cousin of Jackson Pollock—clearly hit Giorgetti right in the mood board.

His ties to the art world are long-standing, and you can tell. Giorgetti has an unpretentious knack for weaving references into his work without ever sounding like he’s quoting from the art-gallery-wall text. Nothing feels didactic; it’s art appreciation with respect. The plot thickened during a Venice weekend, where an exhibition devoted to Leonor Fini at Tommaso Calabro Gallery was obsessively all about cats. Naturally, Giorgetti ran with it.

Enter MSGM’s feline era: A Bengal prowled across an eco-fur maxi-coat, and a duchesse satin shirt featured a black and white kitty that landed rather spooky. Cats may be the label’s unofficial mascots, yet they share the designer’s affections with equanimity alongside his two adorable terriers, Pane and Coda.

The collection played out like a game of memory, though Giorgetti would gently swat your hand away from calling it revisited archive. His preferred framing was “new memories” and “revisited memories,” which actually sounds lighter, fresher, and decidedly less mothball adjacent. Running through it all was a flirtation between masculine and feminine codes, a familiar circle game at MSGM. Even the soundtrack leaned in: A recorded interview with Fini floated from speakers, in which she observed that everyone should be a little androgynous and that true style lives somewhere in the overlap.

On the runway, that philosophy translated into rhythmic contrasts. A polished cocktail look would glide by, only to be immediately undercut by a washed-denim combo. A pragmatic XXL parka lined with eco-fur softened things up when followed by a whisper-thin tank dotted with a tiny rose and a flouncy duchesse satin skirt. These weren’t clashes so much as playful plot twists. Giorgetti isn’t interested in resolving opposites; he’d much rather watch them flirt.

He also dipped back into the MSGM color vault, pulling out the brand’s greatest hits—lime green, high-voltage orange, and punchy fuchsia—then smartly cooling the whole situation with grays, blacks, and sensible neutrals. The balancing act was deft: expressive enough to read as artistic, but never veering into try-hard territory.

MSGM’s muse practically introduced herself—think the art-world regular you clock at the Frieze Art Fair or Art Basel, the woman who gets dressed with zero fear and possibly one eye closed. “She’ll happily clash a color or two,” Giorgetti remarked. “Maybe she makes style mistakes, her accessorizing is bonkers, yet she still walks into the room radiating that rare mix of independence and wit.” After all, perfection is forgettable, but a great mistake? That’s what makes you memorable.

Loro Piana Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:35Z

Not all fashion is luxury, and not all luxury is fashion. The two categories of consumables are so often coupled together, like two carriages of a train, that it seems sometimes worth restating.

Loro Piana presents on the calendar of Milan fashion week, so it’s partly coupled to the fashion train. Really, however, it is a luxury house that produces collections according to fashion’s seasonal rhythms but whose core appeal rests in the perception of connoisseurship. Its proprietary textile fabrications include Royal Lightness (an ultra-fine wool/silk blend) and Gift Of Kings (an ultra-ultra-fine merino). Similarly, its collections often hew towards a quite interesting cross-cultural melange of perceived nobility that is occasionally seasoned with a dash of culture, but which rarely strikes you as being much about fashion.

This season’s presentation was staged around the notion of a cross-continent train journey whose influences ran from Normandy to Persia. In a way this was a return journey: if the presentation was set on a luxury train, then that train was upholstered in the many scarves, shawls and garments in the ancient, Persian-origin paisley that has been part of Loro Piana’s catalogue since the 1970s. One shawled woman’s look of a full sleeved shirt and pleated skirt was cut in a truly lovely red wool/silk jacquard fabric, and came with a matching bag. At the front of the presentation there was a full skirted and belted tonal paisley jacquard silk dress with a shearling jerkin insert worn with ruched suede boots and a vaguely central Asian cylindrical felt hat. To that look’s right was a mannequin attired in a loose robe-coat, relaxed trousers, more boots, grosgrain ribboned paisley ikat slippers, and a wide draped scarf arranged as a head covering beneath another chimney of a felt hat.

These looks shared a sense of costume that was more romantic than folkloric: very Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago. This sense of imagined travelers continued in an ochre orange tailored coat whose collar was embroidered in wool after a Kashmir shawl, its paisley a swirling dance of claret, teal, ivory and saffron. The collection’s process was to touch upon regional textile traditions and architectures without ever stopping long enough to become overly literal.

The Loro Piana express also took in plenty of mitteleuropa flavors, most compellingly in its Tirol-touched country outerwear for men and women: this tended to look delightful. Tailoring was comfortably loose, generally nostalgic, and broadly mid-century. The final stop seemed to be Paris and its hinterlands, as evinced in a shawl-collared chenille cashmere/wool knit that was inspired, apparently, by the traditional insulation of Norman fisherfolk.

Despite the recently asserted fashion for so-called quiet luxury that was so widely applied to it, Loro Piana isn’t truly a fashion brand. It is a prestige textile house that dresses an idea of inherited—or, even better, inherent—taste that can be applied across many different regions. This collection did that.

Loro Piana Fall 2026 Menswear

2026-03-01T02:05:36Z

Not all fashion is luxury, and not all luxury is fashion. The two categories of consumables are so often coupled together, like two carriages of a train, that it seems sometimes worth restating.

Loro Piana presents on the calendar of Milan Fashion Week, so it’s partly coupled to the fashion train. Really, however, it is a luxury house that produces collections according to fashion’s seasonal rhythms but whose core appeal rests in the perception of connoisseurship. Its proprietary textile fabrications include Royal Lightness (an ultrafine wool-silk blend) and Gift of Kings (an ultra-ultra-fine merino). Similarly, its collections often hew toward a quite interesting cross-cultural mélange of perceived nobility that is occasionally seasoned with a dash of culture, but which rarely strikes you as being much about fashion.

This season’s presentation was staged around the notion of a cross-continent train journey whose influences ran from Normandy to Persia. In a way, this was a return journey: If the show was set on a luxury train, then that train was upholstered in the many scarves, shawls, and garments in the ancient Persian-origin paisley that has been part of Loro Piana’s catalog since the 1970s. One shawled women’s look of a full-sleeve shirt and pleated skirt was cut in a truly lovely red wool-silk jacquard fabric and came with a matching bag. At the front of the presentation, there was a full-skirted and belted tonal paisley jacquard silk dress with a shearling jerkin insert worn with ruched suede boots and a vaguely central Asian cylindrical felt hat. To that look’s right was a mannequin attired in a loose robe coat, relaxed trousers, more boots, grosgrain-ribboned paisley ikat slippers, and a wide draped scarf arranged as a head covering beneath another chimney of a felt hat.

These looks shared a sense of costume that was more romantic than folkloric: very Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago. This sense of imagined travelers continued in an ochre-orange tailored coat whose collar was embroidered in wool after a Kashmir shawl, its paisley a swirling dance of claret, teal, ivory, and saffron. The collection’s process was to touch upon regional textile traditions and architectures without ever stopping long enough to become overly literal.

The Loro Piana express also took in plenty of Mitteleuropa flavors, most compellingly in its Tirol-touched country outerwear for men and women: This tended to look delightful. Tailoring was comfortably loose, generally nostalgic, and broadly midcentury. The final stop seemed to be Paris and its hinterlands, as evinced in a shawl-collared chenille cashmere-wool knit that was inspired, apparently, by the traditional insulation of Norman fisherfolk.

Ferrari Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:37Z

February 28, 2026

When the Thai love idol Keng Harit rolled outside this show—in a Ferrari, naturally—the crowd of young women waiting to glimpse him screamed at a very specific frequency. Inside, Rocco Iannone was briefing journalists on the eroticism he intended to transmit in a collection that centered around skin, speed, and sensuality.

Today marked Iannone’s 10th show since slipping into the Ferrari fashion line driver’s seat. He has recently expanded his practice by designing costumes for a new performance of Benjamin Millepied’s ballet I Feel the Earth Move. Appropriately enough, Iannone discussed the language of the body and the sharing of emotion through touch before today’s runway outing.

This show was set around an oval pool of water into which drops occasionally fell from rigging above, before the faucets were opened at the finale to allow for a deluge. It opened with a group of pale leather looks—suiting, a wrapped column dress, a ruffle-front sheath, an overcoat—in which you could sometimes glimpse a lining in the house red. A dress in vertically ribbed silk jersey was gathered in diagonal swirls around the body. Shawl-collar padded jackets in ivory silk seemed derived from racingwear but looked ceremonially delicate and considered.

Glossy moiré suiting; some interestingly finished, almost rusty denim looks; and some fitted deconstructed tailoring came next. Leather outerwear, often oversized, was texturized to have the same gnarled finish as a tortoiseshell. An interesting dark knit was nubbed as if it had been plucked free of feathers. A closing trio of crystal-embroidered gowns was prefaced by a vaguely animal quartet of looks cut from a chiffon lined with locks of hairlike silk fringing. If the earth didn’t quite move, this was still an engagingly ambitious and technically impressive performance from Iannone and his team of Ferrari fashion engineers.

Ferragamo Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:38Z

Maximilian Davis was under full sail at Ferragamo this afternoon with a collection as sophisticated and imaginative as any he has shown here. He returned to last season’s speakeasy context (which explained the darkened curtained set), while considering the Provincetown palette of American Precisionist artist Charles Demuth. Into this mix he added the aesthetic of maritime attire.

An opening section featured oversized and sometimes overcomplicated peacoats and coats in navy cashmere to which panels lined in ivory silk were buttoned in to create a sense of Cubist deconstruction. Two Guernsey-touched sweaters, one navy, one white, featured raised collars that had been unbuttoned to fall away around the neck.

A middy blouse in ivory satin prefaced two matching shirt and skirt looks (in purplish organza and ivory satin) upon which the traditional placket lacing of the maritime garment was applied in a graphic stroke from shoulder to knee. The blouse was extended into a dress in heavy navy satin with equal effect.

Those buttoned-in panels on the opening outerwear prefaced the next section of dresses and shirt/skirts in wool and leather that were constructed after the sailor’s shirt template and assembled entirely from buttoned flyaway panels. These looked very strong: graphic, striking, suggestive. Also effective were the later sculpted ruffle dresses in gold lamé and an early jacquard colored like that earlier purplish look after Demuth’s palette.

A section of garment-dyed gabardine and nylon menswear and womenswear was peppered with house Gancini hardware and accented by leather quilted overshirts and gilets. The menswear tailoring was narrowly waisted, with full legs, and often worn under luxurious leather blouson jackets. The closing section of georgette dresses with their cinched accordion of pleats mid-calf emitted a visual echo of the heavy curtains that lined the space.

Davis said he had dug once more into Salvatore Ferragamo’s peerless archive of footwear innovation and been struck by a molded sole process that was incorporated into wave detail wedges and crystal-toe pumps. He added that his own process had been about bringing together a fresh intersection of characters in his imagined speakeasy, a site of free exchange and adventure.

Ermanno Scervino Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:39Z

“When I first began in this profession, lace carried a ceremonious allure, and I was criticized for daring to profane it by pairing it with sportier pieces,” said Ermanno Scervino backstage. His show opened with the voice of Mina in “Sacumdì Sacumdà”: “One day the devil meets me in the street and says, ‘Come along, no one will see. I have everything you need.’” The lyrics seemed to mirror Scervino’s vision perfectly. He knows what his women want. “When I create, I always ask myself why someone should choose to wear my clothes, and I imagine how she wants to feel when she gets dressed,” he said.

“This collection contains everything I love,” he added. “The constant is creating harmony where none exists.” If he succeeds time and again, it is because he handles fabrics and craftsmanship with mastery. Donegal tweed was transformed into denim. Knitwear was reconceived as outerwear, cut with the sartorial precision of a car coat. The tailored suit became pajamas in featherlight yet structured pashmina. Tartan was rendered as an illusion in weightless worsted wool. Technical nylon jackets were lined with loden or astrakhan—sportswear elevated to a level of refinement. Sweaters, when paired with gold lace mermaid skirts, had an unmistakably evening allure.

For fall, Scervino set out to reconstruct the silhouette, heightening the tension between nipped-in waists and the sweep of voluminous skirts, between the strict architecture of leopard-print ponyskin outerwear and the fluidity of romantic slips. Even the most quotidian imagery was ennobled by embroidery: Lingerie-inspired dresses were laser cut and intricately inlaid, as were shearling coats and denim.

The palette opened with cream and deepened into sinuous black, moving through shades of gray, tobacco, and powder pink, and culminated in flashes of red. The woman imagined here seduces with sophistication and makes even the most ordinary moments feel exceptional—in loafers, with a pair of heels tucked into a mesh bag. Or the other way around.

Durazzi Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:40Z

Ilenia Durazzi presented her collection by appointment this season, shelving the art performances she usually favors. Theatrics were relocated to the look book, staged in a stark white void punctuated by mounds of black earth, just enough grit to tether the images to reality. The space was populated by a crowd of artists, musicians, and gallerists, plus a scene-stealing horse, a hint to Durazzi’s equestrian leanings. She dubbed the setting “a contemporary Arcadia,” though it felt more austere than idyllic.

Durazzi operates with the confidence of a brand that knows what it is doing and what it refuses to do. The designer’s refined, mature aesthetic came through in a tightly edited collection built around what are fast becoming the house’s signatures: classic, everyday silhouettes recalibrated with a dash of cool. Pieces were rendered in quality fabrics and fine leathers, finished with “obsessive precision” and cut in gently oversized proportions that suggested ease rather than excess. Bombers, peacoats, and car coats were made for a fast-paced urban life, rendered in a deliberately disciplined palette of black, gray, and moss green—a study in restraint that read more as conviction than caution.

This season, Durazzi introduced eveningwear, but don’t expect glamour and red-carpet looks. Rather there was a tuxedo with ponyskin lapels worn over a black chiffon kilt with ponyskin details, and a black halter-neck number draped easily around the hips. This is the no-logo school of thought. Durazzi’s language resonates with the artistic milieu: unfussy yet distinctive, essential yet carrying presence. It’s clothing that doesn’t beg to be noticed but tends to be remembered anyway.

There was also a budding menswear edit in the making. Artist Maurizio Cattelan was photographed in a roomy black car coat in richly textured wool, offering a subtle but pointed teaser of the line Durazzi is now introducing. If this is the opening note, the brand’s expansion into menswear looks less like a side project and more like a rather confident next act.

As it happens, this is the Chinese zodiac’s year of the fire horse, traditionally associated with independence and bold moves. Durazzi is an equestrian, and a certain discipline together with instinctive, impulsive streaks is what makes her line appealing. With timing like that, one imagines she is perfectly happy to ride the omen.

Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:41Z

With new creative directors at Milan’s top brands—Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Fendi, and Marni just this season, and more change coming at Versace soon—Italian fashion is in a state of flux. But not at Dolce & Gabbana. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana hit the 40-year mark in 2025, and they were proud to reaffirm that legacy today, opening the show with a short video of black-and-white images of their new collection that included a voiceover testifying to the power of identity. “Many brands today lose completely their identity,” said Dolce ahead of the show. “Our history is very long.”

Today’s return to their roots came after a couple of seasons of exploring contemporary modes of dress: For spring it was pj’s all day, and last fall it was the spontaneous style of their model friends off-duty: vintage tees, jeans, and biker boots, with an oversized men’s coat on top. Back in their studio several days ago, they pointed to pictures of young Marpessa Hennink and Isabella Rossellini wearing the Sicilian men’s tailoring that distinguished the upstart label back in its early years.

Four decades later, Domenico Dolce’s sartorial skills remain as sharp as ever. To renew the hourglass jackets and coats that are such a hallmark of the brand, he cut them so that the back mirrors the front, the same lapels, the same buttons marching up the spine. “It’s a big, big challenge,” he admitted, and he asked the models wearing these special pieces to pause partway down the runway and do an old-school twirl, the better to show off the impressive workmanship. The effect was particularly compelling on a man-size double-breasted blazer that gave a peekaboo of the lacy silk camisole underneath.

The collection was almost exclusively black, the color of the week here in Milan, though they broke it up toward the end with a series of micro-print dresses made in the spirit of an iconic Helmut Newton photograph of the model Lisa Taylor from 1975. In the powerful image, Taylor reclines on a couch, a print dress slack between her legs, training her female gaze on a shirtless man who we see only from behind. “We talk all the time about our memories of pictures,” Gabbana explained.

Which brings us to Madonna, who was today’s guest of honor. Dolce & Gabbana created Madonna’s wardrobe for her 1993 “Girlie Show” tour, and she recently recorded “La Bambola,” a 1968 Patty Pravo song celebrating Italy’s influence on world culture, for a Dolce & Gabbana: The One fragrance campaign. Her presence reinforced the designers’ point—that they have remained true to themselves. With change all around and, as we’ve seen, no guarantees of success, that commitment is their greatest asset.

Bottega Veneta Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:42Z

Louise Trotter’s second Bottega Veneta show was held in the brand’s headquarters in the Palazzo San Fedele, situated between Milan’s iconic La Scala and the Duomo. It was a fitting return from the city’s outskirts given Trotter’s emphasis this season on her adopted hometown; she’s British and has been living in Milan for a year, time enough to observe its hard exterior and soft interior.

“I started with this idea of Brutalism and sensuality, because for me it really sums up the feeling that I have: Milan is this sort of very Brutalist city, with a sensuality that’s a little hidden,” she told a group of journalists backstage. She also appreciates how people truly still dress up here. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen that,” she noted.

The show played out as a kind of unfolding, sculpted suiting in a mostly somber palette giving way to dresses in sumptuous, sometimes strange textures and vibrant, pulsing hues. Trotter started with tailoring, the jackets’ shoulders somewhat rounded compared to last season’s—a response, she said, to feedback on her debut. For bottoms, there were roomy pants or wrap skirts suspended from a sturdy leather belt, an idea that she said she lifted from bag construction. The men’s suits followed the same curving lines, though their layered polos and shrunken ribbed sweaters struck a more casual note than she allowed for the women’s looks.

Soon, materiality became the main event. Riffing on the traditional peacoat, she showed it in matte croc, in an intrecciato weave sprouting furry fringe, and in what might have been thick-pile velvet carved to look like astrakhan. Deciphering the fabrics became a guessing game; Trotter said she made a point of emulating furs and skins, Bottega Veneta being a “house of leather.” Silk threads rippled like curly shearling, real shearling was brushed to resemble fox, and there were technical materials in the mix too, including the shaggy fiberglass that made such an impact at her first outing, this time in bubblegum pink that grazed the ankles. It’s worth asking if women will want to envelop themselves in such figure-obscuring silhouettes, but Trotter insisted on their lightness.

Nearly all of the looks were accessorized with a hat, either salt-of-the-earth knit beanies or jaunty fringed caps that conjured nothing so much as Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet. Tunic-length dresses and coats worn bare-legged or with sturdy leggings added to the picture. The most modern and desirable piece in the sensual heart of the collection was an asymmetrical black and white fringed skirt that spiraled down the legs, topped by a simple knit tank. That look did more with less.

Avavav Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:43Z

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” That query, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has escaped the realm of animation and reappeared in print, on the web (HotorNot.com), and dating apps. The implicit understanding is that fairness is judged by the male gaze. Avavav’s Beate Karlsson flipped the script at her fall presentation, where guests walked a runway flanked by female models on either side. The idea of having the models be the guests, she explained on a call, was to focus on the female gaze, which she feels is disproportionately acknowledged in an industry that mainly caters to women.

Imitation of Christ used a similar tactic back in 2001, but there the focus was on the role of model versus critic. At Avavav, Karlsson was thinking instead about the deification and vulnerability of a model on display in a fashion show. For the soundtrack, she compiled snippets of male designers talking about the women they design for.

Karlsson, who likes a slightly androgynous and gothic look for herself, drew on her style and experiences of dressing for men and going out with female friends when creating the fall lineup, which was tighter than some collections in the past. This was less because it was focused solely on womenswear and mainly because there was more and deeper focus on fewer ideas. The signature rib-cage motif was reimagined in many ways—as a print, through slashing, as embroidery. Tights were worn over pumps as well as the brand’s distinctive Finger shoes. The bulbous form of the Larva bag was effectively translated into a kind of bubble skirt that felt like a distant cousin to the wired saucer skirts carried over from spring.

Overall, there was a tomboy quality to the styling, with neckties omnipresent. One was built into a top, while others were tied in pretty bows at the neck. True to Avavav’s streetwear roots were new pieces from Karlsson’s ongoing collaboration with Adidas. The logo’d waistline of underwear was exposed, and what looked like a skirt made of sweatsuit material was actually a skort with an upside-down U-shaped gusset stitched in the middle of the hem. (Karlsson described them as a mashup of an A-line skirt and basketball shorts.) Elephant-leg pants were rebuilt with a “construction inside that is making it collapse in a more, almost liquid-y way,” the designer said.

Wings, which looked like the sides of a miniskirt, flared out from the hips of a slim pair of black trousers; another pinstriped pair that integrated a skirt was a feat of patternmaking. The two-in-one feeling worked well with the kookier aspects of the collection, such as tissue paper–stuffed bras and crooked eyeglasses. With the opening of the Schiaparelli exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in mid-March, Surrealism will once again be a topic of conversation. Perhaps a narrow, fur-look mohair chest band is Karlsson’s equivalent of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup. In any case, this Swedish designer isn’t content with the status quo. “Especially when I was younger, when I was dressing for men or with men in mind, [my approach] was just less personal, less confident, more like I was fitting into something,” Karlsson said. “When I dress for other women, somehow I just want to be more like a character, more unique and special.” By juxtaposing male and female tropes and discovering “interesting ways of shaping the body and silhouette,” Karlsson crafted a collection that delivered all of those qualities and more.

Armarium Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:44Z

February 28, 2026

In a culture driven by reaction, where identity is negotiated publicly and visibility often passes for power, lucidity can feel subversive. Armarium’s fall 2026 collection built on that thesis. Giorgia Gabriele’s starting point was Catherine Tramell in 1992’s Basic Instinct. “It’s her lucidity,” said Gabriele of the character played by Sharon Stone. “It’s not about independence, but mental clarity. Knowing who you are before the world defines you.” The collection’s title, She Was Never the Suspect, read less as a narrative reference and more as a refusal to be put on trial in a culture that constantly demands explanation.

This attitude sharpened the brand’s established codes. “Eliminating the superfluous has always been part of Armarium,” Gabriele said. Silhouettes were vertical and controlled, mixing monolithic coats with column dresses and A-line mini tailoring. The signature crater collars, cut without visible seams, reappeared across the entire collection, reinforcing the sculptural line. Geometry remained an obsession: The designer describes herself as “the girl who looks up,” drawn to the symmetry of facades and the perspective lines of buildings. Newly developed knit patterns echoed the Brutalist lines that have always informed Gabriele’s approach.

Bull leather appeared for the first time. Gabriele was drawn to its compact structure: “I’ve always worked with softer leathers,” she noted, “but I love rigidity. Bull leather lets you build shapes differently.” Cashmere coats and nappa shearling balanced that firmness with controlled volume. A new mustard tone cut through a palette of blacks, off-whites, browns, and blues, introduced across leather and tailoring. Jersey marked a significant expansion: “We had never introduced leisure before,” Gabriele said. Denim was recalibrated with more sartorial precision, drawing from menswear ideals, presenting tailored pleats on its front.

Beyond the presentation, held in Cardi Gallery among some of the finest contemporary artworks and Armarium’s made-to-measure interior pieces, the brand continues to resist dispersion. Distribution is intentionally limited to one partner per city and supplemented by Armarium at Your Place, a private, appointment-based retail format designed around community rather than scale. In a wholesale system under strain, that control feels aligned with the collection’s thesis.

Act No. 1 Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear

2026-03-01T02:05:45Z

Milan label Act No. 1 is having a take-two. Since cofounder Galib Gassanoff struck out to launch his own label in 2024, Luca Lin has been on a journey of discovery, working with new fabrics, techniques, and silhouettes to boost Act No. 1’s appeal. His efforts are paying off: The label is a 2026 LVMH Prize semifinalist and will head to Paris next week for the next round.

But first, his fall show. Lin’s starting point was classic wardrobe staples, which he could manipulate and reimagine to create new forms. Garments were made with excess fabric, carefully cut to create rounded, billowing sleeves, voluminous and bulbous full-length skirts, and folds at the waist. Elsewhere, shirts in different gradients of blue, burgundy, and brown were layered and fused together to create a one-and-done garment that gives the illusion of clever styling. “I had very traditional design training, so I want to take that standard and use it to mix and match and create something new,” the designer said backstage preshow.

The brand’s first act was defined by tulle, but Lin is keen to experiment looking ahead. This season, he worked with wool for the first time to create intarsia knits, which were twisted and wrapped around the waist and neck.

Lin’s previous preoccupation with tulle meant that the label naturally attracted more women. “We made more feminine items, but this time I wanted to make something more [aligned] with menswear, even though we are a genderless brand,” he said. There were small details to allow for this, with elasticated waists on the trousers to “fit all bodies.”

The strongest looks were patchwork leather jackets and coats in shades of brown, constructed using offcuts from the Lineapelle leather fair. Two structured tops were hand-embroidered with more than 25,000 tiny deadstock buttons sourced from Italian button manufacturer RIBL. “Some of the buttons are more than 50 years old,” said Lin. “It’s nice to give them a new life.”

There were nods to the designer’s Chinese heritage, most overtly on a silk shirt featuring an old Chinese print of a woman, digitally reworked to mimic the color grading of Wong Kar Wai movies. Lin also worked with artisans in China’s Rongjiang and Congjiang counties to create blazers using an ancient hand-weaving technique that gives super-light, naturally dyed cotton a linen-like appearance.

The show finished with two papier-mâché sculptural looks to underscore Lin’s dedication to new forms. After 10 years of building his label, he’s having a special moment of recognition. “I’m so excited it’s all happening,” he said. “I’m really happy right now.”

BRIT Awards 2026: Snubs & Surprises

2026-03-01T01:05:52Z

These were our big takeaways from Saturday's ceremony.

2/28/2026

Rosalía at The BRIT Awards 2026 held at Co-op Live on February 28, 2026 in Manchester, England. Zak Hussein/Billboard

Awards shows, by their very design, produce winners and losers and the 2026 BRITs were no different.

The ceremony, which was held at Manchester’s Co-op Live for the first time, featured more losers than normal as Olivia Dean swept her categories and will head back to her hometown London with four prizes: album of the year, artist of the year, song of the year and pop act. She was crowned the new queen of British pop, following triumphs from RAYE (2024) and Charli xcx (2025) at recent ceremonies.

The rest of the awards were spread fairly among a number of acts: Sam Fender nabbed two, Rosé became the first-ever K-pop winner at the BRITs and Rosalía made history by becoming the first Spanish-language artist to earn a win in the international artist field. See the full list of winners from this year’s ceremony here.

Honorary prizes to Noel Gallagher (songwriter of the year), PinkPantheress (producer of the year) and Mark Ronson (outstanding contribution to music) were reminders that award shows can have strong, memorable moments when artists are not pitted against each other, but celebrated for their own unique achievements and style. They provided a welcome change of pace.

Even if Billboard‘s predictions were largely on the money, the results do leave some questions and surprises. A handful of massive names went home empty-handed, something that’ll happen rarely in their illustrious careers. Similarly, some acts will feel particularly thrilled to come home with a trophy and maybe did not see the win coming.

These are the biggest snubs and surprises from the 2026 BRIT Awards.

Snub: Taylor Swift

Taylor has to be considered a frontrunner at any awards ceremony — but she left the 2026 BRITs without a trophy. She competed in two categories (international artist and international song) and lost out to Rosalía and Rosé & Bruno Mars, respectively. The Life of a Showgirl had a four-week run at No. 1 but divided some of the U.K’s critics, which make up part of the Brits Voting Panel and could have played a factor.
Surprise: Sam Fender & Olivia Dean

Although we predicted that their collaboration “Rein Me In” would scoop the song of the year prize, it remains a remarkable victory. The song first featured on Fender’s 2025 album People Watching, with Dean joining for a new version in June following a live performance_._ It had a 35-week climb to No. 1 on the U.K. Charts and finally hit the top spot just seven days before the ceremony. It has peaked at just the right time, and the audience-voted prize benefits songs that can mobilize multiple fanbases like Fender’s and Dean’s.
Snub: Lily Allen

Lily is unlikely to feel too hard done-by: her track record at the BRITs over her career has been spotty, picking up just one award out of 12 nominations since 2007. But her 2025 LP West End Girl was the finest of her career and has dominated pop culture ever since, and to go home empty-handed is a shame.
Surprise: Rosalía

The international artist category was full of heavyweights — Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and more — but Rosalía deservedly came out top of the pile. She gave the night’s best performance and stunned the Co-op Live with a headbanging version of “Berghain.” To make such ambitious, challenging songs and still be recognized at mainstream award ceremonies is a testament to her skill and credibility as a songwriter.
Snub: Sleep Token

Of the acts nominated in the group of the year category, the masked metallers are the only to have had No. 1s on both the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart and the Billboard 200. In fact, Wet Leg is the only other act in the field to land a placement on the latter (Moisturizer, No. 45) in 2025. Sleep Token is playing arenas on a global level, a rarity among British groups, but it appears chart placings and ticket sales do not always translate to trophies.
Surprise: Noel Gallagher

Debate has raged regarding the songwriter of the year prize being handed to a musician who has not released original material since 2023 (and since 2009 under the Oasis name). But the Britpop icons’ songbook did define 2025 with their reunion tour wowing millions and dominating the U.K. charts all summer long. He thanked his brother Liam and the people of Manchester for this deserved award.
Snub: Jim Legxacy

The London musician was up for three prizes on the night but lost out in all of them. Missing out to Lola Young for breakthrough artist is no real surprise, and the hip-hop/grime/rap prize always felt like it belonged to Dave. But the R&B act prize did not feature many commercial heavyweights, and his Black British Music was both critically-acclaimed and the highest-charting project from any of the nominees. Sault collected the prize, despite their ongoing mystery.
Surprise: Geese

The New York rock band has found a special home in the U.K., who adopted them and supported them from early on in their career. To win a BRIT Award as an independent artist and especially against HUNTR/X, HAIM, Turnstile and Tame Impala is something of a shock, but a richly deserved moment for a band on the cusp of greatness.

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The trap Anthropic built for itself

2026-03-01T00:09:13Z

Friday afternoon, just as this interview was getting underway, a news alert flashed across my computer screen: the Trump administration was severing ties with Anthropic, the San Francisco AI company founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had invoked a national security law to blacklist the company from doing business with the Pentagon after Amodei refused to allow Anthropic’s tech to be used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens or for autonomous armed drones that could select and kill targets without human input.

It was a jaw-dropping sequence. Anthropic stands to lose a contract worth up to $200 million and will be barred from working with other defense contractors after President Trump posted on Truth Social directing every federal agency to “immediately cease all use of Anthropic technology.” (Anthropic has since said it will challenge the Pentagon in court.)

Max Tegmark has spent the better part of a decade warning that the race to build ever-more-powerful AI systems is outpacing the world’s ability to govern them. The MIT physicist founded the Future of Life Institute in 2014 and helped organize an open letter — ultimately signed by more than 33,000 people, including Elon Musk — calling for a pause in advanced AI development.

His view of the Anthropic crisis is unsparing: the company, like its rivals, has sown the seeds of its own predicament. Tegmark’s argument doesn’t begin with the Pentagon but with a decision made years earlier — a choice, shared across the industry, to resist binding regulation. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and others have long promised to govern themselves responsibly. Anthropic this week even dropped the central tenet of its own safety pledge — its promise not to release increasingly powerful AI systems until the company was confident they wouldn’t cause harm.

Now, in the absence of rules, there’s not a lot to protect these players, says Tegmark. Here’s more from that interview, edited for length and clarity. You can hear the full conversation this coming week on TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC Download podcast.

When you saw this news just now about Anthropic, what was your first reaction?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s so interesting to think back a decade ago, when people were so excited about how we were going to make artificial intelligence to cure cancer, to grow the prosperity in America and make America strong. And here we are now where the U.S. government is pissed off at this company for not wanting AI to be used for domestic mass surveillance of Americans, and also not wanting to have killer robots that can autonomously — without any human input at all — decide who gets killed.

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Anthropic has staked its entire identity on being a safety-first AI company, and yet it was collaborating with defense and intelligence agencies [dating back to at least 2024]. Do you think that’s at all contradictory?

It is contradictory. If I can give a little cynical take on this — yes, Anthropic has been very good at marketing themselves as all about safety. But if you actually look at the facts rather than the claims, what you see is that Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI have all talked a lot about how they care about safety. None of them has come out supporting binding safety regulation the way we have in other industries. And all four of these companies have now broken their own promises. First we had Google — this big slogan, ‘Don’t be evil.’ Then they dropped that. Then they dropped another longer commitment that basically said they promised not to do harm with AI. They dropped that so they could sell AI for surveillance and weapons. OpenAI just dropped the word safety from their mission statement. xAI shut down their whole safety team. And now Anthropic, earlier in the week, dropped their most important safety commitment — the promise not to release powerful AI systems until they were sure they weren’t going to cause harm.

How did companies that made such prominent safety commitments end up in this position?

All of these companies, especially OpenAI and Google DeepMind but to some extent also Anthropic, have persistently lobbied against regulation of AI, saying, ‘Just trust us, we’re going to regulate ourselves.’ And they’ve successfully lobbied. So we right now have less regulation on AI systems in America than on sandwiches. You know, if you want to open a sandwich shop and the health inspector finds 15 rats in the kitchen, he won’t let you sell any sandwiches until you fix it. But if you say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to sell sandwiches, I’m going to sell AI girlfriends for 11-year-olds, and they’ve been linked to suicides in the past, and then I’m going to release something called superintelligence which might overthrow the U.S. government, but I have a good feeling about mine’ — the inspector has to say, ‘Fine, go ahead, just don’t sell sandwiches.’

There’s food safety regulation and no AI regulation.

And this, I feel, all of these companies really share the blame for. Because if they had taken all these promises that they made back in the day for how they were going to be so safe and goody-goody, and gotten together, and then gone to the government and said, ‘Please take our voluntary commitments and turn them into U.S. law that binds even our most sloppy competitors’ — this would have happened instead. We’re in a complete regulatory vacuum. And we know what happens when there’s a complete corporate amnesty: you get thalidomide, you get tobacco companies pushing cigarettes on kids, you get asbestos causing lung cancer. So it’s sort of ironic that their own resistance to having laws saying what’s okay and not okay to do with AI is now coming back and biting them.

There is no law right now against building AI to kill Americans, so the government can just suddenly ask for it. If the companies themselves had earlier come out and said, ‘We want this law,’ they wouldn’t be in this pickle. They really shot themselves in the foot.

The companies’ counter-argument is always the race with China — if American companies don’t do this, Beijing will. Does that argument hold?

Let’s analyze that. The most common talking point from the lobbyists for the AI companies — they’re now better funded and more numerous than the lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry, the pharma industry and the military-industrial complex combined — is that whenever anyone proposes any kind of regulation, they say, ‘But China.’ So let’s look at that. China is in the process of banning AI girlfriends outright. Not just age limits — they’re looking at banning all anthropomorphic AI. Why? Not because they want to please America but because they feel this is screwing up Chinese youth and making China weak. Obviously, it’s making American youth weak, too.

And when people say we have to race to build superintelligence so we can win against China — when we don’t actually know how to control superintelligence, so that the default outcome is that humanity loses control of Earth to alien machines — guess what? The Chinese Communist Party really likes control. Who in their right mind thinks that Xi Jinping is going to tolerate some Chinese AI company building something that overthrows the Chinese government? No way. It’s clearly really bad for the American government too if it gets overthrown in a coup by the first American company to build superintelligence. This is a national security threat.

That’s compelling framing — superintelligence as a national security threat, not an asset. Do you see that view gaining traction in Washington?

I think if people in the national security community listen to Dario Amodei describe his vision — he’s given a famous speech where he says we’ll soon have a country of geniuses in a data center — they might start thinking: wait, did Dario just use the word ‘country’? Maybe I should put that country of geniuses in a data center on the same threat list I’m keeping tabs on, because that sounds threatening to the U.S. government. And I think fairly soon, enough people in the U.S. national security community are going to realize that uncontrollable superintelligence is a threat, not a tool. This is totally analogous to the Cold War. There was a race for dominance — economic and military — against the Soviet Union. We Americans won that one without ever engaging in the second race, which was to see who could put the most nuclear craters in the other superpower. People realized that was just suicide. No one wins. The same logic applies here.

What does all of this mean for the pace of AI development more broadly? How close do you think we are to the systems you’re describing?

Six years ago, almost every expert in AI I knew predicted we were decades away from having AI that could master language and knowledge at human level — maybe 2040, maybe 2050. They were all wrong, because we already have that now. We’ve seen AI progress quite rapidly from high school level to college level to PhD level to university professor level in some areas. Last year, AI won the gold medal at the International Mathematics Olympiad, which is about as difficult as human tasks get. I wrote a paper together with Yoshua Bengio, Dan Hendrycks, and other top AI researchers just a few months ago giving a rigorous definition of AGI. According to this, GPT-4 was 27% of the way there. GPT-5 was 57% of the way there. So we’re not there yet, but going from 27% to 57% that quickly suggests it might not be that long.

When I lectured to my students yesterday at MIT, I told them that even if it takes four years, that means when they graduate, they might not be able to get any jobs anymore. It’s certainly not too soon to start preparing for it.

Anthropic is now blacklisted. I’m curious to see what happens next — will the other AI giants stand with them and say, we won’t do this either? Or does someone like xAI raise their hand and say, Anthropic didn’t want that contract, we’ll take it? [Editor’s note: Hours after the interview, OpenAI announced its own deal with the Pentagon.]

Last night, Sam Altman came out and said he stands with Anthropic and has the same red lines. I admire him for the courage of saying that. Google, as of when we started this interview, had said nothing. If they just stay quiet, I think that’s incredibly embarrassing for them as a company, and a lot of their staff will feel the same. We haven’t heard anything from xAI yet either. So it’ll be interesting to see. Basically, there’s this moment where everybody has to show their true colors.

Is there a version of this where the outcome is actually good?

Yes, and this is why I’m actually optimistic in a strange way. There’s such an obvious alternative here. If we just start treating AI companies like any other companies — drop the corporate amnesty — they would clearly have to do something like a clinical trial before they released something this powerful, and demonstrate to independent experts that they know how to control it. Then we get a golden age with all the good stuff from AI, without the existential angst. That’s not the path we’re on right now. But it could be.

Pentagon chief blocks officers from Ivy League schools and top universities

2026-02-28T23:51:20Z

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is overhauling the list of schools that military officers can attend for professional courses and graduate programs.

In a memo on Friday on professional military education institutions, he announced the elimination of certain Senior Service College fellowship programs for the 2026-2027 academic year and beyond.

“We must develop strategic thinkers through education grounded in the founding principles and documents of the republic, embracing peace through strength and American ideals, and focused on our national strategies and grounded in realism,” he wrote. “We will no longer invest in institutions that fail to sharpen our leaders’ warfighting capabilities or that undermine the very values they are sworn to defend.”

The list of canceled institutions includes Ivy League schools Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Brown and Princeton as well as other top universities like Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

That comes after the Pentagon chief said earlier this month that he would cancel professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard.

In his memo, Hegseth also included a list of potential new partners schools: Liberty University, George Mason University, Pepperdine, University ofTennessee, University of Michigan, University of Nebraska, University of North Carolina, Clemson, and Baylor, among others.

“For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X on Friday.

Despite his accusation that the schools on his banned list are “anti-American,” some of them have been partners with the military on key emerging priorities.

For example, the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Integration Center is located at Carnegie Mellon University, which has long been a top source of AI innovation.

The center is meant to increase the Army’s familiarity with AI applications and better connect the service with AI leaders in the private sector.

In addition, the Space Force partnered with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies for officer intermediate level education and senior level education.

Representatives for the Army’s AI center and the Space Force didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on how Hegseth’s directive will affect partnerships with their respective schools.

The change comes as the Trump administration is cutting off Anthropic as a provider of AI technology to the federal government, including the Defense Department, while expanding ties with OpenAI and xAI.

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Show HN: Xmloxide – an agent made rust replacement for libxml2

2026-02-28T23:44:58Z

xmloxide

A pure Rust reimplementation of libxml2 — the de facto standard XML/HTML parsing library in the open-source world.

libxml2 became officially unmaintained in December 2025 with known security issues. xmloxide aims to be a memory-safe, high-performance replacement that passes the same conformance test suites.

Features

Memory-safe — arena-based tree with zero unsafe in the public API
Conformant — 100% pass rate on the W3C XML Conformance Test Suite (1727/1727 applicable tests)
Error recovery — parse malformed XML and still produce a usable tree, just like libxml2
Multiple parsing APIs — DOM tree, SAX2 streaming, XmlReader pull, push/incremental
HTML parser — error-tolerant HTML 4.01 parsing with auto-closing and void elements
XPath 1.0 — full expression parser and evaluator with all core functions
Validation — DTD, RelaxNG, and XML Schema (XSD) validation
Canonical XML — C14N 1.0 and Exclusive C14N serialization
XInclude — document inclusion processing
XML Catalogs — OASIS XML Catalogs for URI resolution
xmllint CLI — command-line tool for parsing, validating, and querying XML
Zero-copy where possible — string interning for fast comparisons
No global state — each Document is self-contained and Send + Sync
C/C++ FFI — full C API with header file (include/xmloxide.h) for embedding in C/C++ projects
Minimal dependencies — only encoding_rs (library has zero other deps; clap is CLI-only)

Quick Start

use xmloxide::Document;

let doc = Document::parse_str("Hello").unwrap(); let root = doc.root_element().unwrap(); assert_eq!(doc.node_name(root), Some("root")); assert_eq!(doc.text_content(root), "Hello");

Serialization

use xmloxide::Document; use xmloxide::serial::serialize;

let doc = Document::parse_str("Hello").unwrap(); let xml = serialize(&doc); assert_eq!(xml, "Hello");

XPath Queries

use xmloxide::Document; use xmloxide::xpath::{evaluate, XPathValue};

let doc = Document::parse_str("Rust").unwrap(); let root = doc.root_element().unwrap(); let result = evaluate(&doc, root, "count(book)").unwrap(); assert_eq!(result.to_number(), 1.0);

SAX2 Streaming

use xmloxide::sax::{parse_sax, SaxHandler, DefaultHandler}; use xmloxide::parser::ParseOptions;

struct MyHandler; impl SaxHandler for MyHandler { fn start_element(&mut self, name: &str, _: Option<&str>, _: Option<&str>, _: &[(String, String, Option<String>, Option<String>)]) { println!("Element: {name}"); } }

parse_sax("", &ParseOptions::default(), &mut MyHandler).unwrap();

HTML Parsing

use xmloxide::html::parse_html;

let doc = parse_html("

Hello
World").unwrap(); let root = doc.root_element().unwrap(); assert_eq!(doc.node_name(root), Some("html"));

Error Recovery

use xmloxide::parser::{parse_str_with_options, ParseOptions};

let opts = ParseOptions::default().recover(true); let doc = parse_str_with_options("", &opts).unwrap(); for diag in &doc.diagnostics { eprintln!("{}", diag); }

CLI Tool

Parse and pretty-print

xmllint --format document.xml

Validate against a schema

xmllint --schema schema.xsd document.xml xmllint --relaxng schema.rng document.xml xmllint --dtdvalid schema.dtd document.xml

XPath query

xmllint --xpath "//title" document.xml

Canonical XML

xmllint --c14n document.xml

Parse HTML

xmllint --html page.html

Module Overview

Module

Description

tree

Arena-based DOM tree (Document, NodeId, NodeKind)

parser

XML 1.0 recursive descent parser with error recovery

parser::push

Push/incremental parser for chunked input

html

Error-tolerant HTML 4.01 parser

sax

SAX2 streaming event-driven parser

reader

XmlReader pull-based parsing API

serial

XML serializer and Canonical XML (C14N)

xpath

XPath 1.0 expression parser and evaluator

validation::dtd

DTD parsing and validation

validation::relaxng

RelaxNG schema validation

validation::xsd

XML Schema (XSD) validation

xinclude

XInclude 1.0 document inclusion

catalog

OASIS XML Catalogs for URI resolution

encoding

Character encoding detection and transcoding

ffi

C/C++ FFI bindings (include/xmloxide.h)

Performance

Parsing throughput is competitive with libxml2 — within 3-4% on most documents, and 12% faster on SVG. Serialization is 1.5-2.4x faster thanks to the arena-based tree design. XPath is 1.1-2.7x faster across all benchmarks.

Parsing:

Document

Size

xmloxide

libxml2

Result

Atom feed

4.9 KB

26.7 µs (176 MiB/s)

25.5 µs (184 MiB/s)

~4% slower

SVG drawing

6.3 KB

58.5 µs (103 MiB/s)

65.6 µs (92 MiB/s)

12% faster

Maven POM

11.5 KB

76.9 µs (142 MiB/s)

74.2 µs (148 MiB/s)

~4% slower

XHTML page

10.2 KB

69.5 µs (139 MiB/s)

61.5 µs (157 MiB/s)

~13% slower

Large (374 KB)

374 KB

2.15 ms (169 MiB/s)

2.08 ms (175 MiB/s)

~3% slower

Serialization:

Document

Size

xmloxide

libxml2

Result

Atom feed

4.9 KB

11.3 µs

17.5 µs

1.5x faster

Maven POM

11.5 KB

20.1 µs

47.5 µs

2.4x faster

Large (374 KB)

374 KB

614 µs

1397 µs

2.3x faster

XPath:

Expression

xmloxide

libxml2

Result

Simple path (//entry/title)

1.51 µs

1.63 µs

8% faster

Attribute predicate (//book[@id])

5.91 µs

15.99 µs

2.7x faster

count() function

1.09 µs

1.67 µs

1.5x faster

string() function

1.32 µs

1.77 µs

1.3x faster

Key optimizations: arena-based tree for fast serialization, byte-level pre-checks for character validation, bulk text scanning, ASCII fast paths for name parsing, zero-copy element name splitting, inline entity resolution, XPath // step fusion with fused axis expansion, inlined tree accessors, and name-test fast paths for child/descendant axes.

Run benchmarks (requires libxml2 system library)

cargo bench --features bench-libxml2 --bench comparison_bench

Testing

785 unit tests across all modules
112 FFI tests covering the full C API surface (including SAX streaming)
libxml2 compatibility suite — 119/119 tests passing (100%) covering XML parsing, namespaces, error detection, and HTML parsing
W3C XML Conformance Test Suite — 1727/1727 applicable tests passing (100%)
Integration tests covering real-world XML documents, edge cases, and error recovery

cargo test --all-features

C/C++ FFI

xmloxide provides a C-compatible API for embedding in C/C++ projects (like Chromium, game engines, or any codebase that currently uses libxml2).

Build shared + static libraries (uses the included Makefile)

make

Or build individually:

make shared # .so / .dylib / .dll make static # .a / .lib

Build and run the C example

make example

#include "xmloxide.h"

xmloxide_document *doc = xmloxide_parse_str("Hello"); uint32_t root = xmloxide_doc_root_element(doc); char *name = xmloxide_node_name(doc, root); // "root" char *text = xmloxide_node_text_content(doc, root); // "Hello"

xmloxide_free_string(name); xmloxide_free_string(text); xmloxide_free_doc(doc);

The full API — including tree navigation and mutation, XPath evaluation, serialization (plain and pretty-printed), HTML parsing, DTD/RelaxNG/XSD validation, C14N, and XML Catalogs — is declared in include/xmloxide.h.

Migrating from libxml2

libxml2

xmloxide (Rust)

xmloxide (C FFI)

xmlReadMemory

Document::parse_str

xmloxide_parse_str

xmlReadFile

Document::parse_file

xmloxide_parse_file

xmlParseDoc

Document::parse_bytes

xmloxide_parse_bytes

htmlReadMemory

html::parse_html

xmloxide_parse_html

xmlFreeDoc

(drop Document)

xmloxide_free_doc

xmlDocGetRootElement

doc.root_element()

xmloxide_doc_root_element

xmlNodeGetContent

doc.text_content(id)

xmloxide_node_text_content

xmlNodeSetContent

doc.set_text_content(id, s)

xmloxide_set_text_content

xmlGetProp

doc.attribute(id, name)

xmloxide_node_attribute

xmlSetProp

doc.set_attribute(...)

xmloxide_set_attribute

xmlNewNode

doc.create_node(...)

xmloxide_create_element

xmlNewText

doc.create_node(Text{..})

xmloxide_create_text

xmlAddChild

doc.append_child(p, c)

xmloxide_append_child

xmlAddPrevSibling

doc.insert_before(ref, c)

xmloxide_insert_before

xmlUnlinkNode

doc.remove_node(id)

xmloxide_remove_node

xmlCopyNode

doc.clone_node(id, deep)

xmloxide_clone_node

xmlGetID

doc.element_by_id(s)

xmloxide_element_by_id

xmlDocDumpMemory

serial::serialize(&doc)

xmloxide_serialize

xmlDocDumpFormatMemory

serial::serialize_with_options

xmloxide_serialize_pretty

htmlDocDumpMemory

serial::html::serialize_html

xmloxide_serialize_html

xmlC14NDocDumpMemory

serial::c14n::canonicalize

xmloxide_canonicalize

xmlXPathEvalExpression

xpath::evaluate

xmloxide_xpath_eval

xmlValidateDtd

validation::dtd::validate

xmloxide_validate_dtd

xmlRelaxNGValidateDoc

validation::relaxng::validate

xmloxide_validate_relaxng

xmlSchemaValidateDoc

validation::xsd::validate_xsd

xmloxide_validate_xsd

xmlXIncludeProcess

xinclude::process_xincludes

xmloxide_process_xincludes

xmlLoadCatalog

Catalog::parse

xmloxide_parse_catalog

xmlSAX2... callbacks

sax::SaxHandler trait

xmloxide_sax_parse

xmlTextReaderRead

reader::XmlReader

xmloxide_reader_read

xmlCreatePushParserCtxt

parser::PushParser

xmloxide_push_parser_new

xmlParseChunk

PushParser::push

xmloxide_push_parser_push

Thread safety: Unlike libxml2, xmloxide has no global state. Each Document is self-contained and Send + Sync. The FFI layer uses thread-local storage for the last error message — each thread has its own error state. No initialization or cleanup functions are needed.

Fuzzing

xmloxide includes fuzz targets for security testing:

Install cargo-fuzz (requires nightly)

cargo install cargo-fuzz

Run a fuzz target

cargo +nightly fuzz run fuzz_xml_parse cargo +nightly fuzz run fuzz_html_parse cargo +nightly fuzz run fuzz_xpath cargo +nightly fuzz run fuzz_roundtrip

Building

cargo build cargo test cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings cargo bench

Minimum supported Rust version: 1.81

Limitations

No XML 1.1 — xmloxide implements XML 1.0 (Fifth Edition) only. XML 1.1 is rarely used and not planned.
No XSLT — XSLT is a separate specification (libxslt) and is out of scope.
No Schematron — Schematron validation is not implemented. DTD, RelaxNG, and XSD are supported.
HTML 4.01 only — the HTML parser targets HTML 4.01, not the HTML5 parsing algorithm.
Push parser buffers internally — the push/incremental parser API (PushParser) currently buffers all pushed data and performs the full parse on finish(), rather than truly streaming like libxml2's xmlParseChunk. SAX streaming (parse_sax) is available as an alternative for memory-constrained large-document processing.
XPath namespace:: axis — the namespace:: axis returns the element node when in-scope namespaces match (rather than materializing separate namespace nodes), following the same pattern as the attribute axis.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.

License

MIT

Olivia Dean, Rosalía & More Artists Whose Wins at the 2026 BRIT Awards Made History

2026-02-28T23:38:56Z

PinkPantheress, Sam Fender, Rosé and Wolf Alice also made history.

2/28/2026

Olivia Dean at The BRIT Awards 2026 held at Co-op Live on February 28, 2026 in Manchester, England. Zak Hussein/Billboard

Olivia Dean, Rosalía and more artists made history at the 2026 BRIT Awards, which were presented on Saturday (Feb. 28) at the Co-op Live arena in Manchester, England. Dean won four awards on the night: British artist of the year, Mastercard album of the year, song of the year (in tandem with Sam Fender) and best pop act. Fender also picked up a second award: alternative/rock act.

Women made a strong showing, maintaining their years-long dominance in several key categories. The gender-neutral award for British artist of the year has been won by a female solo artist in four of the five years it has been presented. Adele, RAYE and Charli XCX preceded Dean to victory in this category. Harry Styles is the only male artist to win in this category.

Dean’s The Art of Loving also won album of the year, marking the third year in a row that a female solo artist has won in this category. RAYE’s My 21st Century Blues won two years ago. Charli XCX’s Brat won last year. This marks the first time in BRITs history that women have won three years running in this marquee category.

“APT.” by Rosé and Bruno Mars won international song of the year, the fifth consecutive victory in this category by a female solo artist (one working in tandem with a top male star, in this case). “APT.” follows Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe.”

Here are acts who made history at the 2026 BRIT Awards.

Olivia Dean

Dean, who won best new artist at this year’s Grammys, won four awards. She’s the fourth Grammy winner for best new artist to win multiple BRIT Awards over a two-year breakthrough cycle, following Dua Lipa (three awards in 2018-19), Sam Smith (three awards in 2014-15) and Culture Club (three awards in 1983-84).

“Rein Me In” by Sam Fender and Dean won song of the year. It’s the third year in a row that a collaboration has taken this award. “Guess” by Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish won last year. “Escapism” by RAYE featuring 070 Shake won two years ago. Eilish and 070 Shake are both American. “Rein Me In” is the first collab by two British artists to win since “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa seven years ago.
Rosalía

The Spanish superstar is the first Latin artist to win international artist of the year. Rosalía is also expected to have a big night at the 2026 Grammys, where her LUX is a strong candidate for an album of the year nod.

Bad Bunny was also nominated in the category. (Votes were cast before the Puerto Rican superstar’s acclaimed Super Bowl halftime show.)
Rosé

The superstar became the first Kpop artist to win a Brit Award when “APT.,” her smash collaboration with Bruno Mars, won best international song. (Of course, at this point, Rosé’s appeal transcends any niche category.) BTS, BLACKPINK and HUNTR/X have each been nominated for best international group but have yet to win the prize.
Pink Pantheress

Pink Pantheress became the first woman to win British producer of the year, an award that has been presented nearly every year since 1982. At 24, she’s also the youngest recipient of the award, a distinction formerly held by Steve Levine and Fred again.., who were each 26 when they won (in 1984 and 2020, respectively).

For the record, no woman has ever won the Grammy for producer of the year, non-classical, which has been presented every year since 1975.
Sam Fender

Fender won best alternative/rock act for the second year in a row — and the third time in five years.

In the five years that the BRITs have presented genre awards, Fender is the first three-time winner in any of these categories. Dua Lipa is the top winner of best pop act (formerly best pop/R&B act), Becky Hill is the top winner of best dance act, and Dave is the top winner of best hip hop/grime/R&B act. Each has won twice in their respective categories.
Dave

Dave is the first two-time winner of hip hop/grime/rap act. He won in that category in 2022 and won again this year.
Wolf Alice

Wolf Alice is the first female-fronted group to win group of the year twice. Wolf Alice previously took the honor in 2022. Moreover, they’re only the second group (of any gender configuration) to win twice inside the last 10 years. The 1975 won in both 2017 and 2019.

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Why 2026 marks the definitive pivot from luxury hotels to private villas

2026-02-28T22:48:21Z

The landscape of high-end travel is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. For decades, the five-star hotel served as the undisputed benchmark for luxury, offering a reliable, if somewhat predictable, blend of quality and service. Yet, as we move through 2026, a more nuanced definition of the “perfect stay” has emerged. Today’s most discerning travellers, and the consultants who advise them, are increasingly transitioning towards a hospitality model rooted in true autonomy, expansive space, and local integrity.

While the world’s iconic hotels remain a vital part of the travel tapestry, there is a growing appetite for the discretion that only a private residence can provide. In this evolving market, the role of the specialists has become paramount. Privadia has carved out a niche as a bridge to the Mediterranean’s most coveted locations: Ibiza, Mallorca, Mykonos, and Kalkan, by prioritising a direct-to-owner approach that offers a transparent alternative to the traditional hotel suite.

This pivot toward villa reservations is propelled by a clear shift in modern priorities.

Total sovereignty over space

The primary limitation of even the most prestigious hotel is the communal nature of the experience. Regardless of the nightly rate, guests must still navigate shared lifts, public lobbies, and bustling breakfast terraces.

A villa removes the “public” from the private holiday. Whether it is a clifftop retreat in Ibiza or a waterfront estate in Mykonos, the guest commands the entire perimeter. There are no “quiet hours” dictated by management and no strangers at the poolside. It is an environment defined by absolute sovereignty.

Radical transparency and directness

The luxury villa market has historically been clouded by “grey market” listings and multi-layered agency markups. The industry is now seeing a move toward greater operational precision. By enforcing a direct-to-owner policy, Privadia ensures that the distance between the guest and the property is minimised.

Verifiable quality

Dealing directly with owners or property managers ensures that the residence meets exacting standards before a guest ever arrives.

Operational precision

Communication is instantaneous. If a client has a specific technical requirement or a security concern, the dialogue happens with the individual who holds the keys, not a remote call centre.

The local advantage: On-the-ground expertise

A hotel’s “local knowledge” is often confined to the concierge desk. In contrast, the new standard of villa management relies on dedicated, on-the-ground teams embedded within the community.

This infrastructure ensures that from the guests arrival, till their departure, the experience is supported by those who understand local nuances: the best private moorings to the most discreet in-villa chefs.

Reclaiming the schedule

The 2026 traveller increasingly views “scheduled luxury” as a contradiction in terms. The rigid bureaucracy of hotel dining windows and housekeeping slots is often seen as an unnecessary inconvenience. In a private villa, the rhythm of the day is dictated solely by the guest.

Dining

No reservations are required. A private chef can prepare Michelin-standard cuisine on the terrace at midnight if desired.

Wellness

Spas and gyms are entirely private. A yoga session in a Mallorcan garden happens on the client’s timeline, not a pre-set class schedule.

The logic of the group

While a villa represents a significant investment, the value proposition for multi-generational families or groups is peerless. To match the square footage, private pool access, and professional facilities of a luxury villa, a client would often need to reserve an entire wing of a luxury hotel.

By consolidating a group into a single, expansive estate, the experience becomes more cohesive and social, providing a level of intimacy that multiple five-star suites simply cannot replicate.

The verdict

The shift toward villas in 2026 is not merely a passing trend; it is a mature transition of the travel industry. Discerning clients now value exclusivity over visibility and bespoke local management over corporate standardisation.

By bridging the gap between the raw beauty of the Mediterranean and the professional reliability of a luxury villa supplier, the villa experience has become more than just a place to stay: it is a curated, secure, and entirely personalised experience.

[

Stuart Glen

](https://www.aluxurytravelblog.com/author/sglen/)

Stuart Glen is Founder at Privadia. Privadia is a leading villa supplier for travel professionals, specialising in exclusive properties across Europe. If you would like to be a guest blogger on A Luxury Travel Blog in order to raise your profile, please contact us.

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BRIT Awards 2026: Snubs & Surprises

Snub: Taylor Swift

Surprise: Sam Fender & Olivia Dean

Snub: Lily Allen

Surprise: Rosalía

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Show HN: Xmloxide – an agent made rust replacement for libxml2

xmloxide

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License

Olivia Dean, Rosalía & More Artists Whose Wins at the 2026 BRIT Awards Made History

Olivia Dean

Rosalía

Rosé

Pink Pantheress

Sam Fender

Dave

Wolf Alice

Why 2026 marks the definitive pivot from luxury hotels to private villas

Total sovereignty over space

Radical transparency and directness

Verifiable quality

Operational precision

The local advantage: On-the-ground expertise

Reclaiming the schedule

Dining

Wellness

The logic of the group

The verdict