HELIOT EMIL AW26: CYMATICS
For AW26, HELIOT EMIL starts with something invisible to create a deeply physical collection. Titled CYMATICS, the Danish studio explores what happens when vibration stops being sound and begins to take shape.
Some phenomena cannot be seen, yet their effects can be felt. Sound is one of them. A frequency moves through space, altering a surface and setting the body in motion. Under certain conditions, vibration can even draw patterns across matter. Known as cymatics, this phenomenon sits at the core of HELIOT EMIL’s new Autumn/Winter 2026 collection.
Rather than treating clothing as a static surface, CYMATICS approaches it as the result of energy in motion. Frequencies become structures, waves become textures, and movement becomes a tool for transforming the silhouette.
The collection translates this scientific language through a series of precise constructions and experimental surfaces. Pleating takes on an almost architectural quality, while textile manipulations create volumes that appear to exist in a constant state of transformation. Technical garments, a defining element of HELIOT EMIL’s visual language, are combined with more fluid elements, creating a tension between control and movement.
The inspiration also emerges through natural forms: the concentric ripples spreading across water, the geometric patterns generated by different frequencies, and the traces left behind as energy moves through a surface. Seemingly ephemeral references are given weight, structure and presence.
At the centre of this exploration is VIBRAXIS, the collection’s tailoring program. Tailoring moves away from its traditional rigidity, incorporating rhythm through pleating and repetition. Lines are organised as if responding to a specific frequency, creating garments where technical precision meets a sense of kinetic movement.
In CELESTA, the reference to waves becomes more intense. Hand-applied detailing creates surfaces that capture and reflect light, evoking the visual density of a frequency when it becomes visible. By contrast, ATONAL brings the concept into the realm of touch. Its textured fleece pieces aim to recreate not so much the appearance of sound, but the physical sensation of resonance.
Yet HELIOT EMIL’s experimentation extends beyond garment construction. Material innovation once again plays a central role, particularly through a collaboration with CYCORA®, the Los Angeles-based company transforming textile waste into regenerated fibres.
The collaboration results in four exclusive pieces integrated into CYMATICS, expanding the brand’s ongoing investigation into new materials and production processes. Here, innovation is not simply a technological device, but part of a broader exploration of what a textile can become and where it can come from.
With CYMATICS, HELIOT EMIL continues to develop its distinctive vocabulary, bringing technology, material experimentation and design into a single framework. The collection begins with something that, in itself, has no physical form sound and transforms it into something that can be seen, touched and worn.
Rather than simply representing a frequency, HELIOT EMIL attempts to materialise it. In doing so, clothing becomes more than a response to the shape of the body: it becomes the visible trace of energy in motion.
Words: @annaamaso
