Sept. 27, 2025

Tod’s Leather Lightness

WORDS ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN

TOD’S

Anders Christian Madsen reviews the Tod’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection by Matteo Tamburini.

Artisans working on Tod’s most coveted pieces greeted guests as we arrived at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea on Friday afternoon. The installation set the tone for a collection founded in the house’s leatherwork, with the signature Gommino loafer as muse. “I worked a lot with leather as the key element, the Tod’s signature, using different craftsmanship techniques, woven details stitched by hand, and using stripes as a signature of a summer classic but elevating to create dresses and jackets in leather,” Matteo Tamburini said after the show.

Leather was cut, inlaid, perforated, and hand-stitched until it read as fabric: supple Pashmy cabans, a perforated nappa jacket, and a cotton trench with inserted panels embodied a look suspended between the sartorial and the artisanal. Stripes—achieved in leather, then applied to light cloth—had a seaside sensibility about them. Tamburini related that idea to “the happiness of summer with a touch of melancholy, that end-of-summer feeling—beautiful moments but a bittersweet feeling.” In September, we can all relate.

TOD’S

TOD’S

TOD’S

“I wanted to translate this feeling in the collection through the color palette and also have it play a central role in the collection, a female figure who is very concrete and has a magnetic femininity, but yet very natural in her approach to dressing,” he said. Tamburini’s handsome woman arrived in easy twinsets, softly tailored skirts, and dresses that skimmed rather than clung. For all its leather, the silhouette was draped with lightness.

Tamburini showed the Gommino in classic and open-toe versions, some pierced with its signature pattern, others threaded in rich, multicolored leather by hand. The idea echoed across bags: a deconstructed Di Bag Folio tote (and a double-layer iteration) with intricate inlays; the T Timeless reborn as a top-handle with continuous perforations; and the Wave Bag traced in contrasting stitching. It was Tod’s through and through.