Michaela Coel Reimagines the Skirt Suit as Sharp, Sensual Spring Style

Maximilian Davis has made Ferragamo’s tailoring feel alive again, and Michaela Coel’s look outside the Bowery Hotel in New York City showed exactly how that idea translates off the runway. The navy wool set traded the old skirt-suit stiffness for a collarless, long-sleeved top with black buttoned paneling left open at the center, then cut the silhouette down to a mini length that felt brisk, lean and deliberately undone.

Styled by Nell Kalonji, the outfit leaned into contrast. The skirt’s long side panels were lined in white, sharpening the black-and-white palette and giving the set a graphic snap that read more fashion-forward than corporate. Ferragamo patent pointed-toe mules with S-shaped heels and a black top-handled bag completed the look, adding a glossy finish that kept the tailoring from feeling severe. On Coel, the effect was officewear turned sultry: structured enough to hold its line, but light enough to feel like spring.

That balance makes sense inside Davis’s Ferragamo vocabulary. The brand’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection, shown at Milan Fashion Week in September 2025, drew on the rebellious spirit of the 1920s, with references to Lola Todd’s 1925 leopard-print portrait, the Harlem Renaissance and the Africana movement. Dropped-waist dresses, sculptural tailoring, silk crepon knits, zoot suits and patchwork cravat dresses all pushed the house toward a more liberated idea of femininity and masculinity. Coel’s skirt suit looks like the day-to-day version of that same impulse: tailored, but with the buttons, exposure and shortened hemline that make it feel freshly charged.

Davis kept that language running into Ferragamo’s Fall 2026 collection, where buttons were pushed into major service, turning a basic fastening into part of the design story. That is why Coel’s outfit lands as more than a street-style hit. It reads like a capsule-wardrobe update to the skirt suit itself, a reminder that the easiest way to modernize a classic is not to replace it, but to strip it back. A dark blazer worn without a blouse, a shorter skirt, a patent heel and a structured bag can turn a once-office-coded set into something sharper, sexier and far more re-wearable. Coel’s appearance, timed to her press run for The Christophers and Mother Mary, made the point with particular clarity: tailoring does not have to behave to be polished.