A 60-foot high, curved LED wall made up of 2,000 handmade panels projected the words: “Now you are here. Here you are now” across one wall of the vast Park Avenue Armory at Saturday night’s megawatt Khaite fall 2026 runway show. 

The “Matrix”-y installation — designed by architectural designer and Catherine Holstein’s husband Griffin Frazen and his team — and seating place cards that read “The crushing weight of words” hinted at her mindset this season, and again proved how Holstein has become one of New York fashion’s most compelling designers, with a fast-growing big business to match.

“I directly lifted this collection from a couple of films. The main one being “F for Fake,” the Orson Welles documentary from 1973 that blew my head open when I saw it this summer,” Holstein said after the show. “It’s about forgeries and fakers. It’s about a lot of trickery; how we value art and authenticity; who are the arbiters of taste, and what makes things truly authentic in the search for authenticity that we seem to always be on.”

She said Welles’ documentary resonated with the pressure of pushing her own boundaries each season while balancing Khaite’s serious business.

In that vein, fall continued to prove Holstein’s razor-sharp vision of the Khaite woman, expanding into moments of dark romance, like a striking velvet bustier gown with a big, ‘80s bustled gazar skirt; Victorian-collared black lace blouses with long, skinny trousers, and strict, structured tailoring. 

But she also played into the ideas of trickery and provocation by contrasting hyperfeminine, straight white lace lingerie dresses and sheer, back-bustled numbers with “ghoulish” ultra-long, dark nails or slick leather opera gloves. 

More so, embroidered monkeys on sheer blouses were not only symbolic of deception, but alluded to the eccentric documentary men donning their ‘70s dandy looks. The latter extended into exaggerated military-style marching band jackets, buttons and trims; floral velvet suits; big bow ties, and Alfred Hitchcock-inspired cross chains. There were even Milton Avery paintings adorning two striking evening skirts.

The unexpected details added another dimension to Holstein’s authoritative mix of soft versus hard, ultra-cropped against long and lean — new takes on her ongoing examination of how garments fit on the body after having had two children in the last three years. 

Her customers may not pick up on the collection’s subliminal messaging, but they’ll certainly look good wearing it.