Li-Ning Fall/Winter 2026: The Athlete in All of Us, Where Winter Sport Becomes a State of Mind
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By PAGE Editor
As Milan prepares to welcome the Winter Olympic Games, Li-Ning arrives at a defining crossroads of global sport, culture, and fashion. Making its Milan debut for Fall/Winter 2026 during Milan Men’s Fashion Week on January 16th at Padiglione Visconti, the Chinese performance brand presents The Athlete in All of Us—a collection that reframes winter sport not as spectacle alone, but as a shared human mindset. Timed to an Olympic year and underscored by Li-Ning’s ongoing role as official sponsor of the Chinese Olympic Team, the show positions the brand within a broader dialogue about endurance, movement, and the evolving language of athletic identity.
Rooted deeply in Li-Ning’s DNA, the Fall/Winter 2026 collection draws a clear line between past and future expressions of winter sports culture. Designed by a collective of creatives, the season builds upon the brand’s long-standing engagement with winter disciplines, particularly snowboarding and skiing, while expanding into what Li-Ning defines as “winter super sports.” These professional references are layered with a renewed interest in retro sports aesthetics—vintage ice hockey silhouettes, block-core styling, and archival sportswear codes—reinterpreted through a contemporary, performance-driven lens. The result is a collection that balances heritage with modernity, aligning technical credibility with cultural relevance and Olympic spirit.
The runway unfolds through two distinct yet interconnected collections, each shaped by the unifying theme The Athlete in All of Us.
Opening the show is Li-Ning Glory, a collection grounded in utility and precision for modern life in motion. Designed for individuals navigating the intersections of work, personal commitments, and daily movement, Li-Ning Glory emphasizes adaptability without compromise. Streamlined silhouettes, engineered fits, and advanced technical fabrics form a wardrobe that transitions seamlessly across environments. Presented for the first time at an international fashion week, the collection articulates a refined vision of utility—where performance supports everyday life with clarity, restraint, and purpose. The debut of Li-Ning Glory x Jackie Chan on the runway further underscores the collection’s ethos of resilience, versatility, and cultural continuity.
Running parallel is Li-Ning China (LNCN), the brand’s premium line, which offers a more expressive and youthful interpretation of winter sports culture. While still informed by professional gear, LNCN embraces playfulness and symbolism through a layered creative hierarchy. At its core is the Li-Ning China box logo, anchoring the collection’s visual identity. From there, podium suits drawn from the brand’s archives emerge as key references, reconnecting Li-Ning’s historic moments of athletic triumph with future-facing design exploration.
Traditional Chinese cultural elements are woven throughout, notably through the Icey Plum motif and glacial textures that symbolize resilience and endurance in extreme winter conditions. The color palette revisits victorious tones central to Li-Ning’s history—iconic reds and heritage hues—while aurora-inspired colorways, referencing podium suits from the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, introduce a dynamic contemporary energy. The tracksuit is reimagined as a cultural artifact, balancing nostalgia with modern styling and lighthearted expression.
Footwear serves as a cornerstone of the Fall/Winter 2026 narrative, reinforcing Li-Ning’s authority in winter performance. The Furious Rider Ace 3.0, the brand’s hero franchise, returns with advanced design updates that heighten both technical performance and visual impact. Complementing it are the Wudao Boot Low, offering winter-ready protection through a modern performance lens; the Ling Long, a women’s-specific silhouette that balances lightweight construction with refined structure; and the Chaoran, which introduces a forward-looking approach to winter footwear by merging functionality with progressive design language. Together, these models embody the collection’s dialogue between professional sport, seasonal adaptability, and contemporary aesthetics.
Beyond product, The Athlete in All of Us unfolds as an immersive experiential narrative. Guests enter the venue through a scenographic journey conceived as a passage through time—beginning in a vintage alpine train station that evokes retro winter sports arenas and Li-Ning’s historic Olympic moments. As the space evolves, warm nostalgic textures give way to stark white landscapes inspired by snowfields and ski jumps, culminating in a vast winter sports arena. Here, movement patterns and spatial dynamics reference competitive courses and moments of peak athletic performance, blending memory, emotion, and momentum into a unified environment.
The show opens with a ceremonial tribute to the spirit of sport—an “honor moment” framing the runway as a collective celebration of perseverance. Sixty looks follow, with Li-Ning Glory leading and LNCN closing the narrative arc. As the finale unfolds, snow begins to fall across the venue, intensifying as founder Mr. Li Ning, Jackie Chan, and Olympic table tennis champion Ma Long join the models—a symbolic convergence of legacy, culture, and contemporary sport.
At its core, the Fall/Winter 2026 collection proposes sport as more than competition. It is a universal mindset—one defined by persistence, self-belief, and the quiet determination to move forward. As Mr. Li Ning reflects, the season transcends athletic interpretation, spotlighting how sport reshapes mentality and empowers individuals to pursue their own podium moments. Presented in Milan during an Olympic year, The Athlete in All of Us stands as Li-Ning’s tribute to winter sports culture—honoring its history, reaffirming national sporting pride, and looking confidently toward the future of global sport.
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