The Winter Olympics 2026 are officially over, and sadly, they won’t be returning to our screens for another four years. For the past 17 days, it’s been the gift that kept on giving, introducing us to a whole new cast of superstar athletes. Take the Quad God, 21-year-old figure skater Ilia Malinin, for example, who had us on the edge of our seats with his backflips and quadruple axels. For his final performance, he even swapped Lycra for Balmain couture denim jeans and a grey hoodie. 

Beyond Malinin, Alysa Liu was the standout sweetheart of the Winter Games. Skating with sheer joy, she won over the world with her halo hair, smiley piercing and song selections (PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson’s “Stateside”, for example). The Olympics might be over, but this definitely isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of winter sports’ alt It Girl. 

For London-based fashion designer Petra Fagerström, ice skating was on the mood board long before Milano Cortina began. Yesterday afternoon (Feb 23), the Swedish designer made her London Fashion Week debut with a collection inspired by figure skaters. More specifically, it was about a fictional former figure skater turned coach, who pushes her daughter to fulfil the dreams she never achieved herself. Think Dance Moms on ice. 

However, after seeing nothing but Alysa Liu on her feed for the past two weeks, Fagerström also chose to pay tribute to the Olympian. “We were so inspired by Alysa [Liu],” Fagerström explained ahead of the presentation, “she’s an amazing character, so we wanted to bring a bit of her into it.” One white puffer resembled the Nike Air Milano jacket worn by Liu on the podium, while a dazzling silver sequin gown could’ve been a riff on the ice skater’s bedazzled gold medal-winning dress. 

Elsewhere, ice skating has been a source of inspiration across several other AW26 shows. At Copenhagen Fashion Week last month, one model at Skall Studio carried a pair of white skates over her shoulder as an accessory, and in New York, the Gabe Gordon show was inspired by both 80s figure skaters and cult horror movie An American Werewolf in London.

Ice skating is perennially chic in the eyes of fashion – with designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Thom Browne and Virgil Abloh all either referencing the sport or building their own rinks for past collections. And how could we forget the Dsquared2 “Skate Moss” boot heels from AW11? Although Olympians and professional ice skaters tend to avoid luxury brands, usually opting for custom-made lycra costumes instead, they clearly still serve as inspiration for some of the world’s biggest and brightest names in fashion.