From tiger stripes to snow leopard, L’OFFICIEL breaks down the prints that took over the season’s runways and how to tell them apart.

Every fall, without fail, the leopard coat comes back out of storage. This season, it has company. Across the Fall/Winter 2026 collections in New York, Milan, and Paris, designers sent tiger stripes, zebra, cow patches, snow leopard, and python down the runway right alongside the classic pattern.
The prints themselves look different, too. Some houses recolored them entirely, with Nina Ricci’s zebra in blue and Carolina Herrera’s leopard in black and white. Others built the pattern into the fabric through jacquards and embroidery, while plenty traded flat prints for shaggy, fur-like coats. Even the styling has shifted. At Ralph Lauren, leopard came as a stole over an olive longline coat; at Prada, as a scarf tucked under a yellow parka; and at Balmain, as a bandeau peeking out from a low-cut dress.
For longtime animal-print loyalists, it’s about time leopard had some competition. Sure, the spots will always have a place in a fall wardrobe. But for those of us ready to branch out, this season’s runways make a convincing case for tiger, zebra, and beyond.
Ahead, a print-by-print guide to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/fall-winter-2026-fashion-campaigns-trends-photos-inspiration-looks-jackets-coats">Fall/Winter 2026</a>, what sets each one apart, and the runway looks worth bookmarking.

Leopard

Nina Ricci Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Jacquemus Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Ralph Lauren Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Carolina Herrera Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Carolina Herrera Fall/Winter 2026. Courtesy of Carolina Herrera.

Balmain Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Prada Fall/Winter 2026. Courtesy of Prada.

The classic. Leopard is defined by its rosettes, irregular black rings around a tawny center, which is what separates it from a cheetah’s solid, single spots.
<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/ralph-lauren-fall-winter-2026-runway-images-gigi-hadid-anne-hathaway">Ralph Lauren</a> made leopard part of an equestrian wardrobe. In a 59-look collection built from more than 50 custom materials, according to the house, leopard shearling coats came over riding pants and boots, one rounded into a bubble shape by a crinoline hidden underneath. A leopard stole wrapped the shoulders of an olive longline coat, while a leopard vest sat under a weathered leather jacket with a shearling collar. Kept to browns, olive, and charcoal, the print blended into the rest of the collection, in line with the “chic pragmatism” described in the show notes.&nbsp;
Over at Carolina Herrera, Wes Gordon mostly took the color out. His Fall/Winter 2026 collection paid tribute to women in the arts, with research that began with Peggy Guggenheim and a cast that included Amy Sherald, Rachel Feinstein, and photographer Ming Smith, who walked in a leopard jacquard coat. Gordon’s graphic leopard came in black and white on a coat layered over a green turtleneck and on a fitted turtleneck dress, then in brown on a look finished with ruffled cuffs and a matching clutch. In black and white, the print looks sharper, which suits Gordon’s continued move from ball gowns toward separates.
At Balmain, Antonin Tron’s debut gave leopard a more intimate placement. Tron, who founded his own label, Atlein, and worked at Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Balenciaga, and Saint Laurent before succeeding Olivier Rousteing, started from two Balmain gowns dating back to 1946 and an idea of minimal opulence. Low-cut, long-sleeved dresses opened to reveal animal-print bandeaus, and a strapless leopard dress was fitted close to the body, its fabric gathered at the hip. Many of the motifs were rendered through dense embroidery, cloqué, and fil coupé jacquards, giving the spots texture as well as color.
Elsewhere, Nina Ricci belted a long leopard coat at the waist, and Jacquemus went head to toe, pairing a spotted pencil skirt finished in a feathered hem with a matching feather-trimmed jacket over an olive knit. At Prada, a leopard scarf peeked out from under a yellow parka, styled with a printed skirt and floral socks.

Tiger

Tiger is the loudest of the big cats. Instead of spots, it’s built on long, irregular black stripes over an orange or caramel ground.
<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/balmain-fall-winter-2026-collection-runway-photos-antonin-tron-debut-see-all-the-looks-models">Balmain</a> ran the stripes down the full length of a straight coat, worn open over black with dark sunglasses and a small yellow bag. Like the house’s leopard, the tiger pattern was suggested through embroidery and jacquard rather than a flat print.
Nina Ricci leaned into the drama. For what turned out to be Harris Reed’s final collection for the house—he stepped down less than a week after the March 6 show to focus on his own label—Reed looked to the opulence of the Baroque court and the Rococo era. A tiger-striped suit came with a pale blue ruffled collar and an oversized cuff of bright orange fur, while full skirts and corseted tops carried the period references through the rest of the lineup.
In New York, Kim Shui worked tiger into coat trims and mini dresses.

Isabel Marant Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Zebra swaps the warm tones of the cats for stripes in black and white, at least traditionally.
At Nina Ricci, the stripes turned blue. A light blue zebra coat went over a leopard corset and black trousers, mixing two prints in one look, while a blue zebra top was belted at the waist over a black skirt.
<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/isabel-marant-fall-winter-2026-collection-runway-photos-see-all-the-looks-celebrities-vip-front-row">Isabel Marant</a> brought zebra into her Parisian wardrobe. Staged at the Palais de Tokyo, the 65-look collection mixed the house’s bohemian ease with an indie rock attitude, and a zebra-striped blouse, worn open at the neck and tucked into light-wash jeans with black boots, kept the print casual.
Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut at Fendi also leaned on the print, with zebra overcoats and totes, zebra-trimmed waistcoats, chunky platform heels covered in the same pattern, and a zebra Baguette trimmed in red beadwork. The motif even has roots at Balmain. Tron traced his collection’s animal patterns back to a photograph of Pierre Balmain’s Paris apartment, decorated with a large zebra print.

Aknvas Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

The only farm animal in the lineup, cow print is defined by irregular patches rather than spots or stripes, usually black or brown on white.
At Aknvas, Christian Juul Nielsen looked to a fellow Dane, Hans Christian Andersen, and his fairy tale The Snow Queen. The result was a wintry lineup of shaggy white coats patched in black. One was cropped and worn over a canary-yellow mini dress with a black bow at the collar, Mary Janes, and a matching black-and-white bag; another fell to full length, with a hood framing the face. Fur trapper hats and headbands finished the cold-weather theme.
In Milan, Meryll Rogge’s first collection for Marni included cowhide coats, with smaller doses of animal print on bags and shoes, often paired with contrasting patterns and unexpected colors.

Snow Leopard

Acne Studios Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Bottega Veneta Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Snow leopard keeps leopard’s rosettes but cools the palette, setting larger, more open markings against a smoky grey or cream ground.
For her second collection at Bottega Veneta, Louise Trotter put the focus on outerwear. Across 81 looks, the house’s intrecciato woven leather showed up on trench coats and collars, but the second half of the show belonged to statement coats in imitation fur, with oversized shoulders and coordinating hats. The snow leopard version, a shaggy white coat marked with dark rosettes and topped with a matching hat, turned the print into the entire outfit. Snow leopard hats in synthetic shag returned at the finale, worn with recreated Mongolian wool jackets.
At Acne Studios, a smoky grey version came on a gathered peplum blouse and matching asymmetric skirt, layered over a pinstriped shirt and finished with a violet leather bag and grey loafers.

Gili Biegun outside Gaurav Gupta during Paris Haute Couture Week in January 2026. Getty Images.

Snakeskin is recognizable by its overlapping scales, and on the runway, it turned up on everything from cropped jackets to opera gloves.
Acne Studios marked its 30th anniversary at the Collège des Bernardins with 45 looks, in a collection where Jonny Johansson set preppy staples against counterculture and took on the subject of age, citing a rewatch of The Crown as an unexpected reference. A cropped python-print jacket, buttoned high at the neck over a green turtleneck and paired with a grey plaid skirt and gold earrings, brought both sides of that idea into one look.
For a quieter approach, Khaite paired snakeskin opera gloves with an otherwise all-black look, and Prada sent snakeskin bags down its runway.
The street-style set got there first. During Paris Haute Couture Week in January, Gili Biegun carried a snakeskin Khaite shoulder bag with a grey asymmetric pencil skirt, long black leather gloves, and a cropped faux fur coat.&nbsp;

Ostrich Leather

Hermès Fall/Winter 2026. Getty Images.

Not every animal on the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/hermes-fall-winter-2026-show-los-angeles-womens-fashion-photos-runway-images">Fall/Winter 2026</a> runways came in the form of a print. Ostrich leather, easy to spot thanks to the raised quill bumps scattered across the center of the hide, took the trend into texture, and no house worked it quite like Hermès.
For a maison founded in 1837 as a harness maker in Paris, ostrich is nothing new. This season, Womenswear Creative Director Nadège Vanhee, at the helm since 2014, used the skin throughout her collection, from jackets to jodhpurs. She built the season around A. M. Cassandre’s Perspective, the 1951 silk scarf design known for its lines receding toward a vanishing point, and that graphic thinking shows up in the cuts. A caramel jumpsuit with a diagonal zip across the chest and a silver chain at the belt, a steel-grey version worn with black knee-high boots and a knit cap, and a cropped cognac jacket covered in flap pockets all brought the skin into everyday dressing. In other words, a leather usually saved for a Birkin bag can just as easily be worn with a pair of bike shorts, as one look proved with a cream high-neck top, matching shorts, tall mustard boots, and a brown fur hat.
Texture also did plenty of the work. Vanhee paired ostrich with shearling, mohair, and smooth leather in matching shades, while ribbed knit sleeves and collars softened the stiffer pieces. Even the accessories got the treatment, with the Mini Plume bag arriving in light grey ostrich.
Meanwhile, in Milan, Louise Trotter gave Bottega Veneta’s 1998 frame bag a grey ostrich makeover, showing it alongside croc styles and the house’s signature intrecciato.

Cheetah

Nina Ricci Fall/Winter 2025–2026. Getty Images.

Whereas leopard is all about the rosette, cheetah keeps things simple, with small, solid black spots spread evenly across a golden base. It’s the print most often mixed up with leopard, and the easiest way to tell the two apart is to look for a lighter center inside each mark. Cheetah’s spots don’t have one.
For a true cheetah, look back to last fall at Nina Ricci. For Fall/Winter 2025, Harris Reed took inspiration from a 1973 Helmut Newton photograph of a woman dressed head to toe in Nina Ricci, posed on a car beneath the streetlights of Paris. The collection stayed mostly in black and white, with accents of peridot and ruby, and in one look, a pale gold bag dotted in solid black was carried with a black-and-cream zebra coat, mixing spots and stripes in a single outfit.

Ocelot

Jacket, top, pants, earrings, and bag CELINE

Perhaps the least familiar of the wild-cat prints, ocelot is often lumped in with leopard. Look closer, though, and its markings stretch into longer, chain-like shapes, outlined in black around warmer brown centers and linking together in rows.
Shot for L’OFFICIEL’s November issue, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/celine-fall-winter-2026-runway-images-paris-fashion-week">Celine’s</a> plush jacket blows the print up to an oversized scale, pulling the black markings long across a cream-to-caramel ground. The piece comes from Michael Rider’s third collection for the house, presented at the Institut de France in March, where Rider, who worked under Phoebe Philo at Celine before heading design at Polo Ralph Lauren, leaned into slimmer tailoring, a revived peplum, and gold jewelry worn in multiples. Paired with a black turtleneck, gold hoops, and a black top-handle bag with gold hardware, the jacket does all the talking.

David Koma Resort 2025. Photo Courtesy of David Koma.

Tory Burch Fall/Winter 2025

Last fall, L’OFFICIEL had the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/bambi-print-trend-deer-doe-core-fall-zebra-cheetah">Bambi print</a> pegged as the next must-have animal motif. Also known as deer or fawn print, the pattern trades black markings for small, irregular white spots on a warm brown base, the same dappled coat a fawn wears in its first few months.
Though it feels new, the print has popped up on the runway for more than a decade. Carven, for instance, showed deer-print coats and midi skirts for Fall/Winter 2013. Years later, Riccardo Tisci’s debut collection for Burberry, presented in September 2018, put the motif on both men’s and women’s designs, including a shirt that read “Why Did They Kill Bambi?”
By Fall/Winter 2025, designers had fully embraced the pattern. Following <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/david-koma-blumarine-creative-director">David Koma</a>’s gradient fawn print for Resort 2025, which stretched from capes to swimsuits, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/tory-burch-fall-winter-2025-collection">Tory Burch</a> anchored coats and dresses in the print, while Brandon Maxwell worked grey-tinted versions into sculpted dresses and caped coats.
In fawn-spotted coats or printed midi skirts, the print’s warm browns and creams sit easily alongside camel, chocolate, and denim this fall.

Abstract

Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2026. Courtesy of Louis Vuitton. 

Some of the season’s most striking pelts can’t be traced back to any one animal. Mottled in black, grey, and white, these abstract prints borrow the look of fur without committing to a specific coat.
At <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/louis-vuitton-fall-winter-2026-runway-photos-paris-fashion-week">Louis Vuitton</a>, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/nicolas-ghesquiere-early-career-designs-callaghan-balenciaga-most-famous-looks-runway-photos-chloe-sevigny-dress">Nicolas Ghesquière</a> looked to mountain and folk dress for his Fall/Winter 2026 collection, Super Nature, with capes, cowbells, and shearling caps. A short-sleeved top with a high funnel neck came shaggy in grey and white, styled with black separates, slouchy brown boots, a green bag at the hip, and a long wooden staff in hand. Another look stretched the same mottled texture into a cape-like coat with squared, exaggerated shoulders, worn over black with a hood that left only the face showing.
At <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/fendi-haute-couture-fall-winter-2026-runway-photos-see-all-the-looks-maria-grazia-chiuri-debut-front-row-celebrities">Fendi</a>, Chiuri also showed a coat covered in irregular black patches over cream, finished with a black fur collar and worn with a matching Peekaboo bag.
Whether you stay loyal to the leopard coat or branch out with tiger stripes, fawn spots, or a snakeskin bag, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/personal-style-monogram-trend-fall-winter-2026-fashion-photos-runway">Fall/Winter 2026</a> proves there’s room in the wardrobe for more than one animal.

Into the Wild: Your Guide to the Fall/Winter 2026 Animal Print Trend

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