The worlds female designers build around themselves—these intricate, insular universes of memory, craft, and self-mythology—only seem to grow more expansive, more nuanced. Pauline Dujancourt spins hers from knitwear, a delicate lattice of pre-Raphaelite romanticism and obsessive handwork: fragile mohair webs, chiffon ribbons trailing like ivy, stitches so fine they barely exist. After years of quiet presentations, refining her whisper-soft sensibilities into something tangible, this was her first time on a London runway.

And it felt fully realized. Cobwebbed cables, fragmented lace, minute crochet flowers—all breathing, moving, alive. Even the closures—on gloves, on cardigans—were ribbons or rouleaux bows, as if the garments themselves were resisting the weight of anything as harsh as a button.

At the heart of it all? Flowers. A tribute to her French grandmother, the woman who taught her to knit. “When I visited her as a child, she had a plant with red flowers that only bloomed once a year—on her birthday, in February.” This, she decided, was the season to show it. A sentimental, spectral kind of timing.

And so, roses. Layered into chiffon ribbon capes, woven into bag straps, curling across gauzy knits and ethereal Victoriana skirts. In her studio—Paul Smith’s collective space at Smithfield Market—hundreds of tiny, dark red crochet flowers had been painstakingly arranged, waiting to be stitched into place. “We did hundreds of crochet flowers,” she laughed after the show. “I don’t think we used them all, but our fingers are quite painful.”

Her all-female team, gathered around her, crying. Not surprising. For those unfamiliar with her background—knitwear consultant for Simone Rocha, Phoebe English—the completeness of her vision might have felt unexpected. But make no mistake: this isn’t some fragile, ephemeral fantasy. It’s grounded in reality, in the business of making clothes that people want. The buyers are there. The audience is there. And so, at last, is the show. “The brand has been growing quite a lot,” she said. “So having a show now feels like the right time.”