I have a question.

At what point does getting dressed stop being getting dressed and become a full-blown personality disorder?

Because watching Chopova Lowena, I kept thinking about the moment you were a child and decided that today you were going to be a bride, a ballerina, a witch, a princess, a mourner, a rock star and possibly someone’s slightly unhinged aunt — all before lunch.

Except here, somehow, it works.

The bowling alley is full of people who look like they’ve wandered out of completely different stories and decided, for reasons nobody has adequately explained, to attend the same family gathering. There are brides. There are mourners. There are dolls. There are cheerleader-ish silhouettes. There are folk references, lace, corsetry, patchwork, oversized buckles, fluffy textures and enough little sentimental objects hanging off things to make you wonder whether everyone has been collecting their clothes since childhood. And then there is a dog.

Obviously there is a dog.

And honestly? Of course there is.

Because Chopova Lowena doesn’t seem particularly interested in the idea that fashion should behave itself.

The collection takes ritual dressing and starts pulling it apart. A wedding dress can become a funeral dress. A tutu can sit beside folk textiles. A sweet little floral moment can suddenly become gothic. Innocence and darkness keep bumping into each other, and neither one seems particularly interested in apologising.

The black-and-ivory bridal pairing is probably the clearest example. One feels ceremonial; the other feels like the ceremony has gone terribly, wonderfully wrong. Then the idea gets pushed further: black lace, veiling, corsetry, bare feet, pale tulle. Wedding and wake become two sides of the same costume.

And that is where Chopova Lowena gets interesting.

Because this isn’t really nostalgia.

It’s about dress-up.

The clothes feel collected rather than coordinated. Layered rather than resolved. A little bit precious, a little bit ridiculous, a little bit sentimental. Like somebody opened an enormous box of memories and said, “Right. We’re wearing all of it.”

The doll imagery makes that even clearer.

There is something wonderfully unsettling about the models looking almost doll-like, with exaggerated lashes, painted details and those slightly frozen expressions. Then the doll moves from the face onto the clothes themselves — printed faces appearing across dresses, jackets and skirts.

So suddenly the wearer is dressed as the thing she is already being made to look like.

A doll wearing a doll.

Okay. I am listening.

And then the hardware comes back in — lacing, belts, oversized buckles, all those fastening details that make the clothes feel slightly assembled, almost like they could be taken apart and rebuilt again tomorrow. Chopova Lowena’s familiar hardware language becomes less decoration and more structure.

But what really got me was how the collection refuses to separate the clothes from the world around them.

The bowling alley isn’t simply a location.

It becomes part of the wardrobe.

Striped socks. Clubhouse references. Patches. Little badges. The language of the place starts appearing on the people walking through it, until you aren’t entirely sure whether you’re watching a fashion show or the world’s strangest bowling league.

And then comes the dog.

A tiny creature in a matching sage-green puffer and ski goggles, walking down the runway beside its human counterpart.

I mean…

OH MY GOD.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s adorable.

And somehow it makes perfect sense.

Because the whole collection is built around the idea that this isn’t really a collection of clothes. It’s a community. A world. A collection of objects, memories, people and things that have somehow found themselves together.

Even the brand itself gets pulled into the joke.

“CHOPOVA LOWENA” appears as patches and badges. There are slogans that deliberately play with the name. “Choppy Water.” “Help Me Chop Ova Lowena.” It is the fashion equivalent of covering your school bag in stickers until you can barely see the bag anymore.

And I love that.

But this is also where I started wondering whether the joke could become too easy.

The doll-print pieces feel like a genuine extension of the collection’s visual argument. The slogans are fun, but they flirt with merchandise. There is a difference between something feeling like a strange object you’ve discovered and something feeling like it was designed specifically so someone can photograph it for Instagram. The existing review notes identify exactly that tension: the slogans risk dating faster than the construction around them. 

And perhaps that tension is the point.

Because Chopova Lowena seems increasingly interested in the space between fashion and folklore.

What happens when a brand becomes part of the mythology it has created?

What happens when the logo becomes another patch?

When the designer’s own name becomes something you collect?

When luxury fashion starts behaving like a club you join rather than something you simply buy?

That question feels particularly alive here. The collection’s own identity has been absorbed into its little universe — not standing outside it, proudly announcing itself as a luxury label, but becoming another sentimental object inside the box.

And maybe that’s why the dog is so perfect.

The dog doesn’t know it’s in a fashion show.

It isn’t performing luxury.

It isn’t trying to sell anything.

It’s just there, dressed like its person, wandering through this increasingly elaborate little world.

Which might actually be the most Chopova Lowena thing of all.

The collection doesn’t ask us to take fashion less seriously.

It asks whether taking fashion seriously has to mean removing the fun from it.

Maybe a wedding dress can be a funeral dress.

Maybe a bowling alley can be a runway.

Maybe a logo can become folklore.

Maybe a skirt can look like something your grandmother, your teenage self and your slightly unhinged best friend would all have designed together.

And maybe fashion is allowed to be sentimental, excessive, funny, strange and a little bit stupid sometimes.

I think I rather like that.

Actually…

I think I really like that