Weeks before the show, Diesel shipped off six miles of pristine white fabric—blank canvases sent hurtling into the hands of art students and street crews across China, South Africa, the US, the UK, Europe, and beyond. When the fabric finally returned, it was obliterated in layers of graffiti, scrawled-over by more than 7,000 people.
Simone Rocha still remembers the moment—Miss Ruddock, the school principal, sitting her down and hitting her with the classic: the tortoise and the hare. “In life, you’re either one or the other,” she told her. Rocha, even then, knew exactly where she stood. “I remember coming out thinking, Mmm. I’m so ready to be a tortoise.” And honestly? She was right. Slow and steady gets you somewhere. Fifteen years later, she’s climbed—deliberately, persistently—to near-mythic status in London fashion. Even in an industry that now seems to measure success in influencer impressions (God help us), Rocha’s impact is undeniable.
A perfect phrase slipped out of Steven Stokey-Daley’s mouth mid-preview, the kind of line that makes you stop, blink, and then immediately write it down: “It’s un-messed-about wardrobe bangers! That’s what I want to do, really.”
Roksanda Ilincic doesn’t just make clothes—she builds them. Big, sculptural, sometimes unwieldy things that feel like they belong in a gallery just as much as they do on a body. Think swooping drapes, ballooning proportions, sharp angles where you least expect them, and an absolutely wild approach to texture. She’s been at this for a while now, and every season, she adds another layer to the architectural playground that is her work.
A grand Georgian façade, faux railings, Richard Quinn engraved above the door like it’s always been there. A fantasy in bricks and mortar. This winter’s set wasn’t just escapism—it was a scene. “It’s after midnight, the end of a private black-tie party,” Quinn explained, setting the tone like a director calling action. “Maybe it’s a pre-wedding dinner, maybe it’s the day after—and the guests are leaving. It’s snowing. The moon is up.”
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.
London feels quiet this season—like the city took a deep breath and held it. And maybe that’s why Mark Fast is feeling nostalgic. He’s been here forever (or at least, since graduating from Central Saint Martins almost two decades ago), but this season? Something feels different. “I don’t know why,” he admitted during a preview. “Something is in the air.” Which, obviously, sent me spiraling into the archives—because if a designer is having a feeling, you check if the clothes are, too. And, sure enough, Fall 2009 was staring back at me.
Up until about a week ago, Dilara Findikoglu wasn’t even sure she had a venue. And then she did—a warehouse in the loosest, most lawless sense of the word. Technically, it hosts Slimelight, London’s longest-running goth club night. Realistically, it looked like a place where you might get shaken down for cigarettes or conscripted into an underground fight ring. Climbing the damp, cavernous stairs, you were greeted by a welcoming committee in the form of a Metropolitan Police notice: VICE PATROL OFFICERS OPERATE IN THIS AREA. OFFENDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Perfect.
Dimitra Petsa has been deep in the trenches of love. Not just the saccharine, rom-com kind, but the all-consuming, boundary-blurring, body-worshipping kind—the stuff of erotic literature, Venus in Furs, divine sexuality, and feminist sexual theory. She’s been reading, obsessing, and writing—because of course, she’s writing a book. A whole book, coming out this year, dedicated to the very concept behind this collection: reclaiming female sexuality and desire, stripped of shame, on its own terms.
