Mowalola Ogunlesi has for the past two seasons disrupted the Fashion Week schedule with last-minute catwalks staged at industrial venues in far-out postcodes. The news that the designer would this time be inserting herself into an off-schedule closing slot was confirmed with less than 24 hours notice. Bold: the London after-parties would have to wait—and … Read more
The Grand Tour was an early ancestor of today’s mass tourism: the 18th century-onwards trend for the monied classes in Europe’s chilly north to venture south to Italy and Greece in order to broaden their cultural horizons and get away from their parents. This season Brunello Cucinelli and his team flipped that template to make … Read more
“I think fashion shows are overrated,” said Margherita Maccapani Missoni: “I’ve been going to them since I was two-weeks-old, so they are not my goal with Maccapani. Instead to present this collection I want people to enjoy a moment, to feel the storytelling and vibe.” She said this from a bamboo chair in the garden … Read more
On a trip to Japan ten years ago, Pauline Dujancourt was transfixed by seeing people tying votive wishes and prayers outside temples in the ema tradition. “I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but I wrote my own in my notebook and saved it,” she said. It read: “I wish to be a fashion designer.” She’s … Read more
Nili Lotan spent part of her summer in Marseille. “All I wanted to wear were dresses,” the designer, known for cutting a mean pair of pants, proclaimed earlier this week at a showroom appointment. And so this season Lotan made dresses, lots of them: Simple white slips in barely-there floral crochet yarns, column maxis in … Read more
Pop is the music genre most associated with Sweden, but Ann-Sofie Johansson and team were tuned into jazz when they created H&M Studio’s fall 2024 collection. Their focus was less the music than its makers, however. Legends like Thelonius Monk, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis; artists whose style was as unique as their sound. One of … Read more
It’s a matter of equal opportunities. For nigh-on 80 years Brioni’s peerless Roman fatto a mano tailoring was only formally available to men. Then, last year, creative director Norbert Stumpfl cautiously began to sprinkle a few refigured feminine pieces into his mix, before showing Brioni’s first ever standalone women’s collection last season. We started today’s … Read more
There was a feeling of everything coming together for Maja Dixdotter this season. The designer had an art-adjacent eccentric in mind when ideating the collection; in planning the visuals, she was interested in finding a way to do “more of a portrait instead of just a shoot.” Reenter Conie Vallese, the Milan-based Argentinian artist who … Read more
Petar Petrov’s clothes are the kind that whisper rather than shout: Meticulously crafted from the world’s finest fabrics, and always offering just the right amount of directional flair, his collections are designed entirely on his own terms at his studio base outside the four fashion capitals in Vienna. So it was a delight to see … Read more
The spontaneous hand-drawn beauty of Steve O Smith’s work has to be seen to be believed. Over London Fashion Week, passers-by at Dover Street Market stopped dead to marvel at the inside-and out perfectionism of a few pieces of his spring collection which were hanging on a rail. It was like looking at 3-D free-hand … Read more
