February 22, 2026 |
Looking once again at the impact of osmosis on culture – in how it moves and adapts – Foday Dumbuya’s AW26 Labrum collection pushed the idea further. He built especially off of last season’s sound-led exploration wherein music and oral tradition were framed as culture’s first mode of travel. But this time, he turned to textiles as the physical evidence of that movement.
Staged within an ornate ballroom within One Great George Street, the collection, called Threads of Osmosis, placed British tailoring at the centre: structured overcoats, double-breasted suits and sharp trousers acting as a framework for fabrics with roots in West Africa, Asia and across Europe. The point wasn’t nostalgia. It was about how cloth records migration through weave, motif and cut, and how those histories can sit visibly within a Savile Row-coded silhouette.
Some of the strongest looks came in a beautifully iridescent fabric that seemed to subtly shift colour under the lights and resembled a kind of patchwork of world maps stitched together. In tailored coats and relaxed two-pieces, it felt deliberate and modern rather than decorative. The collection made a clear case: textiles don’t just decorate the body, they document. Dumbaya knows exactly how to cut that story into something sharp and wearable.
Photography courtesy of Labrum.
