February 24, 2025 |
It might’ve been 9am Monday morning, but on the catwalk, Ashish’s unruly glamazons were still carrying on from Saturday night, baby! It was a tough spot on the schedule, but the beloved designer took it in his stride. “Who wants to see sequins for breakfast?” he said with a laugh backstage. The last time we saw him on the catwalk was in 2023. “I wasn’t planning to do a show, but I realised I needed to be seen. I wanted to feel the power of having that moment.” His shows are joyous but are equal parts defiant. “Now more than ever, with everything that’s going on in the world, it’s important to be visible, to keep our spaces, to not be defeated.”
He called the collection Walk of Shame, partly because of the early morning slot (his eclectic cast looked as if they’d rolled through from a big boozy blowout) but also as a metaphor for moving through life with your head held high, despite the circumstances that face us.
These were hedonistic designs that demanded the glow of a disco ball, whether it was twinsets doused in multi-coloured sequins that resembled confetti, or shredded jeans frosted with plenty of sparkle. “All my work centres around glamour and nightlife. In big cities especially, nightclubs are such a refuge for queer communities.” In face of adversity, dancing can serve as a form of protest, with models donning slogan jumpers (“Up yours”, “Slut for socialism”) and a button-laden waistcoat stamped with “Fashion not fascism” on the back. It made for a party uniform packed with plenty of power.
Photography courtesy of Ashish.
