September 20, 2025 |
Fashion East is unmissable. For 25 years no other runway has distilled the spirit of London’s creativity better. Its diversity, its audacity, its humour.
Lulu Kennedy, Raphaelle Moore and their team are talent spotters extraordinaire. From Kim Jones and Martine Rose, to Jonathan Anderson, Maximilian Davis and Simone Rocha, so many global names got their start on the Fashion East runway.
First up was Mayhew. “This collection was made by chance on purpose,” said the designer who creates upcycled collages of random and unexpected garments and objects. Random but meaningful. The upcycled paint splattered workwear pieces and collection title, Hard Graft, reference designer Louis Mayhew’s life as a painter and decorator. His love of mud larking led him to apply some of his finds – a broken pipe rusted dinner knife – to a polo top. His collages are intriguing. The top of a pair of paint splattered white denim jeans attached to the arms of a white knit jumper and cinched at the knee with a blue satin ribbon, to create a pair of pedal pushers. Plastic zip ties were used to create swags and gathers on sweat pants and for this designer, the trial and error of the process is as important as the result.
Next Nuba, where a monochrome sensuality reigns. Designer Cameron Williams has a way of quieting the fashion white noise with his elegant, clothes which for SS26 come in light layers that fall in languid drapes – linear but fluid. Worn with technical tailoring – origami-like details trousers and mini dresses, it adds up to a sophisticated look. These are clothes that wrap, reveal and conceal in ways that subtly speak of other cultures other ways of living and dressing and other times but the finished effect is is one of poised modernity.
The show ended with ended with the debut of Jacek Gleba, fresh from the Saint Martins MA, whose background in dance came to the fore. Inspired by Nijinsky costumes, Egon Schiele drawings, costumes from the Rambert Dance archive and dancer’s off-duty uniforms, he fashioned graphic colour blocked body-con pieces that referenced dance and modern sportswear shapes but were fashioned from delicate fabrics using lingerie techniques. It had a ravishing handmade fragility.
Photography courtesy of Fashion East.
