September 19, 2026 |
So, we’ve taken a bite out of The Big Apple – what’s next? We’re jumping on a jet and flying over to the Atlantic to our lovely London homestead. With emerging talent up to our eyeballs and the exciting return of McQueen after 25 years of showing in Paris, this is shaping up to be a cracking season for the Brits. Here’s everything that’s going down at London Fashion Week SS27.
Aaron Esh
Fresh off debuting his inaugural collection for AllSaints as the brand’s newest hief creative officer, Aaron Esh decided to shake things up at his eponymous label. Typically, Esh’s colour palette is dark and moody – rich navy, sooty grey and plenty of black. This season, however, the fash pack descended on the well-worn floors of Camden’s Electric Ballroom for something much brighter.
There were hot pink leather jackets layered over matching tees, red tights and wafer-thin organza dresses with underlays of turquoise and sharp red. “There is a feeling of excess without being excessive,” says Esh in the show notes. “Young, but not innocent. Beautiful, but with something slightly strange about it.”
Of course, the darker shades were still there – low-slung leather trousers, hefty chocolate-brown faux-fur coats – but the colour slashed through the collection gave it a different kind of mood, one that felt buzzy and slightly electric. Last season, Aaron Esh created a character would most likely be found smoking a ciggie on the sidelines, brooding in the shadows of the party. This season, they’re right in the thick of it. BK
Ashley Williams
Ashley Williams is wigging out for SS27. Blunt bobs, bursts of colour and a good-girl-gone-bad attitude set the tone for a collection that delights in getting dressed a little wrong. Here, Williams’ familiar girlishness takes a mischievous turn, with delicate silhouettes and playful details disrupted by unexpected styling choices. Nude mesh tights were stuffed with soft toys and other distinctly feminine trinkets, repurposed as makeshift belts, while hairbrushes, tucked into wigs or warped into accessories, become part of the wardrobe’s offbeat vocabulary.
The soundtrack followed suit, slipping between fairy-tale melodies, rap and R&B. Familiar objects were also stripped of their everyday purpose, imagined into something altogether more surreal. Williams has long toyed with the codes of girlhood, but for SS27, her girls seemed intent on rewriting the rules. TP
EWUSIE
For his SS27 offering, Joshua Ewusie decided to stage a presentation-cum-exhibition in The Salon space in Kings Cross’ Town Hall. Working alongside his friend Cynthia of C-Studio, the young designer looked to London’s wider creative class to curate a display featuring emerging artists who dissect themes similar to himself – diaspora, heritage, craft tradition and the broader immigrant experience.
In doing so, the presentation felt acutely personal to Ewusie and the stories he tells through his brand. Titled In Lieu of Flowers – a nod to the floral motifs that appeared across the interiors of his childhood home – the clothes echoed this intimate sentiment. Looking to the front room of a house, and what one can tell about the taste of inhabitants from it, Ewusie translated this into garments overtly and less so. He crafted dresses from plastic, the type used for the tablecloth in his kitchen, and laser cut leather so pieces were spattered with delicate, petal-shaped holes. Adopting a more feminine tone – lace and satin was interspersed amongst the heavier fabrics – SS27 was a step forward for the designer, yet still possessed the same character and heart it’s had from the start. Bella Koopman
Petra Fagerström
This might’ve been Petra Fagerström’s catwalk debut, yet there was a technical prowess and a confidence to her clothes that put her beyond her years. The Scandinavian designer, who made it to the final of this year’s LVMH Prize, brilliantly skews feminine tropes to envision a wardrobe that is both beautiful and delightfully off-kilter.
In Fagerstrom’s hands, florals dance along leather pencil skirts that cascade into razer-sharp knife pleats at the front. More leather skirts were sliced to reveal knickers beneath, while pretty dresses were slightly warped in their construction, or were given a hazy trompe l’oeil finish. Top stuff all-round. Paul Toner
Harris Reed
Harris Reed marked five years of showing in London, and his first collection since leaving Nina Ricci with a show in the pink carpeted Mandarin Oriental ballroom. It was a moment to look both forward and back.
In many ways it was vintage Harris Reed: each look offered a striking picture neckline built on tightly laced corseted superstructure. Some came with caged crinolines. But Reed pushed his look forward. Dropping the supersized platform shoes that have been a signature from day one felt like a welcome evolution of his silhouette. The all-white colour way acted both as a palette cleanser and a call sign to potential VIC bridal customers (both male and female). Harris Reed is here for your big day. Claudia Croft
Maximillian Raynor
Maximilian Raynor has made a habit of turning British institutions into theatre, and for SS27 he built his around a village green grudge match. Titled A Village Green Rivalry, the show set two feuding households against each other on a fictional English lawn – the rivalry pitched somewhere between Ascot, Wimbledon and Romeo and Juliet.
The conceit could easily have swamped the clothes, but Raynor knows the difference between a set piece and a collection. Fascinators came fractured, tea dresses were reworked into something ruder than the garden party intended, and sportswear was subverted with knits and contorted silhouettes. At the centre sat a glossy 1968 Bentley, staged as a family heirloom parked in defiance of the whole scene – part of a collaboration with Bentley Motors, set to the cheerful blare of a brass band. The heritage gags are the easy part; it’s the tailoring underneath that makes Raynor worth watching. Talia Panayi
Top Image: photographer courtesy of Aaron Esh.
