March 14, 2025 |
Looking for fab fashions with a helpful dollop of Scottish pride? Enter Owen Edward Snaith. Born and raised in Dunbar; a picture-postcard village on the east coast that became one of Scotland’s most popular resort towns around the 1950s, the 25-year-old’s clothes cleverly fuse fisherfolk dress with experimental menswear.
Take his debut fashion show, The Eye in the Cave, staged off-schedule on the eve of London Fashion Week last September. Taking place inside the Handbag Foundation in Vauxhall, guests were transported from the bright lights of the capital to a small fishing town in Scotland, as Snaith imagined a show set resembling a rocky shore, littered with debris as a gulf of fake seagulls flew above.
“My main reference points are pulled from traditional Scottish dress and the local fishing industry which my family, most significantly my grandad, have been a massive part of for 100s of years,” the designer told us upon graduating from Westminster’s BA fashion programme in 2022.
Night At The Glebe; photography by Jivan West
It was during his studies where he began to use his clothes as a vehicle to express his experiences growing up queer in a hyper-masculine small fishing community, as well as celebrating handcraft born in his native country. Standout pieces from his graduate collection included capes made of fishing rope, printed denim wear and flamboyant tartan twinsets, leading Snaith to work with V&A Dundee on its Tartan exhibition in 2023.
For his SS25 collection, Snaith set out on exploring a series of mythical characters via memories of growing up in Dunbar. “[The collection] followed my muse for the collection, Johnnie (named after the Scottish slang for condom), who went on holiday to my hometown and discovered these characters from my fantasies when he goes cruising there on his first night.” He loosely based the narrative around a series of love poems written by his nana, Pamela Johnstone, who wrote to her husband, Snaith’s grandfather, when he worked at sea. A protagonist read extracts from Johnstone’s love notes as models paraded in a unified circular motion.
“The looks, which are presented as menswear but very intentionally fuck with the traditional understanding of what that looks like, draw from elements of historical fisherfolk dress,” explains Snaith, who describes his research process like “a tourist digging through the sand for the perfect shell”. He collated photos of local fisherfolk and tourists on their jollies to Dunbar, adapting silhouettes and patterns he saw in the area’s local archives with traditional Scottish garments, all shot through a maximalist lens.
The Eye in The Cave; photography by Patrick Dempsey
It’s an approach that’s followed Snaith to his latest project. Titled Night at The Glebe, it marks the first installment of the designer’s 1-of-1 capsule collections which will be released quarterly. “The ethos is to make pieces that have their own distinct design identity that can be styled and collaged together to create a hybrid between my own personal handwriting and the wearer’s unique style language,” says the designer.
Utilising deadstock and repurposed materials, highlight pieces included clashing striped dress shirts that are chopped and changed to envision an elegant, off-the-shoulder shape. Elsewhere, tartan swirls adorn hooded T-shirts, ribbed knitted twin sets are hand-dyed a murky blue and skirts are twisted into an angular shape. You can see echoes of Snaith’s own daily uniform in the collection too, as the designer set out to style the collection how he wears his designs day-to-day.
His upcycling wizardry stems from when he was young. “I started making my own clothes out of old curtains and adjusting my clothes, cropping my school shirts and trying to turn what were ‘conventional’ clothes into something that felt more me. I think I began to realise that I could use fashion to express myself,” he says. “Like many people that grow up in small towns, there wasn’t much space to be different or experimental with things that weren’t seen as the ‘norm’. I always felt like an outsider, never feeling like I truly fit in and at times laughed at yet still having this internal grounding of knowing that I belonged there. It definitely made me tough, I grew a thick skin and decided that I was going to just be unapologetically me. I remember that I hit a turning point when I was 13 or 14 where I didn’t care anymore. I would wear a full face of makeup and platform shoes everyday to school in protest.”
May You Never Be Lost At Sea; photography by Luke Million
Moving to London when he was 16 “allowed me to figure out who I really was at a young age”, adds Snaith. “The fact is I was among people that accepted me and were also going through different levels of self experimentation with their look, sexuality and gender was everything I had dreamed of growing up.” He quickly immersed himself into the city’s queer club scene. “When I was growing up I was obsessed with the New Romantics. I would watch documentaries and look at images of clubs like Taboo and the Blitz, dreaming of being dressed up in my full regale and dancing all night. I definitely think the experimental nature of nightlife and freedom of self expression is what keeps me in London.”
Outside of his life in London, the designer strives to build upon the community of craftspeople back in Scotland. “Many crafts such as handweaving and kiltmaking are near extinction. I want to ensure that through my work I highlight how important these people are, how amazing their work is and that in a more digital world we can collaborate so that no one is left behind. I always want to use fashion to build a community, I want to make sure that kids like me that grew up fantasising about this other world have the space to make this a reality. If Ii can help just one mini Owen, I will be happy.”
Top image: photography by Jivan West. Shop Owen Edward Snaith’s Night at The Glebe capsule collection of 1-of-1s here.
