September 21, 2025 |
At Fashion Week, sometimes the quieter moments burn the brightest. The last two seasons have seen Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt skip the catwalk in favour of intimate get-togethers to unveil their collections. In February it was over a few drinks and a slice of cake in their studio, where the fashion pack could place orders for the excellent clothes that lined the rails. On Saturday, the duo held a similar set-up at Tenderbooks in Leicester Square, where cardboard cut-outs of models wearing their SS26 collection towered high in the windows.
They said they’d been thinking about “the culture of retail” and “the loss of culture since the decline of the high street”. Every weekend the pair open Jake’s, their very own Saturday shop where they sell one-offs or limited-runs of pieces (often using deadstock) that won’t be produced again. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s instinctive and harks back to to the days of heading into town before a big night to find something special to wear. “We’ve seen first-hand that you can create a real community within a retail space and that develops into a language in culture,” said the pair. “It’s site-specific and limited, inclusive but rare.”
They treated their SS26 collection almost like a character study of cool kids going about a spot of retail therapy, partially inspired by Amy Arbus’s street style photos of the Downtown New York scene for The Village Voice. Here, military flight jackets in custard yellow and mossy greens are paired with casual grey sweatpants, while boxy grey hoodies are dressed up with elegant woollen pleated tuxedo trousers. Similarly for the women’s looks, ankle length school skirts are dolled up with wedged leather boots (particularly great in chocolate brown) and multicoloured zip-up drainpipe trousers look ace styled with frilly blouses. To put it plainly, the pair make brilliant clothes. The sort you obsess over from the minute you see them hanging on the shop floor until the moment they land in your own wardrobe. The pieces you cherish and wear over and over. Again and again.
Photography courtesy of Stefan Cooke.
