Everything about Demna’s Gucci runway debut made me feel nauseous. The monumental, neo-classicist venue designed by Sub.Global felt deeply discomforting to me – it immediately evoked Mussolini-era architecture, the kind that asserted power and signaled the omnipresence of a totalitarian regime. Playing with such tropes simply doesn’t sit right, especially in the context of figures like Giorgia Meloni shaping current politics. I was genuinely surprised that nobody else said this out loud. But then again, I suppose it’s easy to turn a blind eye when it’s convenient.
And what about the clothes? To me, they suggest that Demna – a designer I truly admired during his Balenciaga years – is at a creative standstill. Or downfall. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
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For some strange reason, I had hoped that Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut at Fendi would surprise us all with something genuinely fun (believe it or not, once upon a time Fendi was fun – before Kim Jones turned it into yet another beige Italian brand). But there was no trace of that spirit on her runway. At least, it was nowhere to be seen beyond a passing statement in the press release.
It seems that the only thing distinguishing Maria Grazia’s current mindset from her years at Dior is a looser relationship to a unifying theme. Her Fendi woman is slightly less uptight – perhaps. Yet this newly found “chill” made the latest collection resemble Zadig & Voltaire more than Fendi: slip dresses, military references, velvet jackets, denim – the building blocks of a rather dated understanding of “cool.”
And the menswear? Perhaps because Chiuri hasn’t designed menswear in decades, it ended up being one of the most compelling aspects of the collection. Funnily enough, in her universe, men are allowed to wear more fabulous furs than women.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram.
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What I love about Conner Ives’s latest collection is how unfussy, unpretentious, and effortless it feels – while remaining absolutely glamorous. The designer drew inspiration from Weimar-era Berlin: a time of freedom and untamed expression, a moment of societal shift, and the rise of a queer community that helped shape modern art. Echoes of the 1920s came alive in Ives’s low-waisted dresses with fringed hems and sleeves, as well as in a phenomenal fur-trimmed silk coat adorned with chinoiserie motifs. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
Creatives like Daniel Del Valle remind us why London Fashion Week – even at its weakest – still matters. The 2026 LVMH Prize semi-finalist and founder of THEVXLLEY does not call himself a designer, nor does he classify his brainchild as a fashion brand in the traditional sense. His latest work, “The Narcissist”, is a collection of wearable art that has been three years in the making.
A former florist, Del Valle drew on the world of fleeting beauty to create body-morphing garments: monumental porcelain vases were transformed into bodices; delicate cropped sweaters and tops were bound with branches or burst forth with bouquets; an artisanal T-shirt was crafted from a literal mosaic depicting blooming tulips; and a hand-painted dress adorned with ornate orbs evolved into a three-dimensional tableau vivant. When flowers were not integrated into the wearable vases, they shot out from the models’ heels, were strapped to their feet, and trailed behind them in a scatter of petals.
There was something profoundly heart-wrenching about the collection – so fragile, yet so defiant. At a time when everything in London can feel calculated and commercial, THEVXLLEY rekindles the spirit of dreamlike experimentation that defined the great fashion conceptualists of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Days of London Fashion Week have passed under the sign of general underwhelm. The first collection I genuinely found worthy of attention was Emilia Wickstead’s.
Known and loved by her loyal clientele for her regal approach to old-school elegance, the designer lets her horses loose this season, sending her typically uptight (and always impeccably dressed) woman off to work with her hands. Channeling a Buñuel-era heroine, the archetype Wickstead envisioned was embodied by Fano Messan, actress and part-time sculptor: a woman of many trades, wearing a paint-splattered apron over an evening dress, unmoved by societal norms and intent on living life on her own terms.
The result is a collection of exceptional, assured tailoring that radiates ease – 1950s boarding-school tweed dresses with roomy pockets layered over denim, and ball gowns in wallpaper florals grounded by chunky sweaters made for the moors rather than soirées. It is not the first time Wickstead has taken notes from Miuccia Prada – particularly in the cropped red skirt suit styled with monk-strap shoes and socks – but she can be forgiven. She adopts those “ugly chic” cues thoughtfully, and they feel entirely at home within her distinctly British universe.
At heart, Wickstead is an eccentric who loves the classics just as much as she enjoys subverting them. She is not the only designer in London working in this vein, but compared with, say, Erdem, her results feel markedly sharper, mercifully free of ornamental frou-frou.
