22 February 2025 |
If you’re looking for designers that push the needle, Fashion East is always going to be the place to find it. The three talents showing as part of Lulu Kennedy’s talent incubator this season each produced their own flavours of boundary-pushing design. Take German designer Olympia Schiele of Louther, for instance, who calls herself a deconstructionist. Her sculptural collections warp and distort styles she sees on the streets of everyday London. Think shearling jackets in hulking proportions, swollen suits with sagging double-waistbands and OTT faux furs that would look great on any globe-trotting music star.
Also showing were designers Cameron Williams and Jebi Labembika of Nuba, who devote their label to the elegant wardrobes of their Caribbean and African mothers. They described their collection as being created in a dream-like state. Hooded, bias-cut tops danced across the natural contours of the body, while woollen overcoats migrated into scarfs that snaked around models’ necks. The pair’s approach to silhouette is forward-facing, both literally and in the metaphorical sense, with shrunken tailoring forcing models to walk with jutted shoulders. Ace stuff all round.
Taking his final turn on the Fashion East catwalk was Olly Shinder, who produced his most elevated outing to date. Having channelled sexed-up archetypes while queering hyper masc uniforms in seasons gone by, he shifted his utilitarian codes into more formal territory. There were hand-quilted silk organza skirt suits, military-style jackets extended into overcoats and calf-length shirt dresses. Add in wipe clean rain macs and roomy donkey jackets and you had a super shoppable wardrobe with subversive edge.
Photography courtesy of Fashion East.
