New designers: meet fashion’s ones to watch

Interviews Jo Jones and Helen Seamons
Photographs Jonathan Daniel Pryce

Despite this, or maybe because of it, designers across London are more determined than ever. They’re working long hours, hand-dyeing, cutting, stitching, draping, pressing – finding ways to express their visions as succinctly and with as much impact as possible. When Laura Weir, the new CEO of the British Fashion Council, made her first speech about her vision for London Fashion Week earlier this year, she talked about a new era for the British fashion industry. One of her first moves was to waive the fees charged to designers for the privilege of showing, meaning that there are 20 per cent more designers showing on the schedule this month. They include the emerging designers featured across the following pages. Joshua Ewusie, who won a Chanel scholarship through the British Fashion Council, creates immaculate laser-cut leather pieces and artisanal indigo fabrics sourced from Ghana, where his family are from. Oscar Ouyang, who is making his London Fashion Week debut this month, designs feathery mohair vests, distressed Fair Isle jumpers and complex intarsia-patterned knitted bags. Talia Lipkin-Connor makes clothes that can be worn – and afforded – by working women who enjoy dressing with flair.

It is this brave new wave of designers who have something distinctive to say that will keep London at the forefront of the fashion business. They are rising to the challenges of the world, from sustainability to tariffs. They don’t aspire to work at a big French or Italian house. They want to be known for what they do, and they want to be self-sufficient. They are the reason why buyers and the press will feel as though they are missing something if they don’t come to London this year. They are part of what Weir is calling “a new era”.

Recreating the buzz that surrounded London Fashion Week in the 90s is no easy task. But it is not Weir’s intention to return us to the theatrical showstoppers of that decade, when Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan made London a must-visit city on the fashion week circuit. Her role is as much about developing a space where creativity, London’s greatest asset, is given the opportunity to flourish in a world where everything is changing. In the current economic climate, the disconnect between most people’s clothing budgets and hiked-up fashion price tags has alienated many of us, and prevented people from aspiring to buy from designers. Why even bother to save up when things are so out of reach?

To succeed, this new breed of designers is having to be more savvy than ever. For Paolo Carzana, that means finding a way to be sustainable, both in the materials he uses and how he secures finance. For Pauline Dujancourt, it is by using hand knitting and crochet to create romantic, wispy womenswear, a firm reminder that craftsmanship and handmade textiles are to be preserved at all costs in a world of fast fashion and AI. And for Maximilian Raynor, who has already dressed Amelia Dimoldenberg, Chappell Roan and Lady Gaga, it is by making a name for himself as a designer championing circularity.

According to the UK Fashion and Textile Association, the British fashion and textile industry supports over 1.3 million jobs, generates over £62bn in Gross Value Added and £23bn in tax revenues. It is important culturally, too. “Fashion week is a valuable piece of national IP and our shop window for what creative Britain looks like,” Weir said. Change isn’t going to happen overnight, but when London Fashion Week opened this week, it was with a distinct change of tone.

Maximilian Raynor, 27
Graduated MA: 2024
Shows to date: 2
Memorable piece: a silver ribbon-crocheted gown
Website: maximilianraynor.com

[Raynor pictured at top, with model Adhieu Arok at Select]

During his second year at Central Saint Martins, Maximilian Raynor posted one of his designs on Instagram. A stylist working with the British singer Shygirl invited him to customise a piece for her. The look was seen by Perfect magazine’s Katie Grand, who invited the young Derbyshire-born designer onto a mentorship programme with Tommy Hilfiger.

“This was during lockdown, before I graduated my BA,” Raynor recalls, “I had this stamp of approval from Perfect, which was amazing, and brought me a lot of press.” By the end of his BA collection, Raynor had a roster of people already supporting him. Still, the MA course gave him a boost. “I closed the MA show, which is during London Fashion Week and is a big deal. That was in February, and that was the real start.”

Raynor’s work has since been shot by the fashion photographers Nick Knight and Inez & Vinoodh. His first solo show, for AW24, was an immersive theatrical experience in Shoreditch, made possible by Hi-Fi, a non-profit programme run by creative agency Hidden that nurtures emerging talent.

The aim of his SS26 show is to feel like theatre. “I was thinking about old Galliano and McQueen shows,” he says, “where it was just spectacle, so much storytelling, so deep and heartfelt and provocative.” Raynor’s collection pulls on different archetypes: an RAF soldier, a grenadier guard; a yellow-and-black look inspired by one of Raynor’s relatives, who played for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Raynor likes to work with new fabrics. “I was visiting AW Hainsworth, a British heritage Yorkshire mill, who supply all the red wool to the Queen’s guards,” he says. His grandfather was a grenadier guard, and “it’s a nice reference to him to use the red wool. Then I spotted some punched wool – the waste material from making pianos – and we’re using that in different ways. There’s something really tactile and weird about it.” Raynor’s more fantastical pieces sit alongside polo knits and cardigans, made in collaboration with Derbyshire-based brand John Smedley. “My task now is to prove that my work has commercial legs,” he says. “They don’t all have to be crazy made-to-order garments.” JJ

Talia Lipkin-Connor, 32
Graduated MA: 2020
Shows to date: 6
Memorable piece: Flame skirt (pictured below in denim)
Website: taliabyre.com

Talia Lipkin-Connor’s label, Talia Byre, takes its name from her great uncle Ralph’s boutique, Lucinda Byre. A hotspot on Liverpool’s Bold Street (often dubbed the Bond Street of the north) through the 1960s–80s, it stocked Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood, had its own label knitwear, and boasted a top floor bar. “My grandma and my aunts were a huge part of that, and my mum worked in the store,” Lipkin-Connor says. “When my grandma’s generation passed, it felt like history slipping away. It was important for me to maintain that heritage, and then to evolve it.”

Lipkin-Connor interned at Paul Smith – she counts him as a mentor – while studying at Central Saint Martins, and later worked at Alexander McQueen, where she spent time researching, and working on draping in the studio and, on one memorable day, stood guard outside a Kate Middleton fitting with the job of shushing studio noise.

She credits these different experiences with helping her build her own company. “When we’re designing, it’s very much for the people,” she says of her label. “It’s for the people in the studio, it’s for me, it’s for my sister.” Think clothes for style-aware women to wear everyday. As she told Vogue earlier this year, “It’s not that deep. Just make stuff that people actually want.”

One of her inspirations for the current AW25 collection is an archive Lucinda Byre checked dress, given to Lipkin-Connor by one of the original buyers for the store, and reimagined into a silhouette of cagoules, statement skirts, fitted knitwear and wide trousers.

At the moment, Lipkin-Connor is building a list of independent stockists she can rely on. “We work with smaller boutiques,” she says, “who we know have strong sell-through, who know who their customer is – and where there’s more of a community.”

But her ultimate goal is to develop a destination similar to the original Lucinda Byre. “I’d love to have an outpost in Liverpool,” she says. “People shop in Liverpool, everyone has a strong identity and really cares about how they look. Growing up around that is a very special thing”. HS

Paolo Carzana, 30
Graduated MA: 2020 
Shows to date: 6
Memorable piece: a hand-dyed and tied deconstructed blazer
Website: paolocarzana.com

The Welsh designer Paolo Carzana is a beneficiary of the Paul Smith Foundation and was previously artist-in-residence at the Sarabande Foundation, supported at the bequest of Alexander McQueen. He received a Kering/British Fashion Council scholarship for sustainability, and was a semi-finalist of the 2024 LVMH prize.

Carzana recycles fabric and uses plant dye recipes. His SS25 collection, which earned him his plaudits, was one of those magical fashion moments of discovery, set in the garden of his rented flat in the East End. Titled “How to Attract Mosquitos”, it involved a succession of models in knotted, plant-dyed layers slowly exiting through his back door, as if they had just come from performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

For his AW25 collection, he created wrapped, tied, and layered creations in a palette of dusty pinks, blues, greens, yellows, and browns, all cooked up from Carzana’s dye recipes at the Paul Smith Foundation. His designs are often complex. Asked how spontaneous his work is, Carzana says, “I work really intensely with my creative team. That period – the four or five days before a show – is where decisions are made.”

Carzana’s SS26 show will be held in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room at the British Museum, made possible by a collaboration between the BFC’s Education Foundation and the British Library, who run an annual student research competition. Carzana has received academic scholarships in the past, “so it’s a really meaningful thing for me to do”. This collection represents a new chapter for the designer. “It’s going to be a completely new story,” he says. “I’m obsessed with pushing things to the extreme.”

Carzana’s collections are small, for sustainability reasons, but he can see himself scaling up. “I sell wholesale to Dover Street Market,” he says. “Not just made-to-order or direct-to-consumer. And I feel like I’m at the beginning. The way I see it, the clothes that I’m making are truly positive in the environment. I’m working with organic materials – bamboo, for example, which is antibacterial – and with the dyes that are vegetable, plant or spice-based. So there is a health element that is really important.” JJ

Joshua Ewusie, 27
Graduated MA: 2024
Shows to date: SS26 will be his first show
Memorable piece: a backless laser-cut leather dress
Website: ewusie.com

Joshua Ewusie, who was born in London, won a British Fashion Council Chanel scholarship to fund his studies, and is currently based at a studio space also provided in part by Chanel. Ewusie’s signature pieces are innovative laser-cut leather pieces, alongside traditional indigo fabrics sourced from Ghana, where his family is from. “My mum came to London in the 1980s, and she met my dad here. My identity is a mix of two different cultures: Ghanaian and Western, and that created its own culture. The brand [Ewusie] is about trying to document that – the combination of the two.”

His parents’ lives from that era have had a big impact on Ewusie’s work. One of his MA projects, on identity, featured photos documenting his mother’s eclectic wardrobe from the 1980s, which he discovered she had used to stuff a pouffe in the living room. “She had pieces that were custom-made for her, traditional sewn pieces from Ghana as well as Western sportswear”. He is further influenced by his father’s musical tastes. “I love the Smiths – he was really into them.” He continues: “That’s why I like that era, the artists and musicians that were coming out.”

Inspiration for his SS26 collection came from both a V&A exhibition on tropical modernism, which documented architectural styles developed in West Africa in the 40s, and Shining Lights, a book that highlights female black diaspora artists in London in the 80s and 90s. The work of photographer Elieen Perrier was particularly important; she later became a friend and mentor to Ewusie.

Inspiration also came from a woven leather shoe purchased on eBay that informed the intricate designs of his laser-cut leather dresses. Vintage garments are also incorporated into his collections: a finale piece from SS26 will be a beaded dress given a second life and a replica version in an aqua silk jersey (pictured). He aims to work with the region in the north of Ghana where he sources the indigo fabrics, and also to explore his leatherwork further.

“There’s so many things you can do with leather,” he says, “and different techniques. I don’t even feel like I’ve touched the surface.” HS

Pauline Dujancourt, 31
Graduated MA: 2022
Shows to date: 2
Memorable piece: a chiffon and crochet draped dresses
Website: paulinedujancourt.com

The Paris-born designer Pauline Dujancourt uses three words to describe her ethereal womenswear brand: emotional, intricate, sisterhood. In her studio, at the heart of London’s Smithfield Market, delicate sheets of pinned organza panels are spread across workbenches, and crocheted birds are attached to the wall.

Textiles are in Dujancourt’s blood. Her paternal grandfather worked in a textile dying factory, and would bring home scraps of fabric for her grandmother to make into clothes for their six children. “When I was a child, my parents sent me a lot to their place on holiday,” Dujancourt recalls. “My grandmother would keep me occupied with crochet and hand-knitting.”

After studying fashion in Paris, she was accepted onto the MA course at Central Saint Martins in 2020. “I moved to London when I was 20,” she says, “because I was so impressed by the scene. I was excited about a Fashion Week of mostly independent brands and designers who would experiment.”

Dujancourt arrived in London during the pandemic, without a job. “Suddenly I had lots of time,” she says, so “I started going back to my crochet and hand-knitting books.” Her AW25 collection features dresses and capes made from crocheted flowers. “I knew for a long time that my first catwalk show would be about my grandma Marianne,” she says. “She had a huge plant in her living room that only bloomed once in all the years she had it. When she passed away, the plant was propagated between her children and grandchildren. It flowers every year, in February, for two weeks on the anniversary of her birthday.” But, she says, “In 2024, the year I had my first show, mine was the only one that didn’t flourish. I thought: let’s make that flower bloom, but in my work. And that’s how we started making thousands of crocheted flowers, to create a connection between she and I.”

To crochet so many flowers, she works with a collective of women in Peru, who otherwise wouldn’t work. “It’s a huge help for us. It means we can deliver 50 of the same jumper to stores on time. They work from home during the week so they can continue to care for their families – we know all the makers by name.” HS

Oscar Ouyang, 26
Graduated MA: 2023
Shows to date: SS26 will be his first show
Most memorable piece: a fringed Fair Isle cardigan
Website: doverstreetmarket.com

Chinese-born Oscar Ouyang established his label a year and a half ago, having graduated from Central Saint Martins. The designer knew from a young age that he wanted to work in fashion. “I think it’s always a thing when you were a kid, to have this imaginary job, what you want to do when you grow up,” he says. “And fashion has always provided a kind of escapism to people, especially when you feel a bit like a misfit when you’re a little child. It’s just so glamorous.”

Ouyang builds his designs from the fabric up, creating garments rooted in material storytelling. His clever use of materials, such as woven Irish Donegal wool and Japanese fabrics produced in China, has created an interesting cultural fusion in his work, which reflects his own background growing up in Beijing during the Beijing Olympics. Describing being surrounded by an influx of foreign tourists, “experiencing the merging of these two cultures, I think it reflects in my collections, there’s always this kind of east Asian aesthetic in there, with the fit, how people dress, mixed with British (Western) culture.”

His AW25 collection weaves history with fantasy, drawing from a blend of medieval Italian manuscripts from the Met archives and Studio Ghibli aesthetics, transforming 15th-century scripts into Fair-Isle-knit patterns. “My favourite look is the reversible Fair Isle sheep-pattern mohair cardigan,” he says. “It was our special take on the traditional button-up cardigan.”

SS26 is Ouyang’s fourth collection, titled “Don’t Shoot The Messenger.” The idea stemmed from birds being shot down while carrying important messages: eagles, owls, pigeons, a metaphor for how communication breaks down in conflict situations. The latest designs feature bird motifs and playful elements such as embroidered feathers, ethically and sustainably sourced as a byproduct of meat.

“There’s a lot of arrow prints and eagle motifs,” he says, “And shirts that take inspiration from Western-style shirts, jackets a little bit like shooting jackets. Most of them come belted, to highlight the waistline.” Ouyang has stockists across the US, Asia and Europe, including the prestigious Dover Street Market. JJ  

Hair and makeup for Adhieu and Ginte, Danielle Van Cuyck at S management using Beauty of Joseon & Weleda; Hair and makeup for Orla Helen Walsh at S management using Charlotte Tilbury and Aveda; Grooming for Mikhail, Danielle Van Cuyck at S management using Maria Nila Professional.