W: Daniel Dou

London-based designer Jean Louie Castillo has officially anchored his creative universe at the Mandrake Hotel, debuting the AW26 SILVERCITY collection. For Castillo, fashion has never been about simple utility; it is a medium for intense storytelling and theatrical menswear that blurs the line between couture and performance. By choosing the Mandrake—a venue synonymous with surrealism and dark luxury—he provided the perfect physical vessel for a collection rooted in the "grit of the growth process."

SILVERCITY is not merely a seasonal theme; it is the definitive conceptual realm at the core of Castillo’s work. It serves as a permanent landscape where all his creations—past, present, and future—coexist. In this AW26 iteration, the world is framed by the "perilous process of reconstruction." Castillo explores the human tendency to mistake self-destructive excess for ambition, translating lived experience into a haunting, fictionalized site of tension and denial.

The garments themselves act as artifacts of this psychological friction, stripping away the polish of traditional aspiration to reveal the desperation beneath. Through dramatic silhouettes and a signature dark aesthetic, the collection examines the "addiction to an imagined higher self." It positions the wearer at a threshold—a tense, cinematic space where identity is eroded and reconstructed in real-time.

Ultimately, Castillo’s work proves that growth is rarely a clean transition. It is a structural fracture, a necessary breaking of the old self to make room for something uncomfortably new. SILVERCITY isn’t just a runway show; it is a sustained piece of world-building that challenges the viewer to confront the shadow side of transformation and find the undeniable beauty within the discomfort.