"Selected designers from the Flair Fashion showcase''
W: Sahara Jasmine Harmony Catwalk I: Rosslyn @Rosslynphotography
During the showcase, a fellow young professional asked if it was my first London Fashion Week. How could he tell? He said it was because I still had the first season glow. It was true. By the end of the week, my face hurt from smiling so much, alongside the rest of my body from running up, down and around London in all sorts of boots, jackets and dresses.
If that's how I felt just from watching the show, I can imagine it must be so rewarding as a designer to see your collection come to life. Especially when you have woven your own life experiences into it. It was inspiring to see a new generation of designers from across the globe come together. Together, these designers suggest that fashion's future may be less about following a single tradition and more about finding new ways to turn personal stories, materials and ideas into something wearable.
As a young creative myself, I was inspired by this showcase and its emerging talent. Each designer had their own story woven into their textiles, turning topics that are deeply personal into entire worlds of their own on the runway. Since my mum passed away, fashion has been a core part of my life, and staying connected to her. She was a fashion designer who owned her own boutique, Sharei La'Mar London, based in Covent Garden. Every show I attended I wore garments that she had designed. Pieces that I've treasured throughout my childhood; fantasising the day I could wear them to events such as this
TRASHY PLANETS
@trashyplanets
Trashy Planets is the work of Bambi Blue, a self-taught designer and showgirl who's spent her career in costume and theatre before this, her London Fashion Week debut. This
season's collection, Ashes To Ashes, is built around regality, mythology and rebirth. Beauty rising out of destruction. Her collection was born last year as a way of grieving her father's
death. He was her biggest supporter, the person who encouraged her to go for it every time Trauma isn't essential to her work, her designs are reflections of her emotional state at the time. "I like to turn however I'm feeling into something beautiful," she told me, "something physical that I can look back at.
" My favourite piece was the biblically accurate swan gown, where white feathers cascaded across the show floor as the model moved. To me it reads as grace and transformation; the swan shows up as a symbol across mythologies, from ancient Greek to Celtic folklore. It felt like the turning point of the collection, where light followed the darkness of the pieces before it.
Sharing the experience of losing a parent, it made sense why her collection spoke to me. Creating has always been essential to my life and the way I cope with grief, alongside joy, fatigue, mundanity, frustration, pride. I've experimented with a range of mediums, including photography, jewellery, ceramics and writing. Making, to me, is simply the best way to process emotions that can't be put into words.
Quarez
IG: @qu4rez
Cleo Quarez, describes her collection this season as a sanctuary for the deeply shy child; exaggerated proportions, protective silhouettes, distorted forms that let the wearer hide, transform or disappear inside them. She works almost entirely with pre-existing, reused materials.
Her inspiration stems from her childhood. Memories of her grandmother, “a fashion diva," mixed with her experience of being a “shy kid” who found that her clothes in elementary
school gave her a way to be seen at a time where she felt invisible. She has an MA in mathematics and taught herself fashion entirely through YouTube. Maths is logic. Fashion,
for her, is the chaos she needs to balance it.
Her need to balance logic and creativity resonated with me. After graduating, I've found myself returning to my inner child as a way of loosening the grip of logic, pressure and
expectation. Tapping into my inner child is how I learned to heal. Creativity is part of that, alongside solo travelling, climbing, dancing; anything that forces me out of my comfort zone. Fashion has always been my way of expressing myself. It's the first thing said when I walk into a room, before I even open my mouth. So Cleo's premise, that clothing has helped her combat shyness; that it's both a hiding place and a way of being seen, is a concept I resonate with. Her exploring memory, ironically, took me on my own trip down memory lane.
PSY LAUIG: @psylau.hk
In a world where fashion has become evermore fleeting, Psy Lau challenges our instinct to constantly acquire more. Her SS27 collection, The Art of Letting Go, draws on the Japanese
concept of Danshari (斷捨離): decluttering, releasing what no longer serves us and reclaiming our space. For Psy Lau, this extends beyond the wardrobe. Clothing becomes away to think about the impermanence of human relationships, and the painful process of accepting that not everything is meant to stay.
The art of letting go was a concept that Psy Lau has directly experienced through theprofound loss of loved ones that truly shaped her world. To her, “presence is fragile, and
tomorrow is never promised”. Humans and fashion both share that life cycle. Psy Lau encourages us to “hold onto the people we love, to cherish every fleeting moment, and to honor the bonds that define us before they slip away." The last outfit in the collection was particularly special to her, the dandelion being a symbol of letting go. By designing clothes that are easily mix and matchable, she wants her collection to be something that people will cherish. Similar to the way she has treasured relationships to her loved ones.
Growing up in a single parent home and experiencing the loss of a loved one at a young age, I understand the true meaning of connection that Psy Lau shares. She feels that growing up in a single-parent home has taught her to “hold connections with people very close to [her] heart... Every painful parting and broken friendship leaves me deeply devastated, reinforcing the painful realization that no relationship is truly permanent." For me, fashion has similarly been a way that I cope with my loss. Treasuring the clothes that my mum left behind. Her life lives on through the legacy of her clothing. Perhaps letting go, rather than loss, is a way of making peace with the reality that nothing is permanent.
