Our favourite BIPOC and Queer designers at LFW SS27

2 days ago

7 min read

Written By: Mylène Dominicus @myld.ac

Home to some of the most boundary pushing designers, London Fashion Week is known for its experimental nature and theatrical shows. This season was no different, as designers looked to the past and future in embracing cultural heritage, material innovation, and craftsmanship. Here are some of our favourites.

Sarah Regensburger

Last week, an amalgamation of Persian heritage and British-German culture took over the Asia House through Sarah Regensburger’s newest collection, Diaspora: The Art of Belonging. Persian rugs opened a pathway for a collection full of cultural heritage and family traditions. Born in Germany and now based in London, Regensburger opens up about how she long felt the need to hide her Iranian heritage. In her SS27 collection, the designer opens up a dialogue for those who grew up between cultures.

Household textiles of fringed tapestry and termehs were transformed onto the human body, displaying a reimagination of cultures and traditions passed down through generations, while still honouring them for what they are. Models walked and danced through the house in vegan banana leather, bold colours, metallic Bandari masks, and henna. The show also saw the return of the brand’s iconic lace catsuits, this time inspired by the Persion poems Regensburger grew up with as a little girl. And this time, Regensburger’s tailored tartan suits included hand-stitched Panj coins, meant to showcase the blend of cultures and the inheritance of culture.

Images courtesy of Zena Fawzy Abdou (@zenas.photos) and Sarah Regensburger on Instagram

The show closed with Regensburger walking down the runway with her mother in leaf-print suits, showing homage to her mother and all the women who came before her.

Jenn Lee

Continuing her ‘Taiwan Qipao Craft Revival Project’ launched earlier this year, JENN LEE’s Study of Control and Loss of Control SS27 collection explores the history and craftsmanship of the Taiwanese qipao. The brand’s free-spirited and rebellious nature ran through fabric London this fashion week, taking over the space known as a home to counterculture and underground nightlife.

The ‘study of control’ aspect of the collection comes back in Lee’s application of traditional methods of Taiwanese tailoring. With the help of 75-year-old master artisan Chen Baoyu, she designed garments using hand-crafted straight frog closures, rice paste sizing, hand-stitched piping and precise steam iron moulding. Lee’s dedication to the preservation of tradition and identity shine through her use of endangered artisanal techniques in the making of this collection. The qipaos, in this case, are not just a show of tradition, but an appreciation for cultural memory inherited through generations of craft.

The ‘loss of control’ can be seen in Lee's view of the qipao through an avant-garde and contemporary lens. The collection is not just a preservation of tradition, but a reimagination of what tradition looks like in movement. Gothic lines, dark romantic aesthetics, material contrast, asymmetrical silhouettes, and three-dimensional tailoring showcase a contemporary interpretation of the qipao that breaks societal norms.

Images courtesy of JENN LEE

The collection is riddled with tension, between tradition and modernity, delicacy and assertiveness, restriction and freedom. It’s through this emotional tension that JENN LEE explores craftsmanship not as static, but ever-evolving through generations.

YUI Kao

To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, FJU Talents brought its alumni and their collections to London Fashion Week to celebrate Taiwanese design on the global stage. Amongst them was YUI Kao, whose Impulse Lover collection explored contemporary romance through the lens of commerciality and queer aesthetics

Models strutted across the runway, throwing heart-shaped handbags and charms into the crowd. The theatrics of it all screamed, according to Kao, “Love me, love me.” The collection was filled with visual excess, humour, and provocation. Hyper-saturated red tulle contrasted with structured cord corsets made an illusion of the body, sculpting genderless, oversized silhouettes meant to critique contemporary restrictive body expectations and the lengths we go to to be desired.

The looks are riddled with commercial and pop cultural Taiwanese details, from large snack packaging to heart-shaped charms and neon earmuffs. The commercial motifs are metaphors critiquing contemporary dating culture by drawing on the imagery of fast-food and impulse buying. And with just nine looks, YUI Kao explores the transactional nature of modern dating and the fears and insecurities of self-presentation when romantic desire is involved.

Images courtesy of ASBO Magazine

SSLB

Flair Fashion is a platform dedicated to empower the next generation of designers. This London Fashion Week, they featured London-based accessories and embroidery brand SSLB (Seven-Spot-Ladybird). Nature in Time is a continuation of the previous collection, Nature & Creatures, but this time shifting its focus onto the passage of time and the transformation that brings.

The nine looks include serene silk dresses, floral details, and delicate semi-sheer capes and skirts. The simplistic garments act as a canvas for the brand’s embroidered jewelry. The collection opened with the Flowers of the Four Seasons: plum blossoms, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum. The fauna imagery reflects Chinese cultural views on the changing of the seasons. The lotus explores the transformation from the bloom of summer to the fade of autumn, celebrating how transformation is a process of beauty and freedom.

Images courtesy of Flair Fashion and SSLG on Instagram

The collection ended with an ethereal embroidery of a peacock on the back of a cape, signifying the fortune, vitality, and radiance of nature.

Label Astha Garg

Indian-born designer Astha Garg brought her family’s history with fashion to the London Fashion Week stage through Fashion Scout’s Ones To Watch show. The recent London College of Fashion graduate opened her show with a short video of Ranjit Bhatt, a puppeteer whose art is an inherited practice within his family. The video sets a precedent for the collection centred around sensory exploration and family legacy.

The video continued to play as ten looks walked down the runway. The first look further explored the body’s relationship with the senses, as you could hear the clacking of the wood—a contrast to the sheer and embroidered dress and a reference to her runway debut for which Astha studied woodcarving. From sharply tailored suits to delicate tulle, from embellished backless dresses to lace lingerie and bright red accents, the collection consistently presented a tension between tradition and innovation. Fringe and tulle flowed across the body, emphasizing movement, while the embroidery reflected themes of human emotion.

Images courtesy of Label Astha Garg on Instagram

The show closed with a gorgeous hoop skirt petticoat covered with black and pink pattern print. Garg, once again, presented a collection of craftsmanship through the lens of both legacy and innovation.

Yaku

For his SS27 collection, Yaku Stepleton continues his story of The Possible Family Reunion with Chapter 8: Can’t Rush Cooked Food. Placed in the setting of a family barbecue, he explores family memory and the folkloric nature it adopts as stories get distorted the more they’re retold.

The show took place in the BFC’s NewGEN Space in 180 Strand, where guests were welcomed into a backyard setting with nature noises, painted landscapes, and the scent of fresh grass. It opened with the collection’s main and recurring character: Grandad. He recalls memories of meals and conversations with his two grandchildren, setting the precedent of the show. The further back they looked, the more mythological the stories seemed, until memory became an invention.

Key moments in one's childhood came to the forefront, such as the ‘cool older sibling’ who, looking back, was just an awkward teenager, or the uncle who taught you self defense, or even the first time you caught your mum smoking. These characters were brought to life through theatrical performance from the models, as well as exaggerated props (amps, Xbox controllers, and iPads). The exaggeration and theatricality of the show represented how memories often thought of as ordinary and banal undergo a mythical transformation through the act of telling and retelling.

Images courtesy of YAKU

While previous collections often received the critique of being too far of a look into the past or future, this season seems to be the Goldilocks fit with the consensus that the designer’s RPG world is slowly but surely focusing.

Selasi

This fashion week, Ronan Mckenzie continued her exploration of womanhood, intimacy, and community through the paths of the open road. Her London-based brand SELASI showcased its latest collection, Going Places, at M&A Coachworks, where cars, movement, and the SELASI woman were the centre focus.

The designs took direct inspiration from the automobile, playing with silhouettes, proportions, material, and colours. The garments prioritised movement. Draping techniques mimicked both the female form and the lines of a car, while the moto jackets were made from deadstock leather. The intentional cutouts and exposed backs added a sensual contrast to the structured shaping of the body. And the range of colours paint the same picture one would see outside their car window on a long journey, from the deep blues of the clear sky to the warmth of a sunset.

Images courtesy of SELASI

The collection wasn’t so much about cars as it was about everything that happens within and through it. The conversations in the backseat, the moving views from the window, and the SELASI woman in the driver’s seat. It was a collection not about the open road, but the freedom and possibilities you find in it.

Grete Henriette

When was the last time you worshipped a thong? This is the question Grete Henriette asks its audience at the unveiling of its SS27 collection MOURN. at its 30-year celebration in. This London Fashion week the artist celebrated 30 years of the brand at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, where it displayed a curated exhibition of wearable artworks. At the heart of the exhibition: the idolisation and exploitation of women’s artistry at its centre.

The Thong, in this case, is presented as a relic symbolising the exploitation and objectification of women’s beauty. It reflects a dissatisfaction with how women’s emotional and physical prowess has been hyper-consumed by society. This is then contrasted with Henriette’s signature woven metal veil of lilies. The material weighs on the model in a metaphor for purity culture and religious restrictions, while the panties trace the designer’s experience as a woman through silk “unmentionables”.

Images courtesy of Grete Henriette

The venue held domestic homeware, religious iconography, and women’s hair, transforming guests into voyeurs as they were invited to question conformity throughout history. It was another collection through which Henriette used artisanal sculptural practices to blend the worlds of art and fashion.