Joshua Ewusie of Ewusie
As a graduate student at Central Saint Martins in London, Joshua Ewusie interned at JW Anderson and Maximilian Davis — and presented a graduate collection that included a leather skirt set laser-etched in a pattern of concentric circles reminiscent of West African nsubura prints. Ewusie, 27, is of Ghanaian heritage and often finds inspiration in traditional garments taken from his mother’s wardrobe. He also demonstrated his penchant for reworking vintage garments with a cocktail dress reconfigured from wool coats, and a bugle-beaded minidress embroidered with crimson thread. His spring 2026 collection, which he’ll show in London at his label’s first stand-alone presentation, is an ode to Lewisham. Ewusie’s been working with a screen printer and various studios in the Southeast London neighborhood, and has fallen in love with its diverse creative community. Pieces include a minidress in resist-dyed kente cloth and a top made of woven laser-cut leather strips, as well as bags and belts, both new categories for the line.
Stephen Biga of Mel Usine
Growing up in New Jersey, Stephen Biga would often take the train into New York City to comb through vintage shops. After graduating from high school, he studied at Parsons and then designed for labels including Proenza Schouler and Rodarte before setting out on his own. He discovered a muse in Jean d’Arras’s 14th-century novel “Le Roman de Mélusine.” Mélusine is a river nymph cursed to hide from her mortal lover each Saturday, when she returns to her aquatic form. But the lover can’t resist spying on her, at which point she turns into a dragon and leaves him. Biga, 33, found power in her departure, and gave his line a contemporary-sounding, gender-ambiguous version of her name. As for the clothes, the silhouettes skew medieval — in his debut collection, which he presented in New York, there’s a monk’s-cowl-like hood that was worn atop a floor-grazing dress; both pieces were in a glittering translucent knit fabric that the designer likens to chain mail, though it’s much lighter and softer.
Oscar Ouyang
Oscar Ouyang grew up in Beijing, where, at 17, he interned at Harper’s Bazaar China. The experience made him realize he was more interested in making clothes than in covering them editorially, so, in 2023, he moved to London to attend Central Saint Martins, eventually showing a graduate collection featuring inventive knit pieces like oversize quilted trousers, a zippered poncho and even a cross-body messenger bag. They caught the attention of buyers from Dover Street Market, who placed an order before his brand had officially launched. The store still stocks his pieces, and Ouyang, 26, will soon have his first stand-alone runway show in London. Titled Don’t Shoot the Messenger, it was inspired by winged couriers like owls, eagles and doves, as well as the idea of intercepted communication, something all too prevalent in our surveillance culture. Naturally, Ouyang made use of feathers, which appear along the brims of studded knit caps. Other pieces include a boatnecked pullover with an open weave and a nylon zip-up jacket with a knit hood.
Rory William Docherty
Rory William Docherty emigrated from the U.K. to New Zealand with his family as a toddler. He moved back in his 20s and worked at the London stores of Miu Miu and Yohji Yamamoto. Docherty transitioned into designing via a gig at a tailoring studio, then returned to New Zealand and had roles at workwear and denim companies before launching his own brand there in 2017. This month, in hopes of broadening his international audience, Docherty, 46, will stage a runway show in London alongside the spring women’s collections, although he thinks of his garments as genderless and trans-seasonal. Docherty’s design process involves translating his sketches into doll-like paper maquettes that are then replicated in fabric at human scale, and this leads to lots of exaggerated angularity, as with, for pre-fall, a blazerlike wool jacket whose shoulders jut out via deviating panels, and a collared button-up with zigzagging sleeves. Both looks were worn with pointy caps.
Claire McKinney and Sophie Andes Gascon of SC103
SC103 was founded in New York in 2019 by Claire McKinney and Sophie Andes Gascon, who are both 33, and whose hand-assembled Links totes, fashioned from interlocking scraps of calf leather in a variety of colors, have proven a popular (and more sustainable) alternative to traditional designer handbags. The pair, who met while studying at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, also design clothing. This season, after taking a break from it, they returned to a runway format and were included on the CFDA’s official New York calendar for the first time. For inspiration, McKinney and Andes Gascon looked to ephemeral phenomena and became interested in, as McKinney says, “fabric that takes on new life with water and wind.” See the sheer black organza that seems to ripple as it catches the light, and the pleated skirt that would surely billow in a breeze.
Jameson Montgomery is a fashion assistant at T Magazine.
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