LONDON FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2026: DAY 4
ASHLEY WILLIAMS
review by ANANO SHALAMBERIDZE
all images ASHLEY WILLIAMS provided by the brand
London’s darling Ashley Williams returned to the schedule with a star-studded cast, including Pixie Geldof, Tish Weinstock, and Debrah Shaw. For Spring/Summer 2026, Williams explored systems of care and contentment, finding purpose in what you have rather than what you want. Her protagonist inhabited a provincial town, taking pride in simple pleasures and tending to her life with the care reserved for the most precious gardens. Here, the mundane became ritual and self-determination, from monotonous jobs elevated to acts of service to neighborly conversations cherished for constancy rather than substance.
The collection translated these ideas into playful yet practical designs. X-ray technicians, nurses, soldiers, cement mixers, and toilet paper factory workers commuted in pops of mint and pink. Tactical belts and vests were made comfortable, rosettes framed safety glasses, and orthopedic padding softened high heels. Floral toilet rolls became wristbands, and every chore was infused with quiet reverence. Through this fantasy of collective care, Williams asked for whom true community is accessible, questioning whether the deepest sense of home belongs only to those who never left it.
LUCILA SAFDIE
review by ANANO SHALAMBERIDZE
all images LUCILA SAFDIE provided by the brand
In a presentation that showed teenage girls changing and hanging out in their bedroom a la The Virgin Suicides, Lucila Safdie’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection was a sustained reflection on nostalgia, obsession, and the complexities of girlhood. Inspired by the Romanov sisters, Safdie imagined them as teenage girls sharing mirrored experiences, suspended in a digital world of algorithmic rabbit holes, browser tabs, and blue light. Puffed princess sleeves, ruffled trims, and soft silhouettes endured beyond tragedy, while Spanish painter Chechu Álava’s delicate portraits and flashes of bright pink and black stripes captured sudden, high-frequency emotions. Pointelle cardigans, cotton jersey bodysuits, and chiffon skirts were scattered across sun-faded floors, and jewellery by Elza White, alongside borrowed mini-shorts and silk demi-couture dresses, marked the playful rituals of early femininity. Everything was searching, everything slipping, a meditation on inheritance, reinvention, and the endless oscillations of adolescence.
SIMONE ROCHA
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images SIMONE ROCHA via vogue.com
Simone Rocha staged her collection at Mansion House, the City of London’s neoclassical seat of power, an apt backdrop for her fascination with beauty slightly out of place. Inspired by Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures and Maureen Freely’s text on dress rehearsals, Rocha explored the awkward poise of adolescence colliding with adult display. Crinolines, panniers, bustles, and sequinned organzas carried grandeur, but with deliberate wonkiness: uneven proportions, trailing hems, bras spilling over bandeaus. Menswear blended in too, with bouquets trapped in organza or stitched into jackets. Vulnerability and resilience sat side by side, as Rocha proposed femininity with all its twists and turns.
ERDEM
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images ERDEM via vogue.com
At the British Museum, Erdem Moralioglu wove a collection around Hélène Smith, the 19th-century psychic who envisioned herself in Marie Antoinette’s court and claimed to speak Martian. Her surreal “romantic cycles” inspired pannier silhouettes, antique laces, shredded embroideries, and vivid sari-like fabrics. The opening look of a hip-caged lace dress pinned with Smith’s Martian alphabet set a mood of history tinged with fantasy and doom. Coats and caped dresses glittered with crystals, while black tuxedo jackets and striped suits offered grounding counterpoints. Erdem’s storytelling never strays far from fabric, but here imagination met history in a dreamscape of moderation and eccentric flourish.
PAOLO CARZANA
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images PAOLO CARZANA via vogue.com
In the British Library’s Reading Room, Paolo Carzana sent out fragile, hand-dyed creations that felt like spirits of air and sea. Inspired by archival prints of extinct and endangered species—and the latest reports of coral bleaching—he explored the tension between nature’s genius and humanity’s destruction. Layers of lavender, saffron, and seaweed-dyed blues floated across asymmetrical drapes, their surfaces hand-painted to shimmering depth. Nasir Mazhar’s sculptural headpieces, recalling shells or tentacles, added to the sense of living organisms made clothing. Carzana’s practice is closer to art than fashion, and this season his vision of “super nature” was profoundly moving.
DILARA FINDIKOGLU
review by MAREK BARTEK
all images DILARA FINDIKOGLU via vogue.com
Dilara Findikoglu drew crowds to Ironmonger’s Hall, where her show Cage of Innocence staged a cathartic journey from confinement to liberation. It opened with white corseted dresses, dirt-streaked and tense, before unraveling into latex-smothered lace, torn lingerie, and trance-like performances. Chains rattled, handbags spilled, bodies seemed possessed. Turkish metal jewellery, sourced from bazaars, became masks and armour; eventually corsetry transformed into full leather harnesses with swishing horsetails. Autobiographical and defiant, Findikoglu channelled her conservative upbringing into a gothic feminist vision that balanced toughness with fragility. Hyper-sexual, hyper-sensational, but deeply personal, the collection cemented her as London’s most fearless storyteller.