Fashion East SS26: Mudlarks, Drapes, and Dance Lines
- Drew Townsel
- Sep 20
- 2 min read
Fashion East has never done “quiet,” and its Spring/Summer 2026 takeover at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts felt like a flex from a collective that’s been defining what’s next for 25 years. While the retrospective exhibition “Us Lot: 25 Years of Fashion East,” powered by Nike, celebrated a quarter-century of boundary-pushing archives, the runway show proved that the pipeline of new talent is just as strong as ever.
Three designers shared the stage — each radically different but linked by an instinct for world-building. Louis Mayhew opened with a DIY fever dream. A former painter-decorator who mudlarks on the Thames, Mayhew turned found objects into couture energy: jerseys studded with clay pipes, tees draped with dangling headphone cords from the 2010s, and a beauty look of teased hair and smudged eyeliner that screamed unpolished authenticity. It was raw, resourceful, and impossible to ignore.
Then came Nuba by Cameron Williams, closing out his Fashion East trilogy with a study in adaptability. His monochrome pieces draped and reshaped themselves on the body, riffing on Afro-Caribbean traditions while building a language of modular tailoring. Jackets became wraps, hooded tops revealed or concealed, and the finale — a feathered white coat gliding over sheer pants — felt like the emergence of a mythic creature.
Finally, Jacek Gleba brought a dancer’s eye to tailoring. Inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky, he played with soft silks, heavy jerseys, and sculpted cutouts to map the body like a rehearsal sketch. Lines echoed muscle memory, colors were subdued, and the vibe was less “performance glamour” and more “warm-up discipline.” The result was athleticism reimagined as quiet poetry.
At a time when the cost and chaos of Fashion Weeks dominate the headlines, Fashion East is still offering something different — a community platform for experimentation and optimism. This season, the incubator didn’t just mark 25 years of history; it reminded London why its future still starts here.
