Thevxlley’s debut collection, “The Narcissist,” features a striking top crafted from a ceramic vase.
Institution
Breaking through the established giants like Armani and Versace at Milan Fashion Week is a formidable challenge for independent brands. Yet, over recent seasons, Institution – the innovative two-year-old label by 31-year-old Georgian-Azerbaijani designer Galib Gassanoff – has steadily carved its own niche. His creations are a fascinating fusion of precise tailoring and imaginative upcycled materials, seen in pieces like a peplum top crafted from shoelaces or a striking sleeveless garment made from rattan place mats.
Gassanoff’s journey into fashion began at 13, captivated by a John Galliano runway show on local television. At 18, he moved to Milan to study fashion. After co-founding his first label, Act No. 1, with Luca Lin, he launched Institution, driven by a desire for a more personal and reflective path. His latest venture not only showcases a bold use of materials but also reinterprets traditional Azerbaijani clothing and champions endangered crafts. For his spring 2026 collection, Gassanoff presented jackets with cinched waists, inspired by chepkens (historical men’s outerwear with fitted bodies and decorative false sleeves), paired with flowing skirts woven from bulrush. He further collaborated with skilled carpet weavers from Georgia’s Borchaly region, creating unique hand-knotted and fringed designs. To bridge the past with the present, his upcoming collection on Feb. 27 will be showcased at Milan’s iconic thermal baths.
Raw Mango
Indian designers and those of the Indian diaspora, like Kartik Kumra and Priya Ahluwalia, are steadily gaining international recognition. Among them is Sanjay Garg, 45, whose New Delhi-based brand, Raw Mango, is set to debut at London Fashion Week on Monday. Established in 2008 and named after India’s national fruit, Raw Mango was born from Garg’s work on a textile project with artisans in Chanderi, a town renowned for its hand-loom textiles. This experience, he explains, “clarified the relationship I now have with fashion, which is rooted in exploration, engagement and experimentation with craft.”
Historically, Garg has showcased elegant saris and kurtas crafted from luxurious Varanasi silk brocades. This season, his collection, “It’s Not About the Flower,” draws inspiration from the ubiquitous garlands in Indian culture. Garg views these vibrant floral strings as a symbol of South Asian society’s pluralism and the collective beauty found in togetherness, rather than individual expression. The collection features exquisite silk tuberose and jasmine blossoms, hand-assembled and delicately arranged on finely embroidered brocades, soft rib-knit cottons, quilted rayon, and rich wool felt. Garg encourages audiences to look beyond individual techniques or motifs, hoping they will consider “how we can read a garment from the subcontinent through a focus on its creative rather than its manual labor.”
Petra Fagerstrom
Swedish designer Petra Fagerstrom, 27, consistently draws inspiration from societal anxieties. Her fall 2025 collection, for instance, confronted the rise of conservative values and the “trad-wife” aesthetic on social media. “I was really frustrated by purity culture and wanted to comment on [the importance of] avoiding nostalgia,” she explains. Fagerstrom ingeniously reimagined Dior’s iconic Bar jacket, a long-standing symbol of femininity since 1947. Her reinterpretation maintained the signature cinched waist and flared basque but incorporated lenticular pleats, a material that shifted transparency based on the viewer’s angle. (The garment was styled with a high thong and no bra underneath.) She also experimented with AI software, feeding it a bouclé Chanel-style blazer pattern and embracing the unique alterations and glitches the AI produced.
Fagerstrom’s impressive background includes studies at Central Saint Martins in London and Parsons Paris, internships at renowned houses like Balenciaga and Acne Studios, before launching her eponymous brand in 2023. Her entry into fashion was unconventional, stemming from her passion for figure skating and designing her own performance costumes. For her fall 2026 show in London on Monday, she revisits her past, presenting a collection that delves into the complex dynamic between two stock characters: a stage mom and her star daughter. Audiences can anticipate more of her signature tailoring and lenticular pleating, and Fagerstrom teases, “of course there will also be something sparkly,” given the theatrical inspiration.
Goyagoma
London-based designer Traiceline Pratt, 29, draws inspiration from the ordinary, everyday world around him. He asserts, “I don’t believe in going to the library or traveling across the globe to someone else’s culture to create,” believing that his immediate surroundings offer ample vibrancy for compelling collections. Pratt, who grew up in Nassau, Bahamas, initially moved to the U.S. in 2014 on a track and field scholarship for North Dakota State University. A passion for watercolor painting led him to a B.A. in fine art, but when a former professor’s insight that fashion could provide a broader platform for his artistic vision prompted Pratt to pursue a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins.
After gaining experience at Phoebe Philo, Pratt launched his own label, Goyagoma, last year. The name itself is a tribute to his favorite painter, Francisco de Goya, and to Michel Goma, who succeeded Balenciaga’s founder. For his spring 2026 collection, “Something to Wear,” Pratt sought to evoke a typical day in his childhood neighborhood. The collection featured practical garments like a low-belted trench coat and a bomber jacket with an oversized collar, elevated through luxurious fabrics and clever proportional play. This season continues that narrative; while the initial offering explored daytime needs, his latest collection – showcased yesterday in London as part of the Fashion East talent incubator program – delves into nighttime desires. Pratt summarizes, the first part focused on “people’s needs. Part two looks at what people want.”
Thevxlley
While many designers fuse art and fashion, Daniel del Valle, 30, operating under the name Thevxlley, takes this integration to a new extreme. His debut collection, “The Narcissist,” unveiled today at London Fashion Week after three years of development, features pieces that are as much surrealist sculptures as wearable art. Del Valle boldly incorporates diverse materials, from ceramics and glass to flowers. One remarkable creation sees a repurposed piece of pottery transformed into a top, while a T-shirt is crafted from discarded Victorian-era ceramic pipes found along the River Thames. (Notably, almost all of del Valle’s creations are unique, one-off pieces.) He also ingeniously utilized his mother’s wedding dress, adorning it with delicate wax flowers, and collaborated with his baker father to create a garment from bread. Del Valle playfully questions the wearability of his designs: “They can be worn but are they meant to be worn? I’m not entirely sure, but that tension is part of the project.”
Hailing from a small town in Andalusia, Spain, del Valle moved to London at 19. His diverse background includes work as a floral designer and creating ceramic sculptures for an exhibition with lingerie couturier Michaela Stark. “When a material or technique catches my interest, I immerse myself in it until I understand it,” explains del Valle, who founded Thevxlley last year. He envisions his brand as a continuously evolving artistic language, extending beyond fashion to embrace performance and potentially, future furniture designs. “It’s not just a brand but my artistic language,” he states. “The garden where all my obsessions coexist.”
Yoshita 1967
For Anil Padia, 34, family is a profound source of inspiration. His brand, Yoshita 1967, is a tribute to his beloved disabled aunt, born in 1967. “She encapsulates what Yoshita stands for: the inherent dignity of every human being, regardless of ability, background or social standing,” Padia explains. His designs also deeply draw from the craft traditions of his dual heritage, tracing back to ancestors who emigrated from Gujarat, India, to Nyeri, Kenya, over a century ago. Padia honed his skills at Central Saint Martins and La Chambre Syndicale in Paris, and worked for prestigious houses like Paco Rabanne, Jacquemus, and Y/Project. However, it was his return to Nairobi during the pandemic that truly ignited his vision. Previously, “I always felt like an outsider,” he admits. “Yoshita was born from that rupture. It was about reclaiming my voice and creating a space where what I had to say held value.”
Upon his return, Padia reconnected with Catherine Wanjalo, now his head of studio in Nairobi’s Parklands neighborhood. Together, they meticulously built a network of skilled artisans. His spring 2025 debut collection, “Temple Road,” showcased in Paris and Cape Town, featured a captivating range of slinky halter-neck dresses, elegant backless sheaths, knee-length skirts, intricate headdresses, and scarves. These pieces were masterfully crafted using various crochet techniques, often adorned with shimmering small round mirrors and delicate silver bells. “The bells are a central symbol for Yoshita,” Padia notes, adding, “For me, they speak of shared cultures, dance, mysticism, history and personal memory.” This coming March, he plans to launch an online made-to-order bridal collection, concurrently developing “more couture-driven” pieces that explore corsetry and lingerie, slated for a Fall show in Paris.