For her spring 2026 runway show in London, Vancouver-born, London-based designer Edeline Lee took us to the big top – figuratively, in this case. While her latest collection, called The Circus, featured some rather fanciful design gestures, Lee’s show was held in a ballroom at the swish Peninsula hotel: a locale more appropriate for crowns than clowns.
Edeline Lee’s latest collection is The Circus.Alla Bogdanovic/Supplied
As it turns out, the contrast between her cheer-inciting concept and the stately setting of her show was befitting of the inspiration from which Lee conceived of her newest pieces. Their assembly featured both grand flourishes and more demure design characteristics.
For all the buoyant theatricality of the circus, Lee noted in a press release for her latest collection, “there’s a sadness about it too that I wanted to explore – the beauty of the circus is ephemeral and transient. One night of glittering madness and in the morning it has vanished.”
Simone Rocha’s collection stayed true to the designer’s romantic DNA.Ben Broomfield/Courtesy of Erdem
But Lee’s wares are anything but fleeting. She’s built a brand that consumers return to, thanks to its timeless silhouettes and signature fabrics, such as soft georgette. Lee has now added to these elegant offerings with her first cache of knitwear, which debuted in the show this past Sunday.
In contrast to the prim twinsets and blouses on display in Lee’s collection, she toyed with swooping shapes and joyful skirt and dress proportions. The designer also presented silver sequin-embellished styles – set to be a major trend next season – that added just the right amount of razzle-dazzle.
Erdem Moralioglu has mastered the art of selecting the best elements of past eras.Courtesy of Erdem
Taking place just before Lee’s runway presentation, Simone Rocha’s opulent show was set at the grand Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London. There too, a silver sequined trapeze dress, the second look out of the gate at Rocha’s show, was a standout. Its off-kilter beauty, along with the rest of the whimsical collection anchored by floral motifs and an assortment of pillow-shaped handbags, stayed true to the Irish designer’s romantic DNA, while exploring expansive new silhouettes and novel materials (most notably, clear plastic). Appropriately, sartorial shape-shifter Julia Fox was seated in the front row.
Montreal-born, London-based designer Erdem Moralioglu’s inspiration for his sublime spring/summer 2026 offering was the late 19th-century Swiss medium and surrealist muse Hélène Smith. The famous psychic believed that she had lived several past lives – including as Marie Antoinette, the subject of the current fashion exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Smith also claimed she could communicate with Martians, and characters from her Martian language appeared in several of the collection’s looks.
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Moralioglu has played with themes of time travel and otherworldliness throughout his brand’s 20-year history. From Victorian lacework to 1920s-era embellishments, he has mastered the art of selecting the best elements of past eras and adopting them anew. At his Sunday show in the British Museum, an arsenic-green satin trench coat styled with an Edwardian collar detail is but one example from his latest collection. The flamboyance of such pieces has cemented Moralioglu as one of the most important events on the London Fashion Week calendar.
JW Anderson has foregone the runway, choosing to focus on his boutique spaces.Courtesy of JW Anderson
One major designer who is absent from the schedule this season is Jonathan Anderson, whose JW Anderson label has been one of the most coveted fashion week invitations for more than a decade. Now that the Northern Irish designer is at the helm of Dior, he has chosen to focus on his boutique spaces, forgoing the runway for a more intimate showcase of new products and pieces.
On Saturday, the designer instead hosted an event at the JW Anderson shop in Soho. Guests perused a refined selection from the brand’s Resort 2026 collection, as well as lifestyle goods from Anderson’s newly launched collaboration with the iconic British dinnerware company Wedgwood. The inspiration for the line of dapper mugs? The fifth-century Greek pottery that Anderson himself collects.
