Solely on the second day of the London Vogue Week, it was quickly clear: the debut in Girls’s garments by Steven Stokey-Daley is the time of the occasion. And never solely as a result of Harry Types is within the first row (like Emma Corrin and Anna Wintour), however as a result of the room is stuffed with a way of emotion by the British in trend that has not felt since Christopher Bailey left Burberry Porsum in 2018. Simply after the present, I spotted that we’re precisely who we’re as a model and the place we’re going, ” tells me Stokey-Daley about zoom from his East London examine. It was a sense resonated by the viewers, who witnessed his evolution of a Breakout male clothes designer to the British design pillar, and one that may lead our psychological buying lists.
Hamish Bowles, Anna Wintour and Harry Types within the SS Daley Spring/Summer time ’25 present. © Christina Frackou
Like a lot of the success tales, the Liverpudlian, 27, by no means deliberate to go the brand new guard of the British designers, or see their designs used on the Galared carpet of Themet and Ian McKellen act in one in every of his reveals. Rising up, every part pointed to a life on stage. However the day he was destined to register within the English literature course and theater research on the Warwick College, he all of a sudden satisfied that it was not the fitting manner. As a substitute, he regarded for an artwork base, earlier than changing into a trend design scholar on the College of Westminster in London. “My household was disillusioned to not develop into the one who thought it was going to be,” he admits. “I suppose they invested lots of time and power in me being this theater individual, so it was a dizzying resolution I took.” It seems that he performed a blinder.
Fascinated by Harrow Elegant Faculty College students exterior his examine area, the brand new designer subverts the tropes of public colleges to create their very own annoying aesthetics, presenting his assortment of male clothes for the primary time on the trend week in 2021, with The assistance of the Nationwide Youth Theater. , of which he’s a former member. Because of this, you will get the kid out of the theater, however you can not take away the pure potential to carry out an efficiency.
SS Daley Spring/Summer time ’25 © SS Daley
His debut in girls’s clothes, three years later, met the identical degree of enthusiasm. The gabardines, the skirts with accounts, the judgment go well with and the foundations of the flirtatious – ‘redefine the basic British archetypes’ – have been impressed by the British painter Gluck. The place your males’s garments subvert femininity, your girl’s garments bias the male features of British inheritance, and due to this fact, naturally the costumes stand out. Keira Knightley is a fan, who makes use of them in her press tour of Palomas Negras.
So, who’s the SS Daley girl designing? He cites Cate Blanchett, who offered the LVMH award in 2022, as a PIN-UP of the Temper: “She will likely be a lady of SS Daley sooner or later,” he jokes, in addition to the ladies surrounding the model: His mom, Aunt, Nan, trend critic and mentor Sarah Mower, and his group. ‘It was good to have conversations with these girls to know how they might look in my universe, what they need to use. I feel that instinctive factor can generally be to beat girls. It’s not the place for me to do this.
SS Daley Spring/Summer time ’25 © Christina Frakou
His potential to create a very new visible language has not gone unnoticed with those that maintain the ropes of the bag. In a British retail panorama with difficulties (the folding of luxurious retail matches hit many younger British manufacturers), Stokey-Daley, in an unprecedented motion, has put John Lewis on board. The Excessive Avenue retailer has purchased the catwalk assortment and can retailer the net model and in chosen shops from March. ‘The British retail panorama is in a extremely dangerous place, it’s afraid, so it has to evolve rapidly. There’s something thrilling that John Lewis takes the initiative to broaden and remodel what they provide, ” he says. “If I’ve equally scared and excited on the identical time, I do know it is the fitting factor to do.”
SS Daley Spring/Summer time ’25 © Christina Frackou
The style of the catwalk in John Lewis might sound stunning, however the buying head of the shop insists that it is sensible. ‘We all know that our shoppers come to us as a result of they love to purchase our trusted manufacturers, new designers and design collaborations, multi functional place. Due to this, it is crucial for us to consistently search manufacturers that we imagine they’ll love and that excite It’s going to enchant the silk clothes of SS Daley and customized jackets embroidered, with costs starting from £ 175 to £ 1,475, and the person’s garments focusing on stamped Cuban neck shirts and striped cotton shorts Nan is a Girly by John Lewis, “Stokey-Daley laughs behind his nice sq. frames. WHOA! “
His is a form of fairy story that offers hope to anybody who continues to be housing the aspirations to take action in trend. However sustaining a enterprise is just not simple, admits the creativity of the working class. ‘That’s what don’t anticipate. I might make a gross sales season of £ 2 million, but when it doesn’t have £ 1 million within the financial institution, you can not produce your orders. So it’s important to discover that cash someplace, and it’s tough to do it by yourself. It’s positively a system that’s not constructed for individuals who haven’t any cash, “he says.
© Christina Frackou
Enter Harry Types, buddy of the model and, from final yr, an minority half. The 2 have been launched by Types stylist, Harry Lambert, who known as the younger designers who appeared in a music video and Stokey-Daley replied. A pair of excessive waist pants (fabricated from outdated curtains) and costume shirt appeared within the golden video of the singer and the remainder, nicely, it’s historical past. “There got here some extent the place we developed a private relationship exterior work, and the dialog about formalizing our relationship appeared on the way in which,” says Stokey-Daley about his reference to the singer. “I feel it solely displays Harry’s character, wanting to assist and be part of the imaginative and prescient.” And the way do you see an investor assembly with Mr. Types? ‘We now have tremendous open communication about how issues look and the way they’re shifting. However Harry trusts me. And what in regards to the assortment, did he like? “I feel so,” he displays. ‘It appeared to take pleasure in it.’ And as for what follows?
He’s planning to maneuver his male clothes reveals to Paris whereas cultivating his girls’s clothes collections right here in London. He’s additionally trying to make his first foray into the world of collaborations. ‘I like taking the trail that feels a bit of extra scary. Typically, you are feeling like the fitting factor and also you simply should belief your intuition and go along with that.