This past weekend, Martine Rose showed her Spring 2026 collection in her hometown of London. Despite the British Fashion Council cancelling the June menswear portion of London Fashion Week, the British-Jamaican designer did not decamp to Paris; instead, she stayed local. This season, she tinged her usual subversions of archetypal tropes like office and club wear with little nods to her London upbringing, which she also celebrated via her choice of venue and scene. Rose paid tribute to Kensington Market, a cultural hub of makers and sellers that closed in 2001 and contributed significantly to the development of the London fashion scene. And in the wake of independent brands and designers struggling everywhere, Rose shared her glory with a roster of small vendors from across the city who set up camp on one floor of her show venue. The spirit of unconventional design sifted from the local makers’ creations downstairs to Rose’s subverted fashion upstairs.
Ahead, five things to know about Martine Rose’s Spring 2026 collection and London show.
1.A Tribute to Local Makers
Rose hosted her show in a run-down former job center, a government office that had historically been used by the unemployed to find work, in Lisson Grove in London’s West End. In an homage to the Kensington Market she frequented as a child, the designer used the venue to celebrate local market traders, “whose charismas and crafts shape the soul of the city,” says the press release. Independent designers, vintage sellers, record shops, and jewelry makers occupied the lower floor of the building, which was open for the weekend of the show to highlight London’s distinctive local talent, community spirit, and cultural life.
2. Back to Body Con
Oversized tailoring may be today’s norm—Rose was, in fact, one of the designers who shepherded that silhouette into the zeitgeist—but now, she’s skewing in the opposite direction with intentional displays of the body. The designer turned shapewear into daywear, reimagining foundational staples in stretch fabric printed to match their woven counterparts and appearing to “virtually vacuum-pack the physique. The body-conscious forms convey a sense of public nakedness at once covered and exposed, echoed in snug electrician’s trousers and stretch jeans that hug the leg muscles.” She’s even sucked in her typical oversized tailoring and leather jackets with snug waists and shrunken proportions.
3. IYKYK London References
Rose often pays tribute to her London upbringing. She also loves a sartorial easter egg. The two merge in honorary runway references like ponchos saluting the barber shop capes characteristic of so many London shop windows, or little aprons nodding to the smaller unseen businesses off the high street. The clothes paired with the bustling, eclectic market center for a nuanced homage to her favorite of London’s idiosyncrasies.
4. A Very “Blue” Setting
If the bottom floor was host to a raucous market, the upper floor turned into a kind of subverted salon show. The whole thing was lensed through the idea of “blue” movies—the press release defines them as “retro erotica softened by Vaseline, poodle hair, and powdery pastel furnishings.” She set the scene with frilly curtains beneath industrial lighting for a hot twist. Models sported tight perms and brushed-out manes by hairstylist Gary Gill. There were even scarves emblazoned with classified personal ads from vintage adult magazines. This sort of thing is characteristic of her past shows. Rose has previously shown in a nightclub and a neighborhood cul-de-sac, all of which are tied into the collections presented there.
5. New Subversions to Consider
Rose is fantastic at making the viewer reconsider traditional or hackneyed pieces in a new, often kinky light—and somehow does so in a manner that feels surprisingly wearable. This season, she offered us micro denim cutoffs, which she paired with thigh-high sports socks. She trimmed plaid boxers in feminine lace and added harness-like belts to leather pants and shrunken joggers. Moire fabrics nodded to the gaudiness of the ‘80s and looked especially (perfectly) out of place against a logo-emblazoned white tank. All of which seem to be hankering for London’s club kids of today to attempt to recreate with thrift store finds and a bit of elbow grease.
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