Whatever Happened to These Emerging London Men’s Wear Designers?
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LONDON — As London Fashion Week Men’s pivots to a gender-inclusive digital event, WWD looks at some of the buzzy names over the years and sees where are they now in the fashion industry.
Shaun Samson
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Shaun Samson launched his label in 2011 after earning BA and MA degrees in men’s wear at Central Saint Martins. The designer made his LFW debut in 2012 as part of MAN, a joint venture between Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East and Arcadia’s Topman back in 2005, before London Collection Men’s, which later changed to London Fashion Week Men’s, was launched in 2013 with a goal to put British men’s wear designers under the spotlight. After closing his brand in 2015, Samson later joined Moschino, and now is a senior designer under creative director Jeremy Scott.
Agi & Sam
Founded in 2010 by Agi Mdumulla and Sam Cotton, Agi & Sam was one of the leading designers in the early days of London Collection Men’s. The brand was a part of the MAN show alongside Craig Green and Astrid Andersen at the first season of LCM in 2013. It was later shortlisted for the LVMH Prize and won the British regional International Woolmark Prize in 2015.
Since the closure of the brand in 2018, Mdumulla worked at Burberry as a senior designer for the men’s wear runway collections, before joining streetwear establishment Palace last December as a senior designer. Cotton worked as a creative consultant at Fred Perry, managed collaborations between the University of Central London material science department and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Compagnie Financière Richemont. He has been a senior men’s wear designer at Valentino in Rome since May 2019, after designing for Cos for a short period of time.
Nasir Mazhar is a hatmaker turned designer who launched his full fashion collection in 2013 during LCM. He was considered by many as the originator who elevated streetwear into luxury fashion long before the likes of HBA’s Shayne Oliver and Off-White’s Virgil Abloh made it mainstream.
In 2019, he made the decision to step away from fashion week and the traditional wholesale system and opened a store called Fantastic Toiles The Shop under a railway arch in East London’s Forest Gate, selling his designs and pieces from a cohort of emerging designers. He believes that his design should be affordable to his friends and those who appreciate his work and be sold at a lower mark up. Two weeks ago, the designer teased on Instagram that the shop will be moved to a new location soon.
Mazhar has also been designing costumes for dance performances and art exhibitions.
Lee Roach
Lee Roach launched his brand in 2012 at age 25 after graduating from Central Saint Martins. He was recognized for his subversive yet precise take on tailoring. It’s understood that since the closure of his label, Roach later joined Matthew Williams’ 1017 Alyx 9SM.
Joseph Turvey
Men’s wear designer Joseph Turvey was a regular at London Fashion Week around 2014-15. Since then he has embarked on a more academic route in fashion as the program leader of fashion design at Middlesex University since September 2019. Prior to that, he was a visiting tutor at Birmingham City University for three years.
Kit Neale
Also getting into teaching was Kit Neale. Known for his vibrant prints, Neale made his LFW debut with Turvey and Marques Almeida back in 2013 with Fashion East. He later launched a soft furnishings collaboration with Ikea and consulted for Mountain Warehouse and River Island. Since February 2020, he has been the program director for textiles at Loughborough University.
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