WESTMINSTER BA FASHION 2026: EMBRACING IMPERFECTION

Olly Dye

Olly Dye’s graduate collection explores the relationship between strength and vulnerability through the combination of metal forms and flowing hair. Leather, latex, metal, and hair are brought together to create garments that express protection, power, and self-confidence. Inspired by years of experimenting with his own hair as a form of personal expression, Dye translates techniques developed through hairstyling into the construction of the collection, using hair as both material and symbol.

@olly.dye

Rachael Adegoke

Rachael Adegoke’s collection brings together the material language of her Nigerian heritage with the tailoring traditions of British menswear, creating a contemporary dialogue around Black dandyism. Balancing nostalgia with modernity, the collection explores art, heritage, and cultural identity through expressive craftsmanship, intricate embroidery, and classic tailoring. Inspired by contemporary Nigerian art, archival photographs of traditional dress, the relaxed elegance of Henley Regatta suiting, and the work of Ben Enwonwu and the Zaria Art Society, custom beaded lace embellishments and carefully considered silhouettes honour mid-century Nigerian art while reimagining British tailoring for today.

@rachaeladee

Thomas Fee

Thomas Fee’s collection, ORDER permits freedom, is a night journey through systems of order, repetition, and release. Drawing on the minimalist philosophy of Agnes Martin, the collection explores how routine, regulation, and self-presentation can function not as restrictions but as conditions for freedom. Across six looks, the silhouette moves gradually from concealment towards exposure, tracing a psychological shift from protective armour to transparency and vulnerability. Through tactile techniques, technical systems, and a highly structured design process, the collection proposes that regulation and freedom are not opposites, but depend upon one another.

@Tomjfee

Kane Tsz Lung Chan

Kane Tsz Lung Chan’s graduate collection, Vice City, is inspired by Hong Kong crime films made between the 1980s and 2010s. Using anti-heroism as its starting point, the collection explores the conflict between police and street gangsters through a tragic lens, translating the graphic violence of these films into fractured, intentionally incomplete garments. Deconstructed power silhouettes sit alongside louche gangster tailoring, with each look responding to a character’s personality, identity, and ultimate fate. Natural and plant dyeing, screen-printed rifle laser-beam motifs, and a digitally printed cigarette suit reinforce the collection’s cinematic narrative.

@kane9tszlung

Jocelyn Andra

Jocelyn Andra’s collection is dedicated to her grandfather, using the remaining velvet leaves he produced for his small business decades ago as its starting point. Growing up surrounded by these materials, she transforms them into contemporary garments through puff binder printing, fabric dyeing, devoré, sublimation, screen printing and embroidery. By combining inherited materials with new textile processes, the collection explores the idea that fashion can preserve personal histories through material.

@jocelynandra

Elise Cullen

Elise Cullen’s collection, So, you think you’re a cowboy?, reworks the mythology of the American West through a contemporary lens. Questioning the performance of Western identity and the romanticised image of cowboy culture, the collection explores authenticity and storytelling through colourful menswear built from second-hand fabrics and deadstock denim. Embroidery, patchwork, digital printing, and a naturally rust-dyed look introduce ideas of wear, decay, and resourcefulness while reinforcing the project’s commitment to sustainability.

@elise.cullen

Leqi Zeng

Leqi Zeng’s collection, In Between Gestures, celebrates imperfection and the unexpected through womenswear shaped by moments that often go unnoticed. Drawing on observations of women in everyday life, the collection transforms skirts lifted by the wind, exposed coat linings, broken heels, cropped trousers, and worn leather into a wardrobe built around movement, imbalance, and personal adjustment. Oversized proportions and deliberately undone details create a quiet elegance that exists not in moments of arrival or departure, but in everything that happens in between.

@ktseng.7

Alex Lyons

Alex Lyons’ collection, Modern Ritual, imagines the journey of a modern samurai travelling through time, with each look representing a different era. Influenced by Willie Cole’s postmodern sculptures, the collection reinterprets classic menswear through pleating and repetition, while drawing on the spirit of the 1980s Buffalo Movement popularised by stylist Ray Petri. Sportswear and fine tailoring are brought together through technical construction, sculptural silhouettes, and hand-controlled pleating that varies in scale across the collection. Primary colours are contrasted with neutral tones, while most fabrics are sourced as deadstock from Italian mills.

@alexlyons_

Nikyla Natividad

Nikyla Natividad’s collection, MABUHAY – To Live, draws on childhood memories of growing up among the lush landscapes of the Philippines. Bringing together historical and contemporary Filipino silhouettes, the collection celebrates her heritage through vibrant colour, expressive pattern, and handcrafted textiles. Using predominantly donated and deadstock fabrics, Natividad also incorporates traditional Piña fabric and reimagines the classic Bayong bag as a contemporary tote. Hand-drawn prints inspired by Benedicto Cabrera’s Sabel paintings and richly layered textures further reflect Filipino craftsmanship and resourcefulness.

@nnikyla

Xinyan Chen

Xinyan Chen’s collection, Metropolitan Villagers, is a personal exploration of identity shaped by collective history, intergenerational memory, labour, and inherited silence. Drawing on rural origins and urban transformation, the work reconnects with family histories of upheaval and displacement, and parents marked by silence and survival. The countryside is reimagined and forgotten memories resurface as a path home is reconstructed within the noise of modernity. Each garment holds a tension between rurality and modernity, repression and desire, discipline and tenderness, expressed through contrasts of structure and fragility, restraint and intimacy.

@xinyan.dotcom

Oliver Orr

Oliver Orr’s womenswear collection highlights the beauty in the mundane and the distinctive within the ordinary, exploring human quirks and character through inspiration drawn from the wardrobes of personal friends and the flux of city dwellers. Youthful eclecticism and awkwardness are celebrated within highly individual looks, with garment interiors exposed as exteriors, each look built around a particular muse embodying the wearer’s unique disposition. Density and fragility are interrogated using quilting as a bridge between these weights, with intentional cut-outs, experimental cutting, layering, and deliberate mis-matching running throughout.

@ollieeorr

Sumi Kim

Sumi Kim’s womenswear collection is inspired by the atmospheric play of natural light, capturing the moment light breaks through a window and enters an interior space. Reinterpreting 1930s glamour for modern times, it translates linear rays of light into sculptural seam lines and controlled silhouettes, while fluid drape reflects the soft diffusion of light across surfaces. A muted palette drawn from gradients found in the sky is printed onto satin to create hazy, transient effects. Central to the collection is the interplay between light and construction, with prints shifting between smooth gradients and sharp contrasts. Bias-cut silhouettes, precise tailoring, and considered draping balance structure with softness, exploring movement, atmosphere, and modern femininity.

@sumikim24

Florence Kelk Whall

Florence Kelk Whall’s collection draws on archive imagery from the early Tour de France, reinterpreting the charm of the original riders through playful, contemporary pieces. Deadstock fabrics are transformed through layering, print, and softened finishes, creating garments that feel worn, repaired, and shaped through time. Inspired by the endurance and resilience of these riders, the collection balances function with re-worked details such as classic stripes, race lettering, and King of the Mountain polka dots, celebrating the enduring spirit, individuality, and legacy of the sport’s earliest competitors.

@florencekw1

Khoo En Zhi

Khoo En Zhi’s collection, Tailored Through Time, explores how investigating the past helps us understand the present. Through archival and contemporary photographs, it examines how gestures, silhouettes, and cultural traces continue to evolve and reappear across time. Contrasting ideas that are inherently connected are brought together within single garments, expressed through structured tailoring paired with soft, layered tulle, and through a print of white brush strokes with silver foil that gives delicate organza a more structured presence while retaining its lightness. Exposed pad stitching and hand-woven leather further reflect memory, preservation, and transformation, where history continues to be worn in the present.

@enzhi.psd

Olivia Grace Robinson

Olivia Grace Robinson’s collection, I Saw the Innards of the Fruit Machine, uses clothing to explore the two places she calls home: Barnsley and London. Examining working-class identity, belonging, and desire, the collection brings womenswear and menswear into conversation through techniques including hand-smocking reworked into trompe-l’œil menswear details and couture bias-cutting adapted into menswear basics. Print plays a central role, carrying references to nostalgia and everyday British culture across fine fabrics, while meticulous construction sits beneath bold surfaces that encourage a closer look.

@oliviagracerobinsons

Aliyah Dankwah

Aliyah Dankwah’s collection explores the relationship between structure and fluidity through contemporary womenswear inspired by her Ghanaian heritage. A key influence is the traditional Ghanaian smock, whose construction and cultural significance have informed the development of sculptural silhouettes and layered forms. Clear, bold blocks of colour, inspired by Ghanaian visual culture, celebrate her heritage while presenting it through a contemporary perspective. The process of weaving and the structure of the loom have further shaped the layered construction and considered use of shape and texture, while living in London has exposed her to different styles and ways of dressing. This cultural contrast is reflected in the garments, where structured outerwear is softened through relaxed styling and supple leather ties, exploring ideas of coexistence, connection, and the balance between tradition and modern life.

@dddanks