LFW AW26 - Fashion Scouts: One to Watch

Ainhoa Aron
14 hours ago
4 min read

Image of a Female Model smiling — Courtesy of Idea PR

February 21, London Fashion Week 2026.

Cars honked their way through the crowds, cameras capturing every look in one long, continuous flush of bright light: no one wanted to miss a crumb of the showcase. The queue snaked around the corner, leaking onto the streets in colourful streams, attendees buzzing in streetwear as if they could take on the catwalk at a moment’s notice if the opportunity struck. Fashion Scout’s AW26 edition of Ones to Watch was already announcing itself as the moment. Seven designers and one runway that could decide the future of the fashion industry.

As Fashion Scout’s anniversary approaches, it shows no signs of slowing down. For almost 20 years, Fashion Scout has launched the careers of thousands of emerging international designers, forging favourable connections between talent, press, buyers, and industry heavyweights. Founder & Director Martyn Roberts sees London as a city of discovery, and what better way to celebrate this city of than by propping up its emerging talent. Fashion Scout connects distinct cultural narratives within the heart of London, AW26’s Ones to Watch being a cultural collision that co-director Biljana Poposka Roberts defines as ‘fashion without borders’. The collapse of national and cultural borders at Ones to Watch offers couture craftsmanship, Afro-luxury, architectural minimalism, textile-led experimentation and, most excitingly, heritage reinvention.

Emma Aleksanyan, the 22-year-old winner of Fashion Scout: Armenia 2025, comes all the way from Artsakh to present Aleksa Vertige’s concept-driven collection. A graduate from the Department of Fashion Design at the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts, Aleksanyan knows structure. She draws from Bushidō, the traditional Japanese philosophy that stems from the samurai code of honour, and translates discipline, courage, and loyalty into cutting silhouettes. These are softened to intimacy by sheer panels, burgundy macramé layers, and deep greys. Aleksa Vertige is tradition articulated in contemporary terms; structured tailoring treated gently and compassionately.

Adolf Maldonado, the London-based Spanish Designer, similarly hones in on craftsmanship and textile exploration, balancing gendered codes and the silhouettes of modern couture. Inspired by insects and arthropods, the ‘Anthropoda’ Collection is sculpted to be structurally akin to forms that evolve from the natural world. The pieces are dramatic yet fragile; the long, theatrical coats look as though they belong to the cast of the latest Pride and Prejudice adaptation. My favourite garment reminded me of the jagged edges of a cricket, yet felt highly wearable paired with a soft, rippling pink:

Below, Kushi Kumar, an interdisciplinary couture house based between Delhi and London, probably elicited the most ‘oohs' and ‘ahs' from the audience. As a graduate of Manchester School of Art with experience at both Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior, Kumar weds artisanal technique and heritage craftsmanship within a modern luxury. Kumar’s collection yields sustainability-led designs that position Indian textiles within a global and modern framework, reimagining heirlooms through cinematic, memory-driven storytelling with inter-generational resonance:

Next up is Astha Garg, who is currently completing her studies at the London College of Fashion and working between London and Dehradun. Garg approaches fashion as an immersive sensory experience, exploring perception and the body’s relationship to texture and movement with her concept-driven collection. Her process is slow and deliberate, hinging on the integrity of materials and social sustainability through responsible sourcing and artisan collaboration. Label Astha Garg’s ethical sourcing yields high-fashion looks dripping with an organic, but vogue, sap that effectively connects all parts of the garment to the soul of Label Astha Garg:

MAD DAISY, founded by Dr. Margarita Fedoseev in 2017, presents ‘Lumière de Guillaumin’ at AW26 in a blend of museum culture and fashion. The light and texture of French Impressionist painter Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin’s works are translated into flowy, wearable garments for the showcase, restoring fashion as culture in dialogue and as a channel between art and life.

Invisible Boundaries explores the space between human emotion and structure, prioritising proportion, silhouette and construction. The architectural pieces evolve a visual language built on restraint and suggest that fashion exists in the in-between spaces, in the silences as well as the noise.

Finally, the Korean-born, London-based Min-Ji Kim centres her practice on experimental knitwear and expectations of scale, proportion and material. She constructs a surreal universe akin to Lewis Carroll’s, wherein garments become characters. The looks encapsulate the ‘soft warrior’ and the creative outsider: the same model who walked stoically, intimidatingly for Maldonado, reveals himself in Min-Ji Kim’s collection, lifting up the room from their concentrated trance when he walks out, swallowed up by her cosy and whimsical knitwear. The result? Vacillating stripes and an intentionally imperfect finish release the room from its intensity of focus—we understand that we are allowed to present ourselves however we may wish to, that the individual contains multitudes and cannot be reduced to a single moment in time. Min-Ji Kim’s collection is fun and unexpected, echoing the theatricality of Harris Reed—whose latest collection made an appearance earlier in London Fashion Week — while carving out its own path of absurdist exaggeration.