Fashion Scout Ones To Watch Edition 01 Introduces Eight Designers at London Fashion Week

Fashion Scout presented the first edition of its September 2026 Ones To Watch programme at London Fashion Week on 19 September, bringing eight emerging designers together at Protein Studios in Shoreditch. Staged during Fashion Scout’s 20th anniversary season, Edition 01 moved between sculptural menswear, British tailoring, woven textiles, digital fabrication and culturally rooted womenswear, demonstrating how differently a new generation is approaching the relationship between craft, technology and identity. Fashion Scout’s official programme confirms its London Fashion Week season ran from 19–21 September at 31 New Inn Yard and featured three Ones To Watch showcases.

Craft and Technology Take Different Routes

Adolf Maldonado returned to Ones To Watch after making his debut with Fashion Scout earlier in 2026. His practice centres on menswear couture, combining traditional craftsmanship with sculptural construction and subtle detailing. Fashion Scout’s current designer profile expands that language through leather, tailoring and architectural silhouettes, positioning material and construction as central to Maldonado’s exploration of masculine and feminine codes.

The approach of C.PROTOCOL begins from a markedly different point. Founded by Royal College of Art MA Fashion graduates Jinmin Chen, known as Dia, and Cenyi Wang, known as Zan, the London-based practice brings 3D printing and digital modelling into contact with virtual fashion, experimental materials and wearable sculpture. Its work investigates the relationship between body and object, making technology part of the garment’s conceptual structure rather than treating it simply as a production tool.

CHATCHAI C. turns instead towards the discipline of tailoring. Founder Chatchai Chaitrakulthong studied at the University of Westminster and Istituto Marangoni Shanghai, trained on Savile Row and worked at Givenchy in Paris before developing his own label. The resulting practice combines conventions associated with British tailoring with material experimentation, locating contemporary luxury within construction and technique.

For Christine Elizabeth, the textile comes first. Her work develops from woven cloth, with intricate construction, tactile surfaces and carefully controlled relationships between colour and form. Fashion Scout describes her process as beginning at the loom, allowing yarn, texture and weave to influence the eventual structure and movement of the garment.

Together, these four practices reveal one of the stronger contrasts within Edition 01: technology and craftsmanship are not positioned as opposing directions. Digital modelling, hand-developed textile surfaces, couture technique and established tailoring traditions instead appear as different methods for questioning how clothing can be built.

Personal Histories Shape Contemporary Fashion

The second group of designers turns the programme towards heritage, memory and cultural identity.

Enny brings Italian heritage into conversation with contemporary London. The label’s emphasis on making, fabric and well-crafted clothing is rooted in the founder’s experience between the two contexts, with personal memories, family and everyday life feeding into the design process. Fashion Scout notes that fabrics are predominantly sourced from Italy, while silhouette and refined detailing remain closely tied to craftsmanship.

JINSEO similarly works across more than one geography. Korean-born and New York-based, designer Jinseo Park is a SCAD graduate whose womenswear examines clothing in relation to the body and emotion. Her Korean heritage remains part of the way she approaches silhouette, material and detail, making identity a structural influence on the work rather than an added visual reference.

Leila Daniele explores femininity and cultural identity from a practice rooted in West African heritage. Material experimentation is particularly important to the label, with handwoven textiles and traditional making techniques forming part of its approach to contemporary luxury. Fashion Scout’s profile places slow fashion and the preservation of craft knowledge at the centre of the brand’s work, connecting cultural storytelling to the physical processes through which the clothes are made.

MAD DAISY broadens the programme beyond conventional seasonal fashion. Founded by Dr Margarita Fedoseev in 2017, the brand works between fashion, museum culture and contemporary creative technologies, approaching clothing as a medium through which art can enter everyday experience.

Twenty Years of Talent Discovery

Fashion Scout describes September 2026 as the largest emerging-talent programme in its history, with three Ones To Watch catwalks forming part of its 20th anniversary season. Over the past two decades, its wider alumni have included designers such as Iris van Herpen, David Koma and Phoebe English, while previous Ones To Watch participants include Eudon Choi, Susan Fang, Maximilian Raynor and Orange Culture.

For Edition 01, however, the significance lies less in imposing a shared aesthetic on eight designers than in the breadth of the practices gathered together. One collection begins with a loom, another with a digital model; one revisits West African making traditions, while another positions fashion beside museum culture. The common ground is the designer’s attempt to establish a distinctive language at a formative stage of practice.

That range makes Ones To Watch particularly relevant within London Fashion Week’s emerging-designer landscape. The programme does not suggest a single direction for fashion’s next generation. Instead, Edition 01 presents craftsmanship, digital technology, cultural memory and personal identity as parallel routes through which independent designers are defining what comes next.

The show was produced by Fashion Scout, with show production by Martyn Roberts and styling by Rebekah Roy. Hair was led by Narad Kutowaroo for UNITE Hair with Sally Beauty, while make-up was led by Mandy Gakhal for AOFM Makeup Academy. Backstage support included People Pleaser Salads and Propress. More information is available via Fashion Scout