Issue #319 July 2026

Week of 19 July 2026

Lisa’s take

I spent the better part of two decades on the hiring side of the table. I can tell you that the gap between what candidates think we want and what we actually want is wider than most people realise.

Commercial instinct over creative flair

Retailers are not art galleries. The first question is always 'will this sell, to whom, at what price.' A junior who walks in understanding that already is immediately more useful than one who leads with mood and aesthetic.

The ability to edit

Editing is a senior skill that junior candidates rarely demonstrate. Showing me a tight, considered range proposal — even a student one — signals that you understand the difference between what you love and what belongs in a range plan.

Curiosity about the customer

The candidates I remember were the ones who had clearly spent time in our stores before the interview. They had noticed things. They had opinions. Retailers hire people who are genuinely curious about how people shop and why.

Resilience in the room

Fashion interviews can be blunt. If I push back on your work, I want to see how you handle it. Not defensiveness. Not collapse. A calm explanation of the decision you made. That is what working in a team actually looks like.

Anyway, here's your week in fashion.

The week in fashion

Couture week delivered. New designers, familiar names doing unfamiliar things, and at least one show that made the front row go properly quiet.

Blazy's Chanel Is the Fairytale Fashion Needed

Matthieu Blazy showed what it means to understand a house without being owned by it. At the Grand Palais, tweed unravelled and blossomed into flowers. Coats were hacked at the midriff, raw edges finished with filigree gold chain. This was not a homage to Lagerfeld. It was something more interesting: a designer finding his own way in.

Jonathan Anderson Arrives at Dior

The media impact value was £15 million. The fern motifs, bridal references and maximalist metallics did the rest. Anderson's couture generated the kind of conversation that takes a season to earn and a career to repeat. If this is the opening argument, the rest of his tenure at Dior should be worth watching.

Duran Lantink Makes Jean Paul Gaultier Strange Again

Surrealist creations pulled from Gaultier's 40-year-old costume archives. That is where Duran Lantink started for his first haute couture collection, and it turns out to be a very good place to begin. Lantink knows how to make fashion feel like it came from somewhere real. This felt earned.

The Quietest Show Had the Loudest Idea

Michael Stewart's Standing Ground showed on the official couture schedule for the first time, at the Irish Embassy. Quiet confidence, an expanding vision, none of the noise that usually comes with a debut. i-D called him the standout designer of the season. They are not wrong.

Fashion Bet on Creativity This Year

Sixteen major houses debuted new creative directors in 2026. That has not happened before at this scale. The industry spent years playing it safe, and now it has thrown the dice all at once. From Blazy to Anderson to Piccioli at Balenciaga, the early results suggest the gamble is paying off.

Martin Margiela's Archive Goes to Auction

His personal wardrobe. His notebooks. The creative thinking behind the most influential fashion of the last 30 years. The collection goes to auction, and it feels like a moment worth marking. Whether you can afford to bid or not, this is a rare chance to see how a genuinely different mind worked.

Autumn feels closer than it should. If this week's couture is anything to go by, that is not a bad thing.

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