Issue #69 August 2026

Week of 9 August 2026

Lisa’s take

There is a version of portfolio advice that tells you to tell a story. To take the viewer on a journey. To build from light to complex.

I disagree. Lead with your best work. Always.

You have about ninety seconds

In a buying office, a studio, a graduate recruitment round, the person reviewing your portfolio has seen forty of them already this week. The decision about whether to keep looking happens in the first ninety seconds. Put the work that earns those seconds at the front.

The strongest work is rarely the most recent

It is the piece that most clearly shows your thinking. The project where the brief was hard and the outcome was good and you can explain exactly why you made the decisions you made. Recency is irrelevant. Quality is not.

Cut the early work

The foundation year projects, the first-semester briefs — unless they are genuinely exceptional, they are dragging your portfolio down. Every weak piece lowers the floor of what the reviewer thinks you are capable of. Edit ruthlessly.

Your portfolio is not a record of your growth. It is your best argument for why you should be hired. Make it that.

Anyway, here's your week in fashion.

The week in fashion

The industry spent this week deciding whether its future is hand-drawn or machine-made, and the hand is winning.

Shoe buyers are betting on the flat

FFANY market week wrapped in New York and the mood was better than the wider retail numbers suggest. Ballet flats, Mary Janes, thong sandals, jellies and split-toe shoes all moved for SS27. Raffia, metallics and quiet neutrals did the heavy lifting. If you have been putting off replacing your sandals, hold on. The good ones are coming.

Fashion has rediscovered the human hand

AnOther's object of the week is a Prada Tyrolean sock. Sounds trivial. It is not. Folk detail is surging exactly as AI floods the creative economy, and brands are leaning hard into anything that looks like a person made it. Expect more hand-knit, more embroidery, more visible imperfection through autumn.

Illustration is back on the payroll

Highsnobiety argues 2026 belongs to the fashion illustrator, and the logic holds. Luxury houses are commissioning hand-drawn work again because a drawing proves a human was in the room. If your whole pitch is craftsmanship, your imagery has to match. Photographers and art directors should read this one twice.

The nostalgia question nobody wants to answer

Dazed asks whether the Galliano Met Gala moment proves fashion is stuck in its own archive. Feeds are full of Nineties and Noughties runway footage posted by anonymous accounts, and brands are shopping from the same well. Nostalgia sells and it is cheap. Reference is fine. Replication is not.

Everyone is quietly moving upmarket

The Business of Fashion explains the squeeze better than anyone has this year. Brands are raising prices to avoid a fight with Shein at the bottom, while picking up shoppers who have been priced out of luxury at the top. The middle market is being rebuilt at a higher price point. Whether the product has improved to match is a separate conversation, and one worth having with your clients.

The cool girl gets a cover

i-D has put Diya Joukani on the cover of issue 377. Her TikTok fit checks managed something rare. They made “cool girl” sound sincere again rather than a line from a brand deck. Watch how fast the industry tries to buy that sincerity, and how fast it evaporates when they do.

Autumn is coming in loud, and by every signal I am reading, in colour. I am ready for it.

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