Though the British Fashion Council announced in April that men’s fashion week had been officially cancelled, there are always those committed to keeping the spirit of the June shows alive. Take Charles Jeffrey for example, who, despite losing the official structure of London Fashion Week, still presented his latest collection on the very same weekend it would have been, as if nothing at all had changed. But as regards to continuity, that was as far as things went – for SS26, Jeffrey ventured into brand new territory, giving us a chaotic, music-inspired presentation in one of the world’s most iconic recording studios.
Prepared Piano, the latest collection from Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, is a “love letter to music making”, so what better place to write that letter than Abbey Road Studios? Collaborating with the studio on the collection, Jeffrey trawled through old photographs and films from the Abbey Road archive to find archetypical characters to base this season on, like label bosses, engineers and rockstars. “In keeping with Abbey Road’s pioneering, future-facing commitment to innovation and play, these archetypes are reimagined for 2026 in the LOVERBOY collection documented here,” read the show notes. In this way, record executive suits were given distorted crumpled blazers, the white coats of sound technicians were splashed in logos and worn over fishnet tights, while gold-faced rockstars wore skirts over trousers and some of Jeffrey’s viral claw boots.
For the actual presentation, models walked into the studio and proceeded to stage their own “mini-performance” inspired by 1960s conceptual art from people like Yoko Ono and Claus Oldenberg. While a live band played heavy metal from one of the studios, models would enter the space and cause a bit of a ruckus with their own screaming and flailing. For the casting, Jeffrey tapped a number of artists, designers, musicians and “cool kids” to make up his new band, like TikTok commentator Lyas, who wore an all-black, slouchy two-piece with a matching trombone looped around his neck, or Chappell Roan’s stylist Genesis Webb, who wore sheer black tights and an enlarged white knitted minidress. Elsewhere they were joined by musicians Tom Rasmussen, Allie X, Planningtorock and Taahlia, stylist Marc Forne, and Marni creative director Francesco Risso.
Scroll through the gallery above to see the entire collection