‘I want there to be a classicism to it’: A first look at Aaron Esh SS26

When I arrive at Aaron Esh’s East London studio, the scene is just what you’d expect three days out from a fashion show. It’s all unfolding upstairs at the Sarabande Foundation in Haggerston, the creative organisation established by the late Lee McQueen, which has supported Esh since 2023. There, a throng of slight, young men line the room, hopefuls for Esh’s catwalk casting. Elsewhere, people of indiscriminate jobs rush through the space, tapping at iPhones or exchanging sharp directives. The stylist Katy England calmly peruses a board with images of models tacked to it, returning to work with Esh after their SS25 collaboration. The room is filled with energy, but it’s a quiet and focused buzz, far from verging on any kind of chaos. Esh stands in one corner of the room by a second board, surrounded by a small hub of bodies. He’s invited us in for an exclusive first look at his SS26 collection, one of the most anticipated catwalks at London Fashion Week.

Last season, Esh was noticeably absent from the schedule, instead choosing to release a womenswear capsule of signature silk gowns. Though he admits that was “more of a commercial venture” to drum up business, his forays into womenswear have always been voraciously received. The native East Ender started life as a menswear designer at LCF and then CSM, but has since fleshed out the Aaron Esh woman with more egalitarian offerings. Now, his upcoming SS26 collection will be “menswear-led” – just don’t call it a return. “I just wanted it to be jackets,” he says matter-of-factly when I ask if this feels like a return to menswear. “There are a lot of jackets and, for me, that’s a very menswear-focused thing.”

Esh walks me along the rail of clothing that splits the room in two. This season, there’s a chocolate suede trench coat, straight cut mid-wash jeans, white satin track jackets “that are almost like tux jackets”, a tweed herringbone jacket dotted with giant black sequins, a long overcoat with black feathers sprouting from one lapel, and, somewhat unexpectedly, a splash of colour in a peachy orange suede jacket. “We really upped everything in terms of fabrication, technique and craftsmanship,” says Esh. “We’ve really invested a lot of time into the make and quality of the clothes.” Elsewhere, a collaboration with Zara marks Esh’s first-ever footwear collection, a new AE baseball cap arrives in partnership with Lux and Wolf Gillespie’s club night, Post Party, and the party vibe is carried through to the show space: Hackney’s iconic Oval Space nightclub, shuttered since 2022.

It’s not really about gender, but there’s a charm to the girls’ looks not feeling over feminine

But back to the rails, and Esh says that “as a trained menswear designer, there’s a lot of details that maybe only menswear designers care about” in the collection, “almost nerdy things that I really care about” – before nerding out on all those details. He points out the “incredibly thin pockets” on the track jackets, the covered buttons on all the outerwear, the fact that the black sequins were meticulously hand-cut, the revelation that the feathers sprouting from the overcoat aren’t feathers at all. “One of the girls on my team was a textile designer who came from Chanel. We’ve used quite a lot of classic Chanel techniques,” he says. “One of them was creating these feathers out of chiffon, so these are strips of silk that have been hand-brushed individually and then applied as embroidery.” Elsewhere, another piece of outerwear is “embroidered per panel and then sewn together, so it’s like a genuine couture jacket.”

Even though it’s predominantly menswear Esh has created this season, that doesn’t mean there’s not going to be any female models – they’ll just be wearing the men’s looks. “There’s, like, one gown in the collection,” he says, “but we like this idea of the girls wearing the men’s jackets.” Though one could argue that this is an example of gender subversion, Esh clarifies that “it’s not really about gender, but there’s a charm to the girls’ looks not feeling over feminine. The collection being menswear-led in terms of energy feels quite authentic to who our girl is.”

At the beginning of his career, Esh’s clothes were constantly described as “subverting traditional masculinity” by the press, but it’s something he’s now keen to push back on when I ask him about it. “That was never to do with me,” he responds decisively. “I never said that, not really. It’s not about that. If that’s how it’s perceived from the outside, I’m open to that. I think it’s just more natural to how I dress, how the people I know dress, how I think young people in London dress.” It seems that the Esh MO is more about instinctual style – i.e., a woman throwing on her boyfriend’s jacket – rather than intentional gender performance. “I think the subversion of that is natural to how these kids are dressed at parties, or how I’m dressed, or how my team is dressed in the studio.”

The starting point for this new collection, Esh says, came from a line in SS25’s show notes, written by the journalist and editor Osman Ahmed. “Young people wearing old clothes. Old people wanting to look eternally youthful” was the way Ahmed described that collection, and Esh thought it was “beautiful”, deciding to make it an overarching theme of SS26. “I think that really spoke to who wears the brand… you have this timelessness to the energy of the clothes.”

That timelessness is most noticeably telegraphed through Esh’s main collaboration for SS26: co-designing four bespoke suits with the Savile Row tailor Charlie Allen. A longtime family friend, Allen designed Esh’s father’s wedding suit and went to school with his uncle, while Esh practically grew up inside his atelier. With dreams of studying at Saint Martins, it was Allen who the younger Esh came to with his portfolio for approval. “He came in and said, ‘I want to be a designer. I want to go to the art college’,” says Allen, arriving at the studio carrying the four pieces in suit carriers. “I thought ‘oh yeah, I hear this all the time,’ but he was serious, and he got in. When I found out about the British Fashion Council’s support, being put up for this award and that award, it was fantastic. Really, really proud.” For Esh, this SS26 collaboration “feels really authentic”, and is a “full circle moment” to be working together. “It’s not just this collaboration between two people to do some product,” he says. “There’s this energy behind it that it’s really nice.”

While designing the suits, Esh was cognisant of not over-egging things, adding too much of an “Aaron Esh” vibe to the traditional garments. “In terms of the vibe of the clothes, I wanted there to be a classicism to it,” he continues. “Working with Charlie, when we designed the jackets, I didn’t want to over-design them, because a bespoke jacket for his man has this classic charm to it.” Rather than adding “some frilly thing to make it new and young”, recontextualising the bespoke jackets on the backs of hard-partying young Londoners is what gives the looks their bite. A new energy forms when “you’ve got a younger person wearing something that traditionally is worn by someone a lot more mature”, says Allen. “The [new] context of the jackets is the boys that are wearing them,” responds Esh. “With a bespoke jacket, the sleeve length, the shoulder, every single centimetre is accounted for. Then, when you see that on the runway, on some young kids, there’s such a charm to that.”

Scroll through the gallery above to see Esh and Allen’s bespoke fittings, and a sneak peak of the upcoming collection.