Emilia Wickstead SS27 did not arrive as another chair-lined runway march. According to Vogue's Lucy Maguire, reporting on 20 September 2026, the designer told her daughter during last season's show that she fancied a change—and followed through with a collection film screened inside the brand's Sloane Street store, made in collaboration with London restaurateur Jeremy King. For Cover Issue's runway desk, Emilia Wickstead SS27 is the clearest signal yet that London's polished eveningwear house is rewriting how it presents clothes without abandoning the fit-and-flare architecture clients already trust.
Lee Krasner as muse, not mood-board wallpaper
Maguire writes that Wickstead, a self-confessed old-school designer, likes to pick a reference and stick with it. This season the muse was 1940s American Abstract Expressionist Lenore "Lee" Krasner. Wickstead told Vogue she wanted to celebrate women who should have been talked about more—Jackson Pollock's wife only as biographical context, Krasner herself as the working artist. That brief shows up in the clothes: signatures slightly reworked to reflect Krasner's penchant for reinvention, and frayed silk chiffon trims that Maguire links to Krasner's desire "to do something a little unraveled." Emilia Wickstead SS27 is not a costume tribute to Abstract Expressionism; it is a commercial wardrobe arguing that polish can carry a frayed edge.
Sloane Street film, Jeremy King, and clothes lived in
Instead of a conventional catwalk, Maguire describes a film that opens with King's voice on combining what you have learned and what you see. Wickstead admires how King curates an environment; the film explores how clothes are lived in and enjoyed in real life. Painters finish pastel rooms onscreen; seamstresses put final touches on a peppermint strapless fit-and-flare gown with floral print and tulle overlay; the first model, in an understated pink striped shirt and knit skirt, walks quickly between rooms as backdrops shift from lavender to powder blue, pale green to lemon yellow. King's new restaurant, Simpsons on the Strand, even supplied snacks and martinis for those watching—an atmospheric detail Maguire notes without turning the presentation into a dinner-party scoop. Related Cover Issue runway reading: our Erdem SS27 Roundhouse Barbette report at https://thecoverissue.com/erdem-ss27-barbette-roundhouse-london-fashion-week and Simone Rocha's Old Bailey chapter at https://thecoverissue.com/simone-rocha-ss27-old-bailey-i-was-trying-to-love-you.
Tweed, asymmetrical bibs, and pockets for paintbrushes
Collection mechanics matter for shoppers decoding Emilia Wickstead SS27 lookbooks. Maguire flags long dresses in pink silk or black chiffon with an asymmetrical bib of fabric that can fold down or tie up to reveal more or less décolletage. Light cotton tweed appears throughout—skirts, trousers, dresses—for the first time in a Wickstead spring collection, woven with beige, pink, and yellow reminiscent of Krasner's 1956 painting Prophecy. Hand-painted leaf and field daisy prints reflect Krasner's lifelong love of nature rather than literal canvases. To keep garments light for hotter summers, Wickstead used tweed panels on black chiffon fronts or chiffon pleat inlays in tweed skirts and viscose dresses. Fit-and-flare gowns in floral or pink stripes carry pockets "for paintbrushes," Maguire quotes—with a smile that admits high-society clients may not paint, but the gesture lands as studio romance translated into retail practicality.
Feathers, artist shirts, and apron dresses
Feathers appear for the first time this season, Maguire reports: a removable thick trim on a bias-cut tweed minidress-cum-tunic; statement trim on a striking yellow longline dress; intricate feather flowers embroidered onto a yellow A-line minidress and a standout black gown in viscose moiré. For more casual moments, oversized knits layer over loose-fit striped cotton artist shirts; apron dresses hang loose or cinch at the waist. Gesturing to a pink-and-blue-striped knit and a gray oversized gilet with daisy print on pockets and back, Wickstead told Maguire she felt Lee might have worn the look to the studio. That is the commercial thesis of Emilia Wickstead SS27: occasionwear that still wants a life between events.
Why the change matters for London Fashion Week watchers
London's schedule still rewards houses that treat presentation as part of the product. Wickstead's film-inside-the-store move keeps buyers and editors inside the house she built—Maguire notes she designed Sloane Street to be a show space—and frees the clothes from dry-ice theatrics they do not need. By modifying necklines and waistlines, adding feather trim, and layering prints, Maguire concludes Wickstead experimented with her familiar formula to give customers new ways to wear pieces and plenty of mileage. Stay inside the sourced frame: no invented Krasner studio anecdotes beyond Vogue's reporting, no fabricated royal client quotes.
Watch how Emilia Wickstead SS27's frayed chiffon, Prophecy-colored tweed, and first-time feathers translate from Sloane Street screening rooms into spring wholesale edits. For now, the Vogue record is clear: Wickstead used Lee Krasner to loosen—not abandon—the architectural eveningwear that made her name, and she filmed the argument where her clients already shop.
How Wickstead's signatures still read as Wickstead
Even with Krasner's unraveled brief, Maguire's review keeps returning to fit-and-flare dresses and architectural necklines—the commercial spine of the house. What changes is modularity: bibs that open or close, removable feather trims, chiffon inlays that lighten tweed for warmer months. That is how Emilia Wickstead SS27 speaks to wholesale buyers who need novelty without alienating the royal-and-society client base Maguire alludes to when she smiles at the paintbrush-pocket joke. The film format also lets color do more work; shifting pastel rooms recontextualize the same garments the way a gallery rehangs a painting, which is an apt metaphor for a Krasner season without Cover Issue inventing art-historical lectures Wickstead did not give.
Internal runway conversation on Cover Issue
Read Emilia Wickstead SS27 beside Mulberry's Christopher Kane chapter at https://thecoverissue.com/mulberry-at-three-christopher-kane-lfw-ss27 for another London house rewriting presentation rules, and against Talia Byre's Topshop collab runway energy at https://thecoverissue.com/talia-byre-topshop-collaboration-lfw-ss27 if you want high-street velocity after Sloane Street calm. Wickstead's wager is slower: clothes filmed as lived-in objects inside the store that sells them.