LONDON – This season, WWD spotlights four emerging designers: Kanyinsola Onalaja, Macy Grimshaw, Francesca Lake, and a collaborative collection from Kai Ghattaura and Fin Forsyth.

Kanyinsola Onalaja

Kanyinsola Onalaja’s designs have been on fire. Literally.

Two months ago, the designer watched decades of work go up in flames, including her spring 2027 collection, which was set to debut later this week at London Fashion Week. A fire destroyed the building that housed her archival pieces, samples and collections.

“Even though there’s been a lot of devastation, it’s also been a time of freedom,” Onalaja said. “As creatives, we feel very locked and trapped in certain spaces. This has been a new sense to explore the unknown.”

In 2020, Onalaja designed a collection called “Rising From the Ashes,” which she saved online. She rediscovered the collection and used its foundations to create “ReBirth,” a 25-piece capsule that explores the motifs of fire through three themes: The Burn, The Ash, The ReBirth.

The collection features eveningwear and sculptural dresses with crystal embellishments inspired by embers, in burnt oranges and fiery red fabrics. Embroidered broken beads cascade from black to smoky gray, showing how destruction can give way to new life.

Influenced by her Nigerian and European heritage, she incorporates Yoruba and Edo Bini elements into silhouettes while experimenting with feathers, remaking them into soft, three-dimensional embellishments.

“I’m hoping a lot of grace will be shown based on everything that’s happened,” Onalaja said. “We have something to present, and we’re proud of it. It shows our resilience, and I’m happy.”

Macy Grimshaw

Lights, camera, fashion. Instead of shooting a look book, Macy Grimshaw has been working with Purple Button Productions on a fashion film to showcase her Central Saint Martins M.A. collection one last time.

Filmed last June in Bethnal Green, East London, the video features nine looks from her collection. It’s called M and is inspired by her late grandparents and photographs of East London’s gritty backdrop. Each look has special meaning, and the minute-and-a-half recording reveals the inspiration for her leather sculptural designs.

“This video helps mark the vibe I want to enter the fashion scene with,” said Grimshaw. “Even though I’m not presenting something new, this collection is a really nice way to encapsulate what I did for the last season and what I’m bringing ahead into the next year.”

The collection took off on Instagram, catching the eyes of celebrities like Simone Ashley, who wore her blue silk slipdress. She later worked with stylist Harry Lambert to craft a full paper look, called Paper Doll, for Harry Styles’ latest album art, displayed at Kattdo pop-up stores across 16 cities globally.

Her recent commissions include a custom-molded tracing-paper sculpture, photographed by Nick Knight and worn by Anya Taylor-Joy.

“I love to create designs that are more like artwork and more unwearable, but for next season expect new pieces, a new collection and the hope to purchase some of them,” Grimshaw said.

Kai Ghattaura and Fin Forsyth

The image of adulthood can often be shinier than reality. Partners Kai Ghattaura and Fin Forsyth have come together to produce “Glister,” an off-schedule runway show that explores a world free of society’s standard rules, where the uncertain is certain.

The Central Saint Martins graduates were inspired by the phrase in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice,” “All that glisters is not gold.” They questioned the value of attachment through experimentation with materials like old curtains, bedsheets, carpets, Royal Mail bags and construction site tarps.

With no sketches or pre-planned designs, the clothes are playful and childlike, yet offer “grown-up” craftsmanship, examining how the two can coexist in the same world.

“It’s a world built from twee Tumblr-era aesthetics, fidget spinners, emojis, charity shop finds and car boot bric-a-brac. A bit nostalgic, a bit ridiculous, and hopefully quite magical,” Ghattaura and Forsyth said.

The pair have never followed a traditional system, so producing an independent show was an extension of their orderly-chaotic approach to clothing. “We think the best way to make something new is to work in a way you haven’t worked before,” they said. Their previous show, “A Scattered Dream,” featured 30 looks and was produced with zero budget.

They want the audience to know that the world of “Glister” already exists; it’s the audience’s choice how far they want to get involved. “We want people to smile, feel a bit bewildered, and hopefully reconnect with their inner child,” said Ghattaura and Forsyth.

Francesca Lake

Francesca Lake wants to take Jamaican fashion somewhere higher.

From Kingston, Jamaica, the London-based designer is looking beyond the familiar imagery of Rastas, coconuts, and beaches. This season, she is taking materials associated with the working class and the aspirations that come from wanting more.

“I wanted to explore the idea of elevation — what it means to ‘make it’, and how clothing can communicate where you come from and where you’re going,” Lake said.

She uses Rastafarian language as an example of this elevation; the dialect speaks “up” rather than “down,” reflecting empowerment and positivity. Lake wants to know if clothing can do the same.

For her first physical presentation at LFW, she has blended structural, armor-like silhouettes with decadent fabrics to challenge the stereotypes in her culture and to celebrate Jamaican pride.

Lake said the contrasts between the quiet and extravagant designs are important and represent someone’s journey through society’s hierarchies.

As a winner of the BFC Scholarship and the Honorable Daphne Guinness Scholarship, she credits the BFC with giving her the opportunity to present at LFW.

“I think it’s important to say that in an unapologetic way. Fashion can sometimes be a trivial space to exist in, so to create work with real meaning and have people support the message behind it is a big accomplishment for all of us,” she said.