“It’s a bit like paint-by-numbers to scale” was one way Steve O Smith explained his method of transposing his small drawings onto clothing with uncanny accuracy, even rendering with glass beads how his ink sometimes congealed, drying too quickly during one of London’s many heatwaves this summer.

A few dozen editors were summoned to a life-drawing classroom in the bowels of the Royal Academy of Art for his runway-show-cum-lecture, which felt like a vibrant riposte to AI slop — and a thumb in the eye to eons-old fashion rules that hemlines, middy collars and Breton stripes must follow straight lines.

His devotion to his watery drawings — this time in color applied to small notecards — yielded lovely dresses, some with soft panniers, one killer coat and — for him — a gossamer shirt and tie that might not pass muster at a private club, but would surely spark a lively conversation with the doorman.

A graduate of Central Saint Martins and winner of the 2025 Karl Lagerfeld award at the 2025 LVMH Prize, Smith works on a made-to-order basis, using fabric appliqué and precise pattern cutting to translate his drawn lines into one-of-a-kind outfits.

He stood at a lectern appointed with small bottles of red, cobalt and Prussian blue ink, tapping them with his long paintbrush, flashing his blotting rag and explaining his Fauvist inspiration, particularly André Derain, and the self-imposed limitations he uses to unlock new wearable forms.

He enlisted a fringe specialist to interpret how his ink runs, and an embroiderer to suggest the new color that appears when red and blue run together.

Smith confessed that he once had a “very scary drawing teacher” who argued “it’s the shapes you create between your lines that are the most interesting in a drawing.”

After hearing those words, you found yourself looking at tartans and stripes in an entirely new way.