STEVE O SMITH METROPOLIS COLLECTION

For this collection, Steve O Smith reflects on the city as a site of encounter, where intimacy and spectacle coexist. Taking Otto Dix’s 1928 triptych as its starting point, the collection is inspired by the depiction of glamour and unease, a space where bodies and the garments adorning them brush against one another in states of tension and performance.

This tension is tempered by the influence of Edward Burra, whose depictions of the interwar period carry humour and theatricality, a distinctly British sense of coded gesture. Where Dix is sharp and dissonant, Burra’s figures exaggerate and gesture, bringing a characteristic lightness to the collection. Metropolis marks the first use of colour since the designer’s MA collection in 2022. Red, pink and gold emerge as tonal fields rather than accents, developed in close collaboration with a London dye house. 

Each shade was painstakingly matched to the ink washes of Smith’s drawings, settling into the garments with the weight and saturation of pigment absorbed into paper, conveying mood rather than decoration.Couture provides the underlying structure through an ongoing dialogue with the work of Madeleine Vionnet, particularly her evening dresses from the late 1920s. 

The reference is not one of silhouette, but of discipline. Vionnet’s clarity of construction, her restraint, and her use of graphic embellishment as surface structure rather than ornament underpin the approach throughout. Vintage glass beads, sequins and crystals are used as graphic line, recreating the texture of drawing on the page. One black gown, encircled by a delicately beaded bow motif, required ninety-five hours of handwork. 

Meticulously applied onto double crepe de chine, mounted on double georgette and lined in double chiffon, it exemplifies Smith’s sustained focus on construction and craft.The signature applique technique is further refined. Worked by hand onto tulle rather than organza, the line softens and the garments draw closer to the body, maintaining precision while gaining intimacy. As a collection, Metropolis reads as a study in the personal development of craft as well as the inherited intelligence of couture, translating ideas of proximity and performance into dress through the artist’s hand.

Steve O Smith presents his next collection, titled 'Metropolis', with a Luncheon and Exhibition held at Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park for the AW26 London Fashion Week.

Steve O Smith is a London-based designer that makes drawings.

This process, developed while completing his MA at Central Saint Martins, uses creative construction and fabric appliqué to transform his drawings on paper into wearable objects that embody the gesture and emotion of his mark-making. In this circular technique, pattern cutting becomes an extension of the drawing process, scissor and stitch are re-framed as drawing tools, and the resulting garments are drawings in their own right.

 

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