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Oscar Ouyang meets me at the entrance of his studio building on Hackney Road in East London. We follow him up staircases and around corners, through a winding succession of corridors lined with neighbouring studios. By the time we reach his door, I’m not sure I could find my way back alone.

Inside, a knitting machine slides back and forth, its steady rhythm accompanying the sweet smell of incense. In one corner, members of his team have gathered around books, one perched on a box, leafing through a magazine. Work continues around our arrival.

The studio occupies a single open room, filled at different heights. Rails of the new collection share the space with earlier seasons hanging overhead. Magazines and art books crowd wooden shelves beneath small clear containers labelled ‘snaps’, ‘eyelets’ and ‘zip pulls’. Knitted samples hang from a corkboard, their loose threads dangling from their unfinished edges. Across the walls, stars, swans and floral arrangements take shape in grids of stitches. There is a lot to look at; the place is surely crowded, but the feeling is peaceful.

Something about the room recalls a Studio Ghibli workshop: there’s the accumulation of objects, the different types of machines, the people absorbed in their own part of a shared endeavour. That same playfulness carries into Cygnet, Ouyang’s Spring Summer 2027 collection, which explores the awkward stretch between adolescence and adulthood. Familiar forms loosen and soften through satin military jackets and trims of antique lace. There are hints of prom, going back to school and dressing in your grandparents’ clothes, still figuring out what feels most like you.

I sit down with Oscar to talk about the collection.

Horatia Taittinger: How do you feel now that the collection has been shown?

Oscar Ouyang: It’s always like this. You work with the team for three to six months, building up to this high point, and then the whole show is over in under ten minutes. I was quite relaxed backstage this season, just checking the models and enjoying the music. Then suddenly it was finished, and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s it. What’s next?’

You spend nights awake thinking about little details in the collection. Afterwards, those worries disappear, but something else takes their place. We’re already delivering last season’s collection and preparing for Paris. It never ends. I couldn’t sleep last night either.

HT: Cygnet explores that ambiguous stage between adolescence and adulthood. What were you like then?

OY:  I think it’s quite a sweet spot in life. You’re trying to figure things out, but then at the same time, do we ever figure anything out, you know? You’re always on this journey or quest; you’re searching for something, for any meaning of anything — that is ongoing. It might sound childish to say, but it’s a mental state I try to stay in. Until one day, you just decide to form a family.

HT: Is that when adulthood starts?

OY: I don’t know. I’ll find out, I guess. But I imagine it’s when you start having a lot of real responsibility. Well, not that I don’t have any now.

HT: I’d say you already have quite a lot of responsibility.

OY: I do, but at the same time I try to keep myself a little lightheaded, you know?

HT: You often come to film for references. What drew you to Sofia Coppola this season?

OY: Her films are always gorgeous, cinematically; the way she frames everything. The Virgin Suicides is a film that keeps being referenced. For us, we’re not referencing Sofia’s aesthetic directly, but rather the story and the mystery surrounding the girls. There’s never really an answer to why the girls kill themselves. That stays with you.

HT: You’ve talked about prom and going back to school. How did those ideas make it into your clothes?

OY: Prom is another sort of childish reference. I was thinking of a straightforward way to phrase the collection. Prom is something most people attend at this age, and a reference most people would understand. The idea for the clothing was more to ease up on formal or evening wear. Some brands make gowns, and others specialise in tailoring. There’s a certain seriousness to it. We wanted to keep that, but also break it down with a little detail that makes it feel not too adult.

HT: Who do you picture attending this prom?

OY: I always use this image of the kids you see in the smoking area that you’re a little bit scared of. You want to be a part of their group, and in reality they’re not that scary. They’re actually really nice. They just dress themselves in a way that has a bit of an edge.

HT: And what happens the morning after?

OY: Not being left on the football field like Lux, [ in The Virgin Suicides] —probably not that. Last season I talked about an after-party, but I’m a bit past that kind of partying now.

HT: Do you recognise yourself in those people who are still figuring out how they want to dress?

OY: We all go through that era. For me, it was when I first moved to London. I got this culture shock: everyone dresses so differently. I saw a freedom of expression I had never seen before. Going to CSM, it’s a whole new thing. Everyone is encouraged just to be themselves in that way. Dressing is a kind of social language—it’s how you express yourself and how you want to be heard and perceived.

When you start, there’s a lot of trial and error until you find what you feel the most comfortable or confident in. But there’s something fun about seeing the combinations people come up with—not necessarily bizarre, just unexpected. London has always encouraged that kind of freedom.

HT: Do you think that’s more so the case in London than in other cities?

OY: I believe so. In Paris, people are quite chic. Which is cute, you know, but it’s kind of like people are maybe a little bit scared to make mistakes and take risks sometimes. People give you side eyes—whereas in London people don’t even blink—when you wear heels, platforms, or skirts.

HT: You’ve described the people gathered in the smoking area. Do you see groups like that as a kind of subculture today?

OY: Subculture can mean something that doesn’t celebrate the mainstream. If you share niche tastes in music, books, and dressing with a small group of friends, you’re forming a kind of subculture. It’s about a group communicating through culture.

HT: Where does mainstream culture fit into that?

OY: It’s about balance. You shouldn’t be too against it, but you don’t want to follow it too much either. But we reference pop culture too. We used Britpop for the finale music!

HT: You often return to military clothing. What first drew you to it?

OY: It’s fundamental to menswear: so much of how men dress comes from the military. If you think about the categories of clothes men can go for, there are suits, military jackets, bombers, T-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts. Military clothing has a particular complexity. There are layers behind it — a sense of masculinity but also sensitivity, and how those come through when someone wears it. There’s also a lot of technique involved in making a jacket because of its practicality.

HT: Is that more so to do with their history or their construction?

OY: Both, I think. There’s the history, but also the construction: the positioning of the pockets, the length of the jacket, even the lining and fabric choice. All those details matter.

HT: This season you’ve made them in satin. How did you arrive at that choice?

OY: It makes them a little more feminine —not too much. This season, the M-65 jackets are satin, but we kept the colours quite neutral. Ivory, black and a sort of sage, which comes from the military references. It’s about balance. You don’t want something to feel too out of place. It still makes sense, but there’s a little twist. A lot of it comes down to instinct: this feels right; it doesn’t feel like a step too far.

HT: Do you feel military references are having a particular moment now?

OY: They’ve always been referenced, but perhaps now more than ever. Maybe it’s because there’s war everywhere in the world.

HT: How did it feel to develop womenswear this season?

OY: It’s been quite fun. The menswear already had elements of womenswear, so it felt quite easy to translate and came about quite organically.

HT: How does the idea of things being passed down feed into your work?

OY: We have loads of antique lace and fabrics in the studio. I like visiting palaces, going to antique markets and auctions, and looking at collectable pieces, silverware, and jewellery. We keep coming back to that idea of craftsmanship being passed on. The crochet technique we use references a really fine Irish lace crochet, which you don’t see that much anymore. In an industry so focused on mass production, it’s about preserving those ideas and looking at the techniques people used in the past. They make things feel more handcrafted, more delicate and more luxurious at the same time.

Photography by Holly Whittaker (@hollywhittaker)