Daniel Fletcher just showed on the opening day of London Fashion Week and it finally felt like he's started to have some serious fun.
For his presentation, Fletcher turned towards the New Romantics, taking inspiration from the anything-goes attitude that defined London nightlife in the early 1980s. This wasn’t about simply recreating the clothes that once filled the Blitz Club, though. Instead, Fletcher seemed more interested in the way people dressed at the time: grabbing pieces from completely different worlds, throwing them together and somehow making the whole thing work.
Candy-pink tutus met striped shirts and corsets came with suspender clips left hanging loose. Rugby tops, cable knits and collegiate pieces were thrown against military detailing, party dresses and tiny shorts. Menswear and womenswear constantly borrowed from one another, while the precise tailoring that has become central to Fletcher’s Mithridate was deliberately disrupted by clothes that felt more playful.
Hot pink appeared against scarlet, ochre met petrol blue and cornflower was paired with green. Fletcher described the palette as intentionally “sickly,” and that slight wrongness was important. The collection was at its most convincing when things looked like they probably shouldn’t have been worn together.
Denim arrived supersized and covered in enormous studs, shoulders stretched wide, shorts became incredibly small and accessories were elongated beyond their usual proportions. Familiar Mithridate signatures remained throughout, from decorative buttons and integrated belts to collegiate knitwear.
One dress created the appearance of tartan through individually counted strands of beads, while another built exaggerated hips from pointed feathers. These moments served as reminders that behind all the eccentricity sits the increasingly confident relationship between Fletcher’s London studio and Mithridate’s atelier in China.
This was Fletcher's fourth collection for the house, and the building blocks are firmly in place. The tailoring and British references are there, while the relationship between London and Guangzhou also appears strong. Even a new monogram arrived this season, adding another recognisable house code to the mix.
The New Romantics gave Fletcher the perfect excuse to throw Mithridate’s wardrobe onto the floor, mix everything up and see what happened. Turns out, Mithridate is a lot more fun when it loosens up.
