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Sensory overload was the aim of the game for Chopova Lowena’s Spring/Summer 2026 show.
There were inflatable animals, and mascots handing out pickle-flavoured crisps, as co-founders Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons riffed off their high school experiences across the US and the UK. Different scented segments of the show, to show off the brand’s new perfumes. A cacophonous soundtrack mashed up NFL coaches, Chopova’s high school band, cheerleaders, self-help affirmations and Lowena-Irons’s kids laughing. Guests sat on foam finger bean bags and little mushroom stools, and the space was lined with score screens that changed as models entered the space.
“It’s our Super Bowl,” says Lowena-Irons, speaking from the brand’s Deptford studio two days out from the show. “It’s the first time we’ve done a proper set, rather than relying on the venue.”
Previous shows have been in BaySixty6 Skatepark and grand venues Porchester Hall and Old Shoreditch Town Hall; but this time around, the design duo selected a West London sports hall. They worked with Rory Mullen on the installations, having partnered with the artist on Chopova Lowena’s Dover Street Market installations in the past, and more recently on an installation in Antwerp’s Momu for an exhibition on Girlhood, which opened last month.
“Shows bring our community together, and we love being able to invite our community into our world,” Lowena-Irons says, as her co-founder chimes in, “and this one is really, really fun.”
Chopova went to high school in the States and Lowena-Irons in the UK, resulting in a mishmash of references. The show features corseted football shoulders on the shoulders and the hips; pom pom bags (an emerging trend, as seen at NYFW), cheerleader tutu skirts, studded tracksuits, and mascot-style fluffy hoodies and bags, of course in scores of contrasting prints.
I last interviewed Chopova Lowena in September 2022, ahead of their first London Fashion Week show. At the time, the brand had just surpassed £1 million revenue and had 70 stockists. Since, the brand has won the 2024 Vogue/BFC Designer Fashion Fund (£150,000), using the capital to build out its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business and develop several new categories, from bags and shoes to perfume.
“Since we started showing at London Fashion Week, more people know about the brand,” Lowena-Irons says. “With a show you can create so much excitement. It’s helped us in all aspects, from community to press.”
A technical challenge that paid off
Like today’s show, entering Chopova Lowena’s Deptford studio is a feast for the eyes. I pass through a modern café and a sterile hallway before being catapulted into a cornucopia of checks and tutus, belts and charms, bedazzled bags and studded shoes. When we speak, the stage is already pretty set for the show. There are clear plastic bags hung on each look, filled with (sometimes several) belts, heavy-duty charm necklaces, or a Chopova Lowena x Chilly water bottle, the brand’s latest collaboration, to be unveiled during the show. All but one model is cast, and the duo are trying out two girls for the remaining look during my visit. “Walk your fastest walk,” Chopova briefs one model, who is dressed in a hoodie and a long skirt that looks to be made of approximately 30 different trims.
“It was a hard collection to make, but in the end, it was for good reason,” Chopova says. With the high school theme, the duo made clothes for their crushes, cheerleaders and even their high school bullies, creating mixed feelings and rewriting past trauma, she says. The collection was technically harder, too. They used entirely new materials like chainmail (crocheted onto a hoodie, jersey shorts and a dress with an impressive bustle), or lots and lots of trims stacked on top of one another, to make layers of dresses or T-shirts. “Four or five months before we started the collection, the first thing I did was order like 50 kinds of trims,” Chopova says.
When we go out into the corridor to watch models walk, I spot components of black, painted 3D-printed boots on a drying rack, with carved flowers on the exterior. “We’re going to put photos of the team in the middle of the flowers,” Chopova smiles. “The boots are a risk that’s paid off.”
Compared with the last show collection, which was entirely black and white, this season’s is extremely colourful. It feels in line with fashion’s gradual shift back to maximalism, as designers slowly explore fun accents on classic styles like suiting. But for the duo, it wasn’t a conscious choice. “We don’t really make conscious decisions like that,” Chopova smiles, surrounded by rails of spliced, printed and embellished garments.
What was conscious, however, was the decision to create even more versatile garments for SS26. The carabiner kilts — the brand’s hero item — can already be switched out to pair different belts with skirts, which consumers love, Lowena-Irons says. They’ve also already created some skirts that can be zipped or unzipped to change the length, which “performed well at sales”. So the duo have dialled up modularity in this collection, from multi-level dresses that can be altered four ways, to tote bags that can be unzipped into two smaller bags. “You can have a cheer top, a Bulgarian bottom, a pom pom and a kilt all together or mix it up,” Chopova explains, zipping and unzipping the contrasting layers of a dress by way of demonstration.
Creating a scented show
Chopova Lowena shows annually, so this was the first since the brand’s fragrance launch in January. At the start of the show, TV screens lining the space played fake adverts for the pickle chips and the fragrances, voiced by Chopova herself. “It’s some of Emma’s best work,” Lowena-Irons laughs when describing it pre-show.
The pair worked with fragrance consultants who they met at a perfume trade show through Chopova Lowena brand manager Martha Somerfield, to scent the show. “The smell will be taken out of the space, and it should smell like nothing. Then, the girls will perfume the room,” Lowena-Irons explains. “They created a spraying chamber for the perfume girls to enter before they hit the runway.” There are three perfume girls in the collection. “This is Jasmina, and then we have Rosa and Ruth,” Chopova says, gesturing at photos of the models on a board, one of whom is wearing a huge black fur coat with a blue snake print and argyle check at the chest. In the show, the “perfume girls” also carry the perfumes — which have fun doll head caps — in specially made leather bags (for now, the bags won’t be sold).
Following feedback, the plan is to release smaller sizes of the perfumes, since the 100ml is a little expensive at £220, the duo shares. Sales have been strong, but they wish to open the fragrance up to a broader consumer. They are releasing solid versions of the perfume — also with doll heads — as bag charms and necklace charms, as seen throughout the show.
New categories and collaborations are key vehicles for growth looking ahead, Chopova and Lowena-Irons agree. The label has already collaborated with a diverse mix of brands, from Hellmann’s mayonnaise to Ugg. Last month, Chopova Lowena collaborated with Sony on a headphone case for the brand’s new over-ear headphones, which was well received. “It already brought so many people to our site,” Chopova says. “They didn’t restrict us at all, which is what was so great about it,” adds Lowena-Irons.
This season’s Chilly bottle is the antithesis of the minimalist Stanley Cup beloved of the pink Pilates princess, complete with chaotic illustrations and a studded, buckled leather crossbody holder. “We carry our water bottles everywhere, and there’s no fun way to hold them,” Lowena-Irons says. Until now. For each Chopova Lowena collaboration, the goal is different — from amplification with Sony (pun intended), to irreverence and relatability in the case of Hellmann’s.
The show venue isn’t hard to miss, Chopova Lowena’s PR Antonio Pignone tells me pre-show, but he’ll be on hand with directions in case. “I’m really looking forward to being like, you just need to get dropped off outside the inflatable pig,” he says.
On the day of the show, Chopova and Lowena-Irons are making and fixing belts as the models finish hair and makeup. Apart from that, everything in the rehearsal is going to plan, “the girls are looking amazing, we’re so excited”, Lowena-Irons says, as Chopova does her best NFL fan impression — “It’s all happening, let’s fucking go!”
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