In the 18 months since she last appeared on the London Fashion Week schedule, you’d be forgiven for thinking things had gone quiet for Masha Popova. But since emancipating herself from the hand-to-mouth grind of seasonal showings, the designer has barely had time to draw breath. She’s been wardrobing pop stars like Charli XCX and Blackpink’s Lisa and working with Spanish behemoth Desigual on her debut commercial collaboration. Popova has also been taking up residence at the invitation-only Paul Smith Foundation—which offers free studio space and mentoring to independent designers—alongside fellow Central Saint Martins graduates Petra Fagerstrom and Eden Tan. “Everything’s falling into place and I’m excited,” said Popova during a walk-through of her fall 2026 collection in her airy new digs. “It feels like a comeback.”
Now having flown the NewGen nest, and no longer required to present in its plug-and-play show space at 180 The Strand, Popova staged her return at the 17th-century Charterhouse—where a young Elizabeth I prepared for her coronation and James I knighted many of his favored noblemen—amid the seductively coffered ceilings and silk-clad walls of its Great Chamber. The setting offered the first clue to Popova’s starting point: Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 languorous vampire romance starring a straggly-haired Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton. The collection, in turn, had all the hallmarks of a louche, nocturnal wardrobe. There were piped pajama separates in distorted floral silk, complete with integrated wraparound scarves—a construction carried through from Popova’s previous look book collection, because “it deserved a moment” beyond the Vogue Runway grid—alongside fuzzy dressing gowns slit clean up the back of the legs, and wool coats finished with Nosferatu collars. This was, notably, the first collection in which Popova has really shown coats: An overdyed khaki bomber made from 100 percent plant-based fiber proved especially covetable, as did her take on a wax jacket, cut to the proportions of a bathrobe, and a cotton trench coat with elaborate, spiral-stitched shoulders.
“It’s not just denim and a few other things,” Popova said with a smile—though there was plenty of denim to admire. Bow-front halter tops were paired with low-slung skirts, from which an extraneous acid-wash leg lurched forward, as if a partner’s jeans had been scooped up from the bedroom floor and wrapped around the body. A denim jacket bonded to fluffy pile became her version of a shearling aviator; military jackets redolent of something Christophe Decarnin might have made for Balmain in the 2000s came with big brass buttons and even bigger shoulders. Fang bites were reverse embossed onto the backs of micro-shorts and Fair Isle knits—another development in Popova’s bid to build a holistic wardrobe. Those madcap techniques extended into leather too: Her signature boot-cuts were finally given a belt that fits their hip-flashing waistbands, cut from deadstock hide donated by LVMH when she was still studying. Corseted minidresses and lounge-lizard slippers were screen printed, overprinted, and rubbed down to achieve an aged patina. It was good to see Popova back and doing things on her own terms.
