Fashion has serious designs on soccer this season. Fresh from the most successful Women’s World Cup of all time, soccer jerseys have been London Fashion Week attire for more than one Vogue editor; on the streets they’re being paired with tailored pants, denim, and pleated minis. The timing couldn’t have been better, then, for Arsenal legend Ian Wright to make his catwalk debut. The former striker opened the Labrum show in a double-breasted navy suit and what looked like Arsenal’s current third kit shirt underneath, causing this reviewer (and Arsenal season ticket holder) to practically slide off her seat in excitement.
Expect nothing less from Foday Dumbuya, Labrum’s thoughtful founder, who followed up his excellent fall show in Brixton Village Market with a gear shift of a location—the ritzy Four Seasons Hotel—and a collection to match. Dumbuya is having something of a smash-hit year. In May, he won the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, a prize presented to him by King Charles III. In August, he collaborated with Guinness on a capsule collection that paid homage to the social tradition he connects with his birthplace, Sierra Leone, of enjoying a pint and a game of checkers. Earlier this month, he was nominated for the New Establishment Menswear Award, a new category at the Fashion Awards 2023.
None of the success seems to have gone to his head. On the contrary, Dumbuya insists his goals remain the same as they were when he founded his natty menswear brand in 2014, though he concedes the Queen Elizabeth II Award changed things: “That award took me to a different sphere in terms of how people look at my work and the stories that I tell. That recognition was—I can’t express to you what that felt like. I’ve always talked about legacy. I’ve always said what I’m doing is not just for me. I am not here for the money; I didn’t set up [my brand] for the accolades. I’m here to create a platform for people who look like me.”
Meeting his moment, Dumbuya had chosen to stage his spring show around a grand piano under the Art Deco dome of the hotel’s rotunda bar. He enlisted the singer-songwriter Tawiah to perform, accompanied by the classical pianist and composer Karim Kamar (the latter was so moved by the experience that tears streamed down his face during his performance). The front row held the liveliest LFW audience, made up of friends and supporters spanning Radio One DJs, celebrated artists, and musicians.
Dumbuya knows they make the best ambassadors for his conscientiously diverse creations, which this season spanned elegant suiting and stripped-back separates, all in the kind of tactile, luscious fabrics he has made his signature, alongside raffia and frayed edges that he said nodded to traditional masquerades in West Africa. There was sportswear too, most notably a tracksuit collaboration with Netflix’s Top Boy and Hackney Wick FC, modeled by British rapper Unknown T, and a series of Adidas Samba sneakers featuring prints based on Nomoli artwork, which also featured on shirting, a nod to the figurines of Sierra Leone that bring good luck. All this, and Dumbuya’s wife had given birth to their second child just two weeks before.
Sometimes a show just seems to make sense. That was the case today, as Dumbuya’s talent for storytelling and context building continued to set him apart. Take the show location. “This is a Grade II–listed building, the old London ports authority building,” he explained. “This is where people used to come and get permits to come and work in London. The story that I tell sits within that. We talk about people movement, migration, design influence—this encapsulates it. My last show was in Brixton, but the stories that I tell, they also live here, in a luxury building.” As the models walked for their finale, the audience gave Dumbuya a standing ovation. The only thing missing? That famous “Ian Wright Wright Wright” chant.
