“Clothes are made to be taken off”: Ashish on his SS26 collection

While waiting backstage to interview Ashish  Gupta on his SS26 collection, I overhear a woman in lime-coloured glasses describe what we just saw as a “bowl of ketamin”. I immediately jot the designer’s eccentric friend’s words down in my Notes app — she’s described the designer’s twenty-fifth London Fashion Week show perfectly. One of the concluding events of the long weekend, Gupta’s eponymous label ended a hectic and champagne-fuelled few days on a palpable high. People shed happy tears. Beth Ditto gave a standing ovation (a compliment if there ever was one). When Gupta appeared at the end of the show, the applause was dopamine-inducing.

Named Fresh Hell, the latest Ashish collection draws on the chaos of modern life — the good, the bad, but never the ugly. “When you wake up in the morning and you look at the news, and you look at your emails, and you look at your phone, it’s fresh hell,” Gupta says. “It’s terrorising. But I also love the juxtaposition of fresh and hell. It translates nicely into clothing — the chaos, but also the beauty.” The designer embodied that vision in a ready-to-collection centred around the brand’s signature joyous colour palette and sequinned fabrics, with the addition of a press-on beading technique, drawn from the ’60s but new for the label. 

Contrary to the usual, delicate reputation that sequins possess, Ashish’s SS26 collection is made for dancing. “With sequin clothing, people always think it’s so delicate and you can’t do stuff in it,” Gupta effuses. “And I was like, well, it’s not, you can chuck it in a suitcase and go to a club in it.” The night club, Studio 54-esque energy was in full force on the catwalk. Models danced around in clothes made for movement: swinging sequined chaps, shimmering gowns and airy skirts. The models twirled, strutted, and flashed their pants and sparkly nipple covers. “I was trying to make something that’s visceral, because clothes move,” Gupta continues. “And I think, fundamentally, clothes are made to be taken off.”

How did you come up with the movement aspect of the show?

The original idea was like, let’s just make it full chaos and fuck with it and see what happens.

How do you implement that movement in the clothes? 

I mean, I always put pockets, zips and things. My philosophy is that a t-shirt should be as beautiful and special as an evening gown, but equally, an evening gown should be as comfortable as a t-shirt. So if I think about that, that helps me design. And if I’m doing an evening gown, I don’t want to put a corset and loads of fastenings and buckles, because that’s not modern living. Modern living is throwing on a dress, putting on a bit of lipstick, a heel and running out the door.

There’s a lot of dresses in the collection. Why the emphasis there? 

I just love a dress. It’s easy to put on. It’s easy to take off.

Was there anyone on the mood board for the season?

When we were doing hair and makeup, we were looking at Nina Simone, Elizabeth Taylor, Eartha Kitt, all those icons. But when I was doing the collection, it was quite abstract. I was looking at a lot of fabric, techniques, colour.

Are there any new techniques you’ve used for the first time this season? 

There’s a bead work thing we’ve done actually, which mimics the 1960s press-on bead techniques, but we’ve done it by hand. We did, like, dyed glass beads. I thought that was really beautiful. 

Why did you choose the name Fresh Hell for the collection? 

Well, the saying apparently comes from Dorothy Parker. She was writing one day and the phone rang and she went, What fresh hell is this? And that’s how it started. When you wake up these days in the morning and you look at the news, and you look at your emails, and you look at your phone, it’s fresh hell. Literally, it’s terrorising. But I also love the juxtaposition of fresh and hell. It translates nicely into clothing — the chaos, but also the beauty.

How do you translate something as dark as that to something so joyous? 

Because the only way to fight something dark is with something light. You don’t see the light unless you see the darkness. So it’s a balance. You don’t have pleasure without pain.