Oxford Fashion Studio Presents: SORAMAME “Sparkles of Momentum” | SS26

Perhaps it’s fitting that Soramame’s SS26 collection was showcased at Shoreditch’s Devonshire Square, which in the 1700s, actually housed a multitude of craft workshops. Created by Van Nguyen and taking particular care towards sustainability and material, Soramame put an emphasis on their craft. They like their clothes to tick life’s two most important boxes: fashion and function.

Presented by Oxford Fashion Studio, the collection entitled “Sparkles of Momentum”, aims to “capture the essence of impermanence and emptiness through fashion language.” Your eyebrow is probably raised — well, mine certainly was. What’s so desirable about emptiness, a feeling so often associated with nothingness? But as the show notes say, it’s the meeting of “everything and nothing”, and it’s not necessarily an absence of experience or wisdom, but more the antithesis of a “falsely imputed, permanent, independent self-nature in all things.”

High glamour was the theme of the evening: shimmering golds, Grecian drapes, sculptural silhouettes. No two looks appeared the same, and whether it was a cap or sunglasses, a handful of looks had an updated streetwear flare to them. Perhaps echoing the brand’s identity, you can run a few errands and attend your nighttime gala without having to adjust an inch. A string of animal print looks, one in particular paired with black thigh-high boots, obviously echoed your Cavallis and Alaïas, and a sparkling opal floor-length wouldn’t look out of place in a J’adore campaign — but the urban nature to Soramame is what really sets it apart. The looks are modern and sleek, youthful yet classy. Asymmetrical draping and dramatic cut-outs or shifts in material also provided the experimental element that LFW has been missing recently.

Perhaps it is true — emptiness is misrepresented. Maybe, as the brand claims, emptiness is really just the meeting of everything and nothing. But in Soramame’s case, there wasn’t much of nothing on show, though there was a whole lot of everything.