Pints and Priory: Paolo Carzana Brings Fashion Week To A Historic London Pub
Filled with mysticism and hand-crafted hope, the young designer shines his light on a new ethos of design.
Not many designers can say they titled their collection “Dragons Unwinged at the Butchers Block,” but not many are Paolo Carzana. Hosted inside The Holy Tavern in Clerkenwell, home to the former Knights Hospitallers and ancient Clerkenwell priory, Carzana invited an intimate selection of industry insiders to the storied pub to view his latest project in deconstruction.
The Welsh designer has yet to shy from intimacy. Last season, the runway was staged in his own backyard in Clapton. This season, swaths of raw-edged fabric formed deconstructed vests over blue-dyed ribbed button downs, while rough-and-tumble Madam Grès-esque dresses formed some of the highlights of the brief 14 look collection. Carzana may value the illusion of disarray, but each piece was hand-draped and hand-painted to achieve exacting and vibrant depths from otherwise muted yellows, greens, and grays.
Like much of his design ethos, FW25 was an ode to the finest detail on the smallest scales. So far, Carzana has bucked against the traditional fashion model by refusing to produce in factories. The designer’s dreams are founded on the reality of handmade craft, not the digitally constructed falsehoods of social media (the designer’s Instagram bio even notes *offline till February*).
Paolo Carzana originally debuted his namesake label at London Fashion Week during the SS23 season. He is also an artist in residence at the Sarabande Foundation, established by Lee Alexander McQueen, to whom his handiwork is frequently compared. This collection was no different.
See Paolo Carzana’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection in the gallery above, and stay tuned to Hypebeast for more London Fashion Week coverage.
