THERE IS a particular pleasure in watching a designer arrive at the point where a brand’s language begins to speak for itself. Over his previous seasons at Mithridate, Daniel Fletcher has been laying the foundations: establishing a vocabulary of his signature British prep, relaxed tailoring, youthful proportions and the house’s increasingly recognisable motifs.
For Spring/ Summer 2027, he finally seems to be playing within the four walls he has built. The result is his most exciting collection to date.
The inspiration is the New Romantics, those singular figures who, in 1980s London, turned getting dressed into an act of self-invention. At the Blitz, Steve Strange’s famously exacting door policy only sharpened the impulse to create an identity of one’s own. “They were creating looks and dressing up as a projection of a political feeling at that time. And I think there is a sense of that today,” adds the designer at a preview he gave me a day before the show.
And so the references are gloriously mixed. Victorian and Edwardian military dress finds its way onto natty bubble-hem party dresses; theatre costumes appear to have escaped their dressing-up box; corsets are worn with suspender clips exposed; low-slung briefs come with fringe-tied scarves: candy-floss pink tutus, feather-covered bodices, and super fine knitwear. The effect is flirtatious without becoming precious.
What makes the collection particularly assured is Fletcher’s command of proportion. A billowing trench meets micro shorts; a broad-shouldered jacket sits beneath a shrunken cable knit; oversized round studs punctuate relaxed denim. The styling feels intuitive rather than overworked. Cummerbunds slip low over silk shirts, jumpers are thrown over shoulders, and shoes remain mostly flat (perfect for dancing!).
Colour is treated with the same instinct. Hot pink meets scarlet, cornflower blue meets emerald, navy meets black. The familiar Mithridate numbers – that nod to Chinese Feng shui – appear in leather and across shirting, alongside rugby jerseys, ribbed polos and striped micro shorts that keep one foot firmly in the house’s preppy foundations. A Monogram was even designed and introduced to give the brand a seal of recognisability.
This is ultimately a collection about freedom: not dressing as the New Romantics dressed, but dressing with their conviction. Fletcher has built the framework; now he is having fun inside it. And for Mithridate, that feels like the beginning of something.
by Imogen Clark