Fashion East Announces Designer Line-Up For SS19

London Fashion Week is just around the corner, and, today, Fashion East has added to the excitement and anticipation by revealing the three emerging womenswear designers in its spring/summer 2019 line-up. Newcomer Yuhan Wang will join existing recipients of the fund, Asai and Charlotte Knowles, who are returning for another year. The trio, which talent incubator founder Lulu Kennedy MBE describes as “what London is all about – new ideas, daring creativity and high energy”, will present their work in a group show on September 16th.

Each designer has been backed by the Fashion East team and an industry panel, including British Vogue senior contributing fashion editor Kate Phelan, and will join alumni including JW Anderson, Kim Jones, Roksanda Ilinicic and Simone Rocha. The chosen designers will each receive a bespoke programme of support, including bursaries, expert mentoring and a placement in a leading Paris sales showroom, as well as the London Fashion Week schedule slot.

"It’s pure pleasure to work with designers of this calibre. Their creativity is boundless and they’re not afraid to take risks, but also their attention to detail and commercial grasp is really on point,” Kennedy told Vogueexclusively of this year’s line-up. “I am honestly so proud to be showcasing them, to know them, and to wear them whenever I can!”

Being given a leg-up – whether being safe in the knowledge that Kennedy and co will bring a strong audience along to view their hard work, or through access to Fashion East's rolodex of contacts – is invaluable in a climate where many young designers are crippled by the weight of education fees. Aside from their courage and confidence, here's why each of this season's Fashion East's bright young things should be on your radar.

Asai

South London-born and based designer A Sai Ta launched his label Asai with Fashion East in February 2017 after stints at The Row and Yeezy. His elaborate fabrications and voluminous silhouettes that feed off his British-Chinese-Vietnamese heritage immediately captured the attention of the capital’s creative set and he’s been buzzed about ever since. “Asai fascinates me. There’s a lot going on in his head, he’s big hearted, sassy, funny – and it all comes through in his clothes,” Kennedy told Vogue ahead of his third season presenting with her programme in February. “He’s a great gauge of what’s now, and he’s just getting stronger and stronger.” Now reinstated into the Fashion East family for the fourth time, her sentiment is still apt.

Charlotte Knowles

Fellow South Londoner Charlotte Knowles, who founded her eponymous brand in 2017 with her partner Alexandre Arsenault, quickly made her way onto Kennedy’s radar owing to her futuristic takes on feminine clothing. “I loved her Central Saint Martins MA work as soon as I saw it: it’s so fresh and challenging, questioning the male gaze and female codes of dressing,” said Kennedy before Knowles's first season with Fashion East. Watch her continue to push the boundaries come September 16.

Yuhan Wang

Like her new Fashion East peers, Weihai-born Yuhan Wang is a Central Saint Martins’ graduate. Her MA collection explored the concepts of coverage and exposure through the window of Asian and Western culture, and she describes her preoccupations as “beauty with weirdness, softness, delicacy and sensibility” in the studio. With skills honed by work experience stints at JW Anderson and Oscar de la Renta, her Fashion East debut has piqued our intrigue levels already.