Michaela Coel Models Riccardo Tisci’s First Solo Work In 17 Years

Michaela Coel’s Black Panther London premiere look makes her feel like a “sexy winter beach minx waiting by water to catch sharks and devour them for dinner”. (Her words, not ours). The dark playfulness at the heart of this red-carpet narrative is not even the main headline. Coel’s stretch silk bodysuit and multi-layered Chantilly lace skirt, dotted with flowers and stars, is the first fashion her friend Riccardo Tisci has created since leaving Burberry, and the first under his eponymous label for 17 years.

Michaela and Riccardo met briefly at Cannes, but connected properly at a Soho House men’s style lunch, which Coel “gatecrashed” and, despite initially feeling “alien”, stayed for hours playing ping pong. She fell for Tisci’s story – “his life of struggle defies people’s assumptions” – and asked him to design her Wakanda Forever press look as a friend, not as a world-class creative in the middle of a career transition.

“It makes me feel major, major, major – no other word is required,” says Coel. Rowben Lantion

“It was very beautifully naive,” says Riccardo, who teamed up with Coel’s mother, Kwenua Osborne, in another creative first for a woman who fashioned many of her daughter’s looks solo before the Tiscis of this world came along. The collaborative process, which saw the trio swap references that evoked the heat and water of Coel’s Ghanaian heritage, reminded Riccardo of his own formative relationships with the strong women in his life: his mother, who recently passed away, and his eight sisters. The significance of a red carpet in London – the place that fostered his talent thanks to a Central Saint Martins scholarship and his base during his five-year tenure at Burberry – also struck a chord with the creative director who is currently taking a break from the industry to “chill”. “This look is a celebration, it’s not about business, it’s about a concept – there’s no announcement,” asserts Tisci, quashing every fashion fan’s assumption that Riccardo Tisci, the label, will be back in business after tonight.