Central Saint Martins’ BA 2026 graduate show moved off-campus for the first time since 2011, landing its students in a Peckham car park and forcing the work into a very unglamorous kind of proximity. From displacement-shaped womenswear to dancehall-drenched su
Central Saint Martins’ BA graduate show didn’t glide back into the usual rhythm this year. For the first time since its 2011 move to King’s Cross. the school didn’t host the BA show on campus. Instead. insiders. students. and the occasional aunt were pulled out of the King’s Cross bubble and dropped into a car park in Peckham.
Getting there felt like the kind of detour London rarely does gently. Guests climbed a guided ascent through stairs drenched in a shade of pink that a 2016 LA wall would probably rather forget. The climb seemed designed to “warm up” people for London’s uncooperative breeze. which promptly ignored the invitation and made itself very present at rooftop level. Frank’s Café. perched above the site like it’s been asked to comment on the weather. offered a brief moment of calm—until the wind returned significantly less polite. A few flights down, the car park finally revealed itself as a much quieter seating plan.
That setting did something the glossy cover stories usually can’t. It made the point of the work more immediate: experimentation over marketability. The lineup rolled out with that attitude intact. Some of the 40 designers got their hands on prints. Some turned to childhood memories. Some pushed social commentary into the room.
Polina Kadilnikova. a Ukrainian womenswear student. took the first prize—voted by the public rather than a room full of industry eyes. Her collection was shaped by displacement, where home is no longer a fixed point but a condition. Silhouettes hinted at armour, but never fully resolved into safety. The first model walked down the runway in a helmet and disguised kneecaps. wearing a tunic printed with a painted forest image—arms pinned in place. movement not an option.
Harley Angrabeit. who took home the H&M Sustainability Fashion Award. kept attention glued with a collection pulling from dancehall’s sweaty glamour. Ridley Road Market bargaining. and the proximity of church aunties watching over everything at once. The stage carried a wooden hanger scaled up to the size of a small car. moving model and look down the runway. A jewelry stand was built into a garment just under the bust. Elsewhere, what looked like both Medusa’s head and an inflatable airplane pillow appeared at the hem of a skirt. Weirdly brilliant, the kind of idea you don’t walk past without looking back.
Yuki Naka—also a winner of that same award—went in a different sensory direction. His collection made garments from soap, bubbles and all. It began with a letter from his grandmother, remembered more for its smell than its words. Domestic settings and sensory cues drove the designs. and in CSM terms that translated into wearable dinner tables. outerwear in the size of fitting rooms. even bubbles.
Finlay Maguire seemed to accept that childhood does not always arrive neatly sorted into “pretty.” His collection pulled from those arguably ugly floral motifs on paper your mother used to receive after school. Colorful capes read almost like oversized rugs in motion. while wellies suggested the flowers were never ugly—just childish all along.
Everyone got personal, and knitwear student Arora Nielson carried it into the details. Her Notes app mantra ended up on a jacquard mini dress, and the message landed with an almost casual defiance: Steak, eggs, avocado, meditation, not mad at it.
The show’s location—raw, exposed, and deliberately unromantic—didn’t soften the ambition. If anything, it tightened the bond between concept and body. In a car park where the breeze couldn’t be negotiated with, the designers’ ideas moved through the space with nowhere to hide behind polish.
Central Saint Martins CSM BA 2026 graduate show Peckham car park King’s Cross fashion education fashion design H&M Sustainability Fashion Award Polina Kadilnikova Harley Angrabeit Yuki Naka Finlay Maguire Arora Nielson displacement sustainability fashion dancehall Ridley Road Market church aunties
Why would they stage a BA fashion show in a car park lol. Sounds like a bad move from the start.
I read “Peckham car park” and immediately assumed it was like a pop-up car meet or something. But apparently it’s fashion? Either way the wind at a rooftop sounds miserable.
Wait, Central Saint Martins BA 2026… isn’t that in London but they’re putting it in Peckham because they got kicked out? Like did someone run over the campus or something? Also “public voted” for the prize… does that mean the public was in the car park too? Seems kinda unfair to the industry people.
The whole displacement theme makes sense, but I’m stuck on the “stairs drenched in pink” part. Like who thought that was a good idea in bad London weather. Frank’s Cafe comments on the weather?? Bro I just want to know if the designs were actually good or if the setting stole the show.