Chopova went to high school in the States and Lowena-Irons in the UK, resulting in a mishmash of references. The show features corseted football shoulders on the shoulders and the hips; pom pom bags (an emerging trend, as seen at NYFW), cheerleader tutu skirts, studded tracksuits, and mascot-style fluffy hoodies and bags, of course in scores of contrasting prints.
I last interviewed Chopova Lowena in September 2022, ahead of their first London Fashion Week show. At the time, the brand had just surpassed £1 million revenue and had 70 stockists. Since, the brand has won the 2024 Vogue/BFC Designer Fashion Fund (£150,000), using the capital to build out its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business and develop several new categories, from bags and shoes to perfume.
“Since we started showing at London Fashion Week, more people know about the brand,” Lowena-Irons says. “With a show you can create so much excitement. It’s helped us in all aspects, from community to press.”
A technical challenge that paid off
Like today’s show, entering Chopova Lowena’s Deptford studio is a feast for the eyes. I pass through a modern café and a sterile hallway before being catapulted into a cornucopia of checks and tutus, belts and charms, bedazzled bags and studded shoes. When we speak, the stage is already pretty set for the show. There are clear plastic bags hung on each look, filled with (sometimes several) belts, heavy-duty charm necklaces, or a Chopova Lowena x Chilly water bottle, the brand’s latest collaboration, to be unveiled during the show. All but one model is cast, and the duo are trying out two girls for the remaining look during my visit. “Walk your fastest walk,” Chopova briefs one model, who is dressed in a hoodie and a long skirt that looks to be made of approximately 30 different trims.
“It was a hard collection to make, but in the end, it was for good reason,” Chopova says. With the high school theme, the duo made clothes for their crushes, cheerleaders and even their high school bullies, creating mixed feelings and rewriting past trauma, she says. The collection was technically harder, too. They used entirely new materials like chainmail (crocheted onto a hoodie, jersey shorts and a dress with an impressive bustle), or lots and lots of trims stacked on top of one another, to make layers of dresses or T-shirts. “Four or five months before we started the collection, the first thing I did was order like 50 kinds of trims,” Chopova says.