London-based designer Joshua Ewusie has established a reputation for pushing leather into unexpected, visually stunning territories. Now on his third collection as a British Fashion Council NEWGEN recipient, Ewusie has returned to his roots for spring 2027, drawing deep inspiration from the domestic spaces of migrant households. Entitled In Lieu of Flowers, the new collection investigates the intersection of memory, migration, and the intricate aesthetics of the home, translating everyday domestic objects into high-fashion statements.
The conceptual genesis of the collection began at home—specifically in the front rooms of migrant households, characterized by faux flowers resting atop plastic tablecloths and colorful crochet throws. For Ewusie, a recent Central Saint Martins MA graduate and current Fashion Designer in Residence at The King’s Foundation as part of a partnership with Chanel, these spaces represent the initial formation of personal style.
"The home is the first place where you start to get an idea of creating an aesthetic, where you realize things have been put somewhere intentionally," Ewusie said.
His memories naturally returned him to the homes of his grandmother and his broader Ghanaian family, where front rooms functioned as formal salons and community meeting places. He noted that he thought a great deal about the women in their cultures who view the home as a vital opportunity to display everything that is most precious to them.
In shaping the collection, Ewusie also looked closely at Michael McMillan’s The Front Room, an academic and cultural study of domestic interiors belonging to post-war Caribbean migrants in Britain. This research prompted him to reconsider objects that are frequently and unfairly dismissed as kitsch or cheap. He challenged the underlying cultural biases, questioning why the pattern of a vinyl or plastic tablecloth should ever be deemed bad taste when its artistic origins trace back to delicate, handmade lace. This line of inquiry provided fertile creative ground for a designer already celebrated for manipulating leather into complex, gorgeous forms.
Leather remains the binding thread of Ewusie’s ongoing work, but this season he pushed further into the dialogue between the material and its surrounding environment. The intricate, lace-like motifs typical of vinyl tablecloths were meticulously translated into laser-cut leather garments. In other pieces, actual tablecloth material was dyed, cut into cloth, braided, and subsequently bound with leather to give PVC pants and dresses—complete with sweet, pintucked front panels—a surprising degree of heft and structure.
Furthermore, dresses styled around the concept of domestic adornment were piped in leather, while a gleaming gold dress featured the same decorative pattern executed through precise laser-cutting. Through this technical mastery, leather was made to feel remarkably delicate, while other, more humble materials were guided and elevated by leather’s inherent permanence and authority.
The broader concept of the home offered similarly softer design propositions. Nightgowns served as a key reference point, emerging on the runway with curved necklines, delicate satin bindings, subtle lace trims, and tiny rosebud embellishments.
"This season feels more feminine," Ewusie observed, noting how careful balances of color and texture prevented the garments from veering into the overly sweet or twee. Instead, the designer gravitated toward distinctive, unusual, and occasionally challenging color combinations that expanded well beyond the largely neutral palette traditionally associated with his brand. Lime green piping traced an aubergine silk skirt, while unexpected flashes of acidic color enlivened necklines and interior linings.
Despite the introduction of softer, more domestic motifs, a strong sense of continuity anchored the tailoring. A deconstructed tuxedo jacket evolved the silhouette introduced last season, featuring a collar shifted dramatically sideways until its lapel began to resemble an unfolding flower petal. Familiar housecoat shapes and signature Ewusie shirting remained firmly in the mix, while oversized, laser-cut leather flowers worn at the neck nodded to the distinct eveningwear aesthetics of the late 1990s and early 2000s. These pieces were captured in a campaign photographed by Erik Cesla, an emerging creative with whom Ewusie was eager to collaborate.
Spring 2027 also marked a significant commercial and creative expansion into accessories for the designer. After producing approximately five prototypes that were distributed among friends and family for real-world testing, Ewusie finally finalized his very first official handbag. Designed as an everyday shape, the bag features a woven, braided leather construction engineered specifically to improve and patina with age. Discussions regarding additional sizes and diverse colorways are already underway, marking an intuitive extension of the designer’s ongoing exploration of what leather can become when handled, worn, and lived with.
The presentation of the collection was equally immersive. Ewusie and his collaborator Cynthia Igbokwe of C Studio curated an exhibition space surrounded by paintings and sculptures from young artists based primarily between London and Paris. Their artistic practices similarly engage with the themes of diaspora and migrant aesthetics. Some of these emerging creators required gentle persuasion to participate, including French-Guadeloupean artist Jules Carlito Beurrier-Loncan, who contributed musical instrument sculptures, and Anne-Lise Agossa, whose hand-stitched embroidery pieces drew direct inspiration from domestic rituals.
Ewusie wanted their artwork to sit in direct relation and physical contact with the collection. The installation eventually transitioned into an intimate opening event, where the participating artists joined guests for a spread of chocolate-dipped honeycomb, sesame-white chocolate biscuit fingers, and marshmallow cubes—offering the finest hospitality fitting for honored houseguests.
In Lieu of Flowers marks an ambitious and deft step forward for a young designer actively exploring the outer limits of his signature material, expanding without hesitation on the aesthetic hallmarks he has established so rapidly. Much like the homes of diasporic families around the world, nothing in Ewusie’s universe is quite as fixed or as conventional as it first appears, demonstrating precisely how true, lived taste endures.
