CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH: EWUSIE AW26
At London Fashion Week, Joshua Ewusie draws from his mother’s 1980’s wardrobe to explore inheritance and identity through the modern EWUSIE woman
By Dionne Walsh
By Dionne Walsh
Rooted in the unearthing of his mother’s 1980s wardrobe — garments hidden inside leather pouffes like a private museum and time capsule — EWUSIE’s latest collection traces the dialogue between generations, asking how identity is not simply preserved, but reworked, worn, and made anew.
Ewusire AW26 look 15
Since graduating from his MA studies at Central Saint Martins in 2024, Joshua Ewusie has emerged as an exciting and thoughtful designer. He has received backing from the British Fashion Council as a NewGen recipient, as well as additional support from Chanel, and the likes of industry icon and Lagerfeld muse, Amanda Harlech. 2024 also saw the designer present his first in-person presentation: an Outdooring ceremony celebrating the launch of the namesake label, paying homage to his Ghanaian roots.
Following a successful London Fashion Week debut last September, this season EWUSIE digs deeper into its origins, exploring what it means to be ‘cut from the same cloth,’ weaving together personal history, cultural hybridity, and contemporary womanhood.
For AW26, the collection is formatted via look book, whilst also being physically shown at the BFC Designer Showcase at 180 The Strand, as well as BFC’s London Show Rooms in Paris. At Space Talk, conversations flow earnestly between Joshua, stylist Feranmi Eso, journalist Lea Ogunlami, and musician Tyson in an open exchange of ideas on fashion, sound, inheritance and making.
Across the collection, this dialogue manifests through shifted silhouettes and recontextualised fabrics, where the visual language of 1980s is reimagined through a modern lens. As Ewusie explains, “having access to my mum’s actual wardrobe meant we could avoid it becoming costume. I would take garments like jackets and turn them sideways to create new silhouettes, but the root was still there.”
Ewusire AW26 look 10
Leather, of course, sits at the core — offering both structure and sensuality. It is moulded, woven, and laced, alternating between rigid and fluid, forming everything from sharply contoured bodices to cocooning outerwear. A statement piece of the collection is a dark brown backless leather jacket with tie details. It features a high neck with silver snap fastenings. Its front is defined by large, rounded, structured sleeves that trail into a fitted bodice, tapering downwards, while exaggerated pocket panels connect into a single leather strap around the back, leaving it bare. Another standout is a black leather jacket cut into angular fragments that collide across the torso, creating negative space and a dynamic, armour-like quality. Laser-cut skirts and dresses introduce intricacy and permeability, their woven surfaces revealing glimpses of the body beneath in a deliberate interplay of concealment and exposure.
Ewusire AW26 look 17
The tailoring is, as expected, equally considered. Shoulders are broadened, waists are cinched, and tapered pencil silhouettes recur, creating a modern hourglass figure that feels assertive yet controlled. The body is held — sometimes tightly, sometimes loosely — in a way that echoes the quiet confidence of designers like Alaïa, a key reference for both Ewusie and Eso.
Colour is introduced with restraint. A palette largely grounded in black, ecru, and deep brown is punctuated by flashes of burnt orange, wine purple, cobalt and ‘EWUSIE blue’ — a light turquoise drawn from the DLR line that threads through Joshua’s everyday life. These tones subtly gesture towards his Ghanaian heritage without overt declaration.
What ultimately defines the collection is not just how the garments look, but how they are reconsidered. Ewusie cleverly avoids nostalgia or replication, proposing something much more nuanced: a collection that holds history, but insists on self-definition.
Ewusire AW26 look 08
While the pouffe offers a physical archive, it is Ewusie’s family — his mother, sister, and grandmother — who ultimately bring it to life. “It’s really a natural amalgamation of all the generations of women in my family,” Joshua reflects. Their influence moves quietly through the work, shaping not just what is worn, but how.
“My first memories of fashion are of my mum,” he says. “As a secretary, she would wear an office skirt with a traditional West African top. You could immediately tell who she was. Especially in a corporate setting, that felt like a real power move, saying, ‘this is who I am, this is what I wear.’”
It’s from this lineage that the EWUSIE woman begins to emerge.
Who is the EWUSIE woman? Well, she resists a fixed definition. “She’s a go-getter,” Joshua explains, “someone doing a lot of things — a producer, a multihyphenate. Everyone knows her but they don’t quite know how.” Both specific and elusive, she is, as stylist Eso describes, “always evolving. A lot of women in our team reflect her. Heritage is a big part of that.”
Looking around the room, I can’t help but notice that there are many women who embody her, who recognise themselves in this beloved modern woman. Myself included. Defined by a self-assured femininity that does not seek validation, she dresses instinctively. Never performative, never posed. Instead, she moves with an ease that feels both inherited and entirely her own.
In many ways, she is reflected in those that the brand dresses — Solange, Precious Renee Tucker, Jourdan Dunn, Olivia Dean. She is not too distant a muse, but a living, changing figure.
Cut From the Same Cloth makes clear that inheritance is not about preservation alone, but transformation. Through gesture, material, silhouette, EWUSIE reframes what it means to belong, and how to retell that story. What lingers is not just the clothes, but the way they are worn and put together. This AW26 collection feels intuitive, and is a strong body of work that connects clothing to identity, memory and culture, insisting on a way of dressing that is self-defined and in its response, uncompromising.