Rising talent, name to know: “uprising” is a monthly feature that highlights the energetic new pioneer of fashion talent selected by the Wallpaper*Style Team.
Baby bed notebook
Name: Oscar Ouyang
Brand: Oscar Ouyang
Alumni: Central Saint Martins MA
City: London
Signature Style: Technically technically experimental knitwear woven into stories found in anime, nature and medieval times.
Design philosophy
Oscar Owyan found a quiet corner of an East London pub to talk on the phone somewhere between his Hoxton studio and casting for his first runway show. “We’ll see over 100 models this week,” he says. We look at how this process opened up Pandora’s new and stressful side of the box to run the brand. “It’s the first time I’ve worked with a truly established hairstylist, stylist, photographer, casting director. You start to see how everyone comes together and builds a story. Each person brings a bit of itself. That’s amazing.”
Growing up in Beijing’s Heidia district, Ouyang quickly launched a label with his name after graduating from the Central St. Martins (CSM) MA knitwear course two years ago. Already, he has created an air of intrigue around the brand, and his designs have appeared overnight in Rails at Dover Street Market. However, looking at his clothes, it is clear that this is not a coincidence stroke. Pushing the humble knit into a new imaginative realm, Ouyang’s designs differ from others. He creates his material from thread to clothing, weaves influences from Studio Ghibli, medieval Italian manuscripts, and Chris Kilip’s earrings street photography becomes technically experimental form to be resolutely wear-prone.
(Image credit: Angus Williams)
As he prepares to debut tomorrow for his London Fashion Week debut (18 September 2025), joining the ranks of the Nugen cohort, Uyan is intended to prove that knitwear is just as exciting as other design practices. “When you think of knitwear, imagine something traditional, or maybe you’re linking it to your grandma,” he says. “Even with luxury brands, it’s always in the background.” However, since his first day at CSM, Ouyang has been taken away by the possibility of the fluids of the ship. “Part of me is really drawn to the idea that I can create something from just a thread and all the possibilities that come with it,” he explains. “There are far fewer structures than other formats of design. You can take them literally anywhere.”
Whether the manufacturer is working on an outdated loom or spooling yak wool sourced from Mongolia, each piece is a time-consuming labor of love. This effort feels like a mystical life in which traditional fair island jumpers lead to Uyan knits, darkened to the awful shape of monochromatic plots. Ouyang is drawn to Princess Mononoke and Zelda’s animation world, as well as designers like Jun Takahashi and Number(n)Ine, but he admires his ability to refract European culture through East Asian design identity. “I definitely see what everyone around me is wearing,” he says. “That’s what I feel most important to me as a designer. I want to make sure my circle feels comfortable.”
Previewed here on Wallpaper*, Ouyang’s S/S 2026 collection expands this world and adds the challenge of telling knitwear stories for the warmer month. The romantic storyteller entitled “I Don’t Shoot Messenger” and takes the motifs of carrier birds such as owls, pigeons and eagles as a through line. Offering the practical form with a delicate flourish of charm, its most beautiful piece sees chicken and turkey feathers (supplied from discarded leftovers in the meat industry). Elsewhere, t-shirts are hand tuned from shiny, breathable silk and linen, but Ouyang enjoys Heritage Fabrics, spinning heavy Irish Donegal yarn and waxing down-light Harris Tweed jackets to prevent summer down. Cohesive, emotional and clever outcomes, the outcome is a confident debut from a young designer who knows exactly what he wants to create and what his community wants to wear.
“The idea was a kind of athletic look, but there’s a very crazy level of craftsmanship,” he says of the piece. “I wanted it to feel effortlessly luxurious.” The collection translates Ouyang’s destructive design language for the summer heat, but the designers stick to guns with a distinctive rustic palette. “I wear a lot of khaki, that’s kind of black for me,” he says. “So we have a lot of it and there are colors with melange tones, where plain colors are textured on top. There are black, white, gray, sandy beige, navy blue. It’s a really classic colour.
(Image credit: Oscar Ouyang)
Under the craft of clothing, it was important for designers that the collections also connected to our present moment. “We were thinking about these birds and the phrase ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’,” says Ouyang. “If a message is intercepted, it causes chaos. There are many misconceptions in the world, especially online. The gap between what we are seeing and the actual event feels like it’s getting bigger and bigger.” In reality, this grounding manifests not only in the moody undercurrent of the collection, but also in its function. Ouyang is always thinking about how his work feels on his skin. “As much as we try to push the boundaries of knitwear, I still feel I need to be comfortable,” he says.
That said, Ouyang hopes to announce it tomorrow. It was specially made for the runway. This dramatic metallic gold knit evening dress is cut with deep V-backs and tassels that take a rough look at the floor. “It’s very appealing,” he says. “We’ve done very pre-made ready-made in the last four seasons, so the look now has a special place in my heart. We haven’t found the right models yet, but I’ve been looking for them through casting.”
(Image credit: Josie Hall)
As the show approaches, the designer prepares himself to share the fully realized portrait of his brand and the brave spirit of the community he is steadily growing. “On set with the music, we’re really trying to bring Oscar boys and girls back to life,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to really push my community identity. I want it to be energy-filled and fresh, but it has a bit of naivety. It’s a sense of curiosity about the world. It’s open-minded but confident.”
In their words
“I grew up in Beijing, so I always felt strange was a bit different. I was oddly drawn to magazines while the other boys were playing basketball and soccer. I was just staring at all these covers in the magazine stands and wanted to be a part of it. I moved to London for the St. Martins Foundation in BA and MA when I was 17, but my practice was always in knitwear fashion design. I always loved it with knitwear, I’m in control of the results.
“The challenge this season is how to translate Oscar’s wardrobe into a warm month. At first, I think we’ve definitely been dealing with more experimental material. This season we’re trying to play around with the possibilities of silk and linen blends and traditional threads associated with vintage-like appearances like Donegal and Harris threads in Ireland. We’d like to engage in that history, but with a bit of a twist, adapting them to be more modern and hopefully chic.”
Where to buy it
at Dover Street Market and its web store.
