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WORDS Anastasia Vartanian
PHOTOGRAPHY Alia Romagnoli
Building sideways, not upwards, is Kazna Asker’s motto. This AW26 season, hers was one of the last shows on the London Fashion Week schedule. It was also unlike all the others. The British Fashion Council NewGen space, based at 180 The Strand, just next to the banks of the Thames, hosts a lot of fashion shows. It’s where King Charles showed up for Tolu Coker to kick off the week, and where Rose McGowan walked for Lueder. Guests sit on rows of benches, waiting for the models to come out and do a lap of the room.
But there was no runway at Kazna’s show; it felt more like a gathering space for friends. People stood around chatting. Benches were replaced by cushions and tables on the peripheries of the room. Since London Fashion Week fell during Ramadan this season, it was important for Kazna to incorporate this into her presentation. The show took place from 4:30 to 6:30pm, and the lights dimmed at sunset. Muslim guests were encouraged to break their fast together with dates, lentil soup, fattoush salad, hummus and chicken biryani.
The centre of the room was commanded by a tree, around which the models stood on Yemeni rugs. When we speak a couple of days after the show (the designer tells me that she has “kind of” caught up on sleep by this time), Kazna explains the meaning behind the tree: “I read an Iranian folklore story about an old man in the village who was planting a tree in the desert heat. The king came by and asked, ‘Why are you planting this tree? It’s going to take years to grow, you won’t be here to see the fruits.’ The man replied, ‘I’m planting this tree for the next generation so they can have the fruits.’”
Considering it was Ramadan, a time in the Muslim holy calendar which focuses on charity, being kind and “prioritising goodness in every decision of the day”, this story connected with Kazna. And since this show also marked the designer’s final NewGen presentation, it felt resonant. “I feel like I planted my tree in this fashion world, and hopefully it impacts the next designers,” she says. The NewGen program is run by the British Fashion Council and supports a cohort of young designers for a maximum of three consecutive years. Without this support, showing in the country’s capital would be extremely costly. It’s a barrier which, time and time again, shuts working-class designers out of the fashion industry, if not for the support of institutions like the BFC.
Her final collection was true to Kazna’s signature design voice: Yemeni traditional fashion mixed with contemporary Western streetwear. One look featured a shepherdess hat and silver coin jewellery worn with a windbreaker. This fusion reflects Kazna’s own experiences of being the daughter of Yemenis who migrated to the north of England. Growing up, she’d associate traditional garments with older generations: “I would always see my parents in traditional abayas and hijabs. And then with the younger generation, I saw a lot of streetwear and tracksuits. That’s what inspired my fashion journey; combining those worlds,” she explains.
I met Yemeni communities in all those different countries, and seeing how they interpreted their heritage really inspired me. As a British Yemeni, I always interpreted it through sportswear and UK street culture.
For this collection, however, Kazna wanted to bring in other diasporas and their interpretations of Yemeni heritage. “In 2025, I got to travel to so many countries, and I feel like I was exposed to so much more of my heritage,” the designer tells me excitedly. “I met Yemeni communities in all those different countries, and seeing how they interpreted their heritage really inspired me. As a British Yemeni, I always interpreted it through sportswear and UK street culture. But going to Egypt and seeing how they interpret it, being an Egyptian Yemeni. Or as a Qatari Yemeni. A Saudi Yemeni.” Thus, keffiyehs stood alongside t-shirts and traditional textiles meshed with tailoring.
Kazna’s previous shows also followed an unconventional format. Last season, in lieu of showing a collection, she hosted a two-day pop-up featuring stalls from South West Asia and North Africa: from Palestinian embroidery to Sudanese soap. “It connects with this idea of building sideways. The best way to do that is collaborating, and if you have an opportunity, bringing people onto that platform.” So, if you haven’t gotten the picture by now, Kazna’s not exactly like most other designers (although she’s too down-to-earth to say that herself).
From my own observations, there’s a certain trajectory that many fashion designers follow in the UK. Perhaps they go to well-known fashion universities like Central Saint Martins or London College of Fashion. Some go on to show through fashion incubators like Fashion East or NewGen. They become an established name in their own right, staging buzzy shows with celebrities in attendance. Their clothes are seen at all the right red carpets and film premieres. Perhaps they start showing in Paris. The ultimate goal on this path is to establish a world-famous eponymous brand, or to bag a gig as a creative director at one of the big conglomerate-owned houses.
But Kazna is not really interested in all of that. Why, I ask her? “I don’t know… I honestly don’t see the benefit of it. For me, it was always about bringing people with me and building relationships, collaborating and prioritising community. But honestly, I would really give all the credit to my family for that because my mum is the same with her career, being a teacher. My auntie is the same. It was all I saw, so when I did come to London and I realised people were thinking the opposite way, it was a big, big culture shock to me.”
My parents had to work all the time, but everyone would look after us. You’d call the neighbours. That was very normal to me. When I left for university, I realised not many people had that experience of doing fundraisers every weekend, going to youth clubs, sleeping at your cousin’s house, going to your grandma’s every day. Once I realised people didn’t have that same experience, it became the basis of all the storytelling in my work.
Of course, she did attend CSM, and she is extremely grateful for the NewGen program. But she’s not chasing markers of upward success, at least not a hyper-individualistic idea of it. “There’s actually a quote that I used to print on tote bags,” she remembers. “Hyper-individualism is killing us all collectively.” It’s an extremely poignant quote at a time when late-stage capitalism rules over us all, enforcing the mantra that it’s eat or be eaten. Self-improvement and hustle culture focus deeply on the self, exacerbating the loneliness caused by urban life and social media addiction.
Hyper-individualism is killing us all collectively.
For Kazna, community is intrinsically important to her because that’s what raised her. In her early years, she didn’t experience much community as she and her family lived in a “racist little town.” But when they moved to Sheffield, she was exposed to what community could be. “My parents had to work all the time, but everyone would look after us. You’d call the neighbours. That was very normal to me. When I left for university, I realised not many people had that experience of doing fundraisers every weekend, going to youth clubs, sleeping at your cousin’s house, going to your grandma’s every day. Once I realised people didn’t have that same experience, it became the basis of all the storytelling in my work.”
The neoliberal, career-first, profits-over-people way of life is killing community, and it’s particularly apparent in big cities. “It’s really hard in London because it’s a capital city,” she admits. “People are in survival mode here because it’s so expensive. Chasing your dreams, there’s a cost to it. So in Sheffield, I would say it’s a privilege that it’s a smaller city.”
In talking to Kazna, it became clear to me that fashion is more of a medium for her storytelling, rather than a means to rise the ranks of glamour and riches. It’s very telling that her earliest fashion inspirations were music videos from American hip-hop groups like Public Enemy and Run-DMC. “The fashion was so political in those music videos. It was all over my college sketchbook. I think that’s where I learned that fashion could impact communities,” Kazan recalls. Then, when she did her Master’s, her first project at CSM was about Katharine Hamnett, the English designer known for incorporating political slogans into her work. When meeting Margaret Thatcher in 1984, she famously wore a t-shirt that said “58% Don’t Want Pershing” – in reference to public protests against American Pershing missiles being deployed in Britain.
Well, if the dream isn’t a Kazna Asker store on every corner, then what is? “I don’t know,” she reveals. “There are so many things that I want to do. I would love to make films. I would love to do exhibitions, residencies, more community projects. Maybe start my own youth club one day. I want to keep on creating. I don’t know what it’s going to look like or how I’m going to present it in the future, but I think this whole NewGen experience was the perfect way to start this journey. It was just the beginning of more to come.”
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