Gossip Girl star Kelly Rutherford was among the stars who joined the front row at London Fashion Week as the royal-approved designer Patrick McDowell made a case for falling in love with your clothes.
The American actress wore a plum McDowell design and sat alongside Leomie Anderson and British Fashion Council chief executive Laura Weir at the designer’s spring/summer 2027 show, titled simply Love, which explored the sentimental value of the pieces people keep returning to.
McDowell’s profile has risen considerably since receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design from the Princess of Wales in May 2025.
Having now dressed the likes of the Princess of Wales, Sarah Jessica Parker and Dame Helen Mirren, the designer transformed Yeomanry House, an army facility in central London, into an unlikely setting for a collection filled with wildflowers, a mirrored runway and blooming, romantic silhouettes.
“Love is a complicated thing,” McDowell said.
“An emotion so strong it can bind you to someone or something for life.”
For the Liverpool-born designer, that feeling extends beyond relationships to the clothes people keep for years, long after they have ceased to be fashionable.
“I have always been fascinated by the power of clothes and how they have the ability to communicate to the world who we want to be,” they said.
“They can give us the ability to face the days that feel impossible. A good outfit is not to be underestimated.”
The collection, they explained, was a selection of special pieces “designed to make you feel good, look good and embrace love”.
As guests arrived at the military venue, they were greeted by an artist drawing portraits of McDowell-dressed attendees while Aspinal of London keyrings emblazoned with the word “Love” were placed on seats, offering a touching reminder of the collection’s theme.
Inside, the sound of running water accompanied a silver mirrored runway, with wildflowers blooming at one end and reflected across the floor like a lake.
The soundtrack was equally romantic, opening with Etta James’s At Last mixed with Rihanna’s Umbrella, before moving into strings.
It was an eclectic combination, but then love has never been particularly concerned with consistency.
The clothes began with green – not the acid shades that have appeared elsewhere this fashion month, but lush, botanical tones reminiscent of new growth.
Flowers appeared throughout the collection, from overt appliqué roses to silhouettes that seemed to mimic the shape of an upside-down bloom.
One of McDowell’s personal favourite pieces, the Sylvia jacket, opened the show, reworking classic tailoring in green-striped silk-wool georgette, with a structured shape, peplum waist and silk roses.
It captured much of what the designer does well – taking something familiar, such as a blazer, and making it feel special enough to hold on to.
There was a strong sense of the 1930s and forties throughout, decades McDowell frequently returns to for inspiration.
Waists were drawn in with a nod to Christian Dior’s post-war New Look while shoulders were carefully structured and skirts fell just below the knee, creating a cool, mid-century silhouette.
A powder-pink skirt suit, with its asymmetric collar, jewelled buttons and sharply-pleated midi skirt, looked as though it could have been lifted from the wardrobe of a forties film star.
Elsewhere, a pale-blue shirtdress was given a more theatrical touch with a dramatically wide, flat-brimmed black hat, while a white skirt suit offered a cleaner interpretation of the same ladylike silhouette.
The palette gradually moved from green into sky blue, with black providing sharper accents to contrast the softness.
One high-low skirt – a 2010s trend set to return to fashion – combined a busy floral print with an exaggerated pale-blue hem and layers of black tulle. Paired with a sleeveless black top, it brought a slight edge to a collection otherwise preoccupied with the prettiness of flowers.
The collection offered a rather more glamorous take on the 2010s return of business casual, a decade in which McDowell exclaimed “are back” before the show.
Across New York and London Fashion Week, designers have been revisiting office staples, from pencil skirts to cropped-sleeve blazers and capri trousers.
McDowell’s version was considerably more feminine, with sculpted peplums, ruffled tulle and three-quarter-length trousers that appeared more suited to a long lunch than a Monday commute.
McDowell’s collaboration with Aspinal of London was evident in the accessories, as with floral handbags reinforcing the collection’s central motif.
One compact pale-blue bag accompanied a brightly-coloured floral shirtdress, its pink, blue and green print offering a less formal way into the collection’s otherwise highly polished approach to dressing.
Flowers have become something of a signature for McDowell, but this season they felt less nostalgic and more personal. The collection was not simply about dressing romantically, but about finding something worth keeping.
To round off the show was the McDowell bride, who stepped out in a strapless, double-layered bubble-hem dress with an tightly fitted headpiece.
It was a striking departure from the traditional lace and tulle veils, bringing a modern quality to the collection’s otherwise traditional symbols of romance.
The look also demonstrated how McDowell expertly grapples with volume in their designs. With a focus on the waist once again, rather than simply making a dress bigger, they manipulates its proportions until the silhouette itself becomes the decoration.
For all its talk of love, this was not a collection concerned with dressing for someone else. McDowell seemed more interested in the relationship we have with our own wardrobes, and that the most enduring love affair might be with the clothes we never want to part with.
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