Talia Byre Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Archive rails lined the corridors outside Talia Byre’s Hackney atelier, but she was ready for something new. That’s not to say those past pieces––the patterns especially, both in a cut and print sense––don’t heavily influence what comes next. The designer’s signature tubular Bolter bag, for one, has been elongated dramatically; to be carried over the shoulder or across the body. Upon the suggestion from someone that it would fit a 2-liter bottle of water, Byre’s response was, very naturally, “or wine!”
“Results of conversations, I like that,” she said at a preview. To expand: there’s always a lot of talking in her east London studio, and a recent discussion hinged on go-to karaoke tracks––capturing the designer’s light-hearted spirit––and, of course, clothes. Fall was informed by the women she grew up around, both real and fictional. “Character dressing” as she put it. Notably, Bette Gordon’s 1983 film, Variety, Byre’s often-revisited theme of schoolgirls and her great aunt Lily, who is the namesake of her brand’s “Byre” and that of her great uncle’s boutique, Lucinda Byre.
“I call her lady captain,” said Byre, indicating a sunshine-yellow zip-up hoodie worn beneath a capped-sleeve knit in the same shade––“it’s something that you just know is going to work”––and slouchy checked trousers, before pointing out which looks correlated with various members of her team. In fact, their wardrobes were directly referenced throughout. As for Byre herself? She resonated with the wool midi-skirt featuring a satin insert on the front and a slit at the back, styled with a blue knit, a waist-cinching belt and a striped jersey version of her trademark bomber jacket (which is “friends with” the wide-leg “warm-up” trousers in the same stripes). “We’ve just been a lot more relaxed about it,” she said. “It’s a bit calmer, a lot looser. It’s got more ease to it. It feels grown up, but with a nod to teenage-hood at the same time.”
The closest allies to distinctly adult cues arrived as shirts that borrowed from traditional menswear silhouettes, in checks and stripes (the first pieces Byre worked on this season) and ties. But these were modeled on her school tie, not business ties. On the subject of scholarly, there was a crunchy nylon skirt with girlish sectioned pleats, the best of which was in an iron hue that the Italian maker Byre works with was hesitant to return for want of keeping it for herself.
“This will do well,” a team member noted, as a model stood wearing a windbreaker and billowing drawstring-hem trousers. Byre’s customers will also like the satin slip and the commercial pieces, including her first foray into denim and new takes on her popular rugby jerseys and crew-necks, that aren’t in the look book and won’t feature at the sittings she’s hosting at a gallery to debut the collection. There was plenty for her community to want: some have already made pre orders. One can only wonder what beverage they’ll carry in those long bags––and how they’ll carry them.
