May 15, 2025 |
Nestled in the beating heart of London, lives a kind of mythical enclave. They call it Soho. But it’s the eclectic cast of characters that bustle within it that make it. It’s a liminal place, where writers, poets and transient figures gather and linger – Francis Bacon, Caroline Blackwood, Lucian Freud and Elizabeth Smart to name a few. A place that has birthed a lineage of thinkers and artists in, as McQueen puts it, “sharp-collared shirting, cloaked in broad-shouldered coats.” Soho takes centre stage in the house’s AW25 pre-collection campaign.
Photographed by Theo Sion at The Coach & Horses – an emblematic 1950s pub where counterculture meshed with tradition – models bumble about with purposeful nonchalance. Donning rearticulated naval tailoring the men embody dandy pub-goers while the women move through the haze of a sulphuric-lit room sporting lace-trimmed satin slips, structured dresses and sharp tailoring. Silhouettes are cinched; pulled taut with a light lustre. On one bodysuit tattoos are traced in metallic bullion and twisted bugle beads, while blousons hang loose over deep indigo denim. Accessories echo the era – T-Bar mules, 1950s subculture boots and the Skull Flower bag clutched like an ancient relic. The models are flanked by Soho George, a dapper denizen with a coffee in hand and Florence Joelle, a sultry local chanteuse, respectively. Each vignette celebrating the spirit of Soho today.
Among dapper regulars and crimson-lipped matrons, McQueen offers a fleeting glimpse of something timeless – that enduring sense of community in the face of an ever-evolving London.
Photography by Theo Sion.
