Family First

Today finally marks the launch of John Smedley x Maximilian Raynor, after it was unveiled during London Fashion Week last September. The collection grows out of Raynor’s SS26 runway, “I’ll Cry if I Want To,” a personal look at his Derbyshire roots. 

It begins with a boy in the Midlands uncovering a box of family photographs. He dreams of a birthday party attended by the ghost of his ancestors, from an RAF pilot to a flapper. Celebrating these ordinary roots, each look is ripe with motifs of British working culture: primary school summer dresses, pub carpets and miller’s caps. Rayner also uses the collection to delve into the darker aspects of his family history, and uses his experience as a queer designer to embellish and exaggerate these interpretations.

The knitwear makes use of these references, offering gingham, tiger and ocelot prints in shades of blue, red and brown, adding a playful, childish note to John Smedley’s classic polos and cardigans. For Raynor, a CSM graduate who has lived in London for nearly a decade, the project fulfils a childhood ambition. During his upbringing in Derbyshire, he came to regard Smedley as the “Rolls Royce of knitwear” – an apt description of the heritage brand, who has long championed British production as the world’s oldest operational factory. 

The collaboration is available on John Smedley’s website and in stores from today, the 23rd of October. Shop the pieces below!