In 2018, the model, actor and activist Adwoa Aboah wore a bright green blazer from Talia Lipkin-Connor’s graduate collection on the cover of Time magazine. It was a sign of things to come – seven years later, British Vogue declared that Lipkin-Connor’s label, Talia Byre, “will save fashion”.
Such ascensions are alchemical things but those in the industry have talked up her skill, pedigree and expertise, her customers have responded to a within-reach price point, and commentators have pointed to her innate understanding of a contemporary London aesthetic.
We’re speaking with Lipkin-Connor a month out from her eagerly anticipated London Fashion Week show, where she’ll present her spring/summer 2026 collection in Vauxhall’s angular Asprey building. The format is a gearshift for the designer, who until now has preferred intimate salons or party-style presentations in places like Sweetings Restaurant in the City and Incubator gallery on Chiltern Street.
“That made sense because it was always very community focused … almost like a conversation,” she says. “This season we’re going back to a bigger format, which is really exciting and feels a lot more serious. It’s important to mix it up and keep people on their toes.”
Lipkin-Connor launched the label in 2020, the name an homage to her great uncle’s fashion emporium, Lucinda Byre, which operated in Liverpool from 1964 to 1982.
“They were one of the first retailers to stock Vivienne Westwood, Mulberry and Mary Quant,” she says proudly. It was a family affair, with Lipkin-Connor’s grandmother and parents all working for the store at one time or another.
Following the death of her grandmother and several relatives of the same generation in the early stages of the Covid pandemic, Lipkin-Connor was even more determined to honour the family’s legacy.
“I felt like all that history and connection to the heritage on my grandma’s side just slipped away. It was too important to let go,” she says.
Talia Byre, then, is a nod to the past, but it’s still very forward facing. “The bones and the codes are there. It’s like a framework, a narrative, a reason why [the brand] exists.”
Lipkin-Connor carved out an early niche in sculptural silhouettes, artful inside-out seams and Savile Row stripes after in-house stints at Alexander McQueen, under Sarah Burton, and Paul Smith. A signature bias-stripe rugby pullover became a fashion-editor favourite, and industry tastemakers have flocked to the brand.
“Talia is one of those designers whose work is inseparable from the city that shaped her,” writes British Fashion Council CEO Laura Weir. “London has always been a place where creativity and community meet, and Talia’s rise is a testament to that. She represents the very best of a new generation of British talent.”
In a practical sense, Talia Byre is for women “my kind of age … creative professionals – and the city professionals who want to buy into being like the creative professionals”, Lipkin-Connor says. Her clothes, designed in a studio off Broadway Market, balance an everyday sensibility with an artfully undone finesse. There are avant-garde flourishes, but the clothes are accessible and easily wearable.
The Talia Byre customer “wants to feel like she can walk into a room and be very confident, because she might have two seconds to make an impression”, Lipkin-Connor says.
“Reality is really important. I think a lot of fashion is fantasy, but for me that’s never the case. Even looking back to my MA, my approach was always ‘Who is it for?’”
She currently lectures final-year students at Central Saint Martins, who are taking the same MA Fashion course she did, one day a week. She relishes the connection with different generations “to see where their heads are at” and offers them candid advice and intel.
“I like keeping it real,” she says, smiling. “I’ll just be like, ‘What is that?!’ But they need that toughness, as otherwise they’re going to get a big shock when they hit the industry. I know [the value] in having a great tutor who is interested in life after studying and not just ticking boxes.”
