Look one from the Collection F lookbook, published by Phoebe Philo on October 16. Photograph via Vogue Runway's Collection F index.
On October 16 Phoebe Philo published Collection F, the sixth collection under her own label, straight to her website as she has done since the label launched in October 2023. No show, no runway, a lookbook plus release details. Cathy Horyn's review in The Cut calls it a much looser, stranger Philo than the one seen since the launch. Sarah Mower in Vogue opens by declaring that the season cannot end, not until Philo has her say.
The format has no seasons
Her house runs on an edit system. Collections are labelled alphabetically, A through F, released without a fixed calendar, and each one is added to the last rather than thrown out. nss magazine's review calls this an accretive structure instead of a cyclical one. Alexander Fury's review in AnOther credits the carry forward for the new freedom: the staples are established, the big shirts, the cropped bombers, the drop trousers, so Philo can put a bustle in the same collection without erasing her own wardrobe. The label runs on minority funding from LVMH, and both reviews read the clothes as proof the independence is being used.
What is in F
The new stretch is volume at the back. A bustle skirt and a padded train top fasten to the waist or the hips with an elasticated bandeau, worn over pants or a tank, and when the train gets in the way it folds over one arm. Horyn notes the black and tan micro check among its fabrics. Mower puts the device next to Irving Penn's photographs of Cristobal Balenciaga's gowns. The furthest version of the idea is the wedding look, an enormous ivory ruffled train coming off a white, back to front knee-length tailored dress, made in plain white calico, the fabric of a first fitting toile.
The rest of the collection keeps its footing. Horyn's pick of the separates is a dark shearling coat with wide bleached ivory cuffs, the cuff material viscose combed and stretched onto a grid, denser than the same trick on trousers in the label's first collection. There are washed mohair sweaters, jersey t-shirts worked over with feathers, a skirt covered in tiny glossy leather squares with its ivory silk lining showing at the hem, and the semi transparent long t-shirt dress from the previous collection back in three cherry red variations.
What the reviews agree on
Horyn predicts influence, writing that the free yet rigorous thinking will land on collections next year. Fury calls the calico train one of his favourite things he saw all season, and says a bustle in 2027 is a hard sell until Philo makes it look necessary. Mower reads the counterbalancing act: fluid softness inside mannish shirts and cargo pants, a single pearl earring to finish a plain look. nss magazine makes the structural point, that making avant garde silhouettes wearable, with precedents in her earlier texture experiments, is what happens when a designer has time and a business model that leaves her alone.
Where it lands
First styles go on sale around the end of January, and the rest follow in deliveries into June 2027, covering ready to wear, leather goods, shoes and accessories, per the release details Hypebeast published. Distribution runs through the brand's own online store and shop in shops at Dover Street Market in London, New York, Ginza and Singapore, plus Selfridges in London, Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in Paris and selected wholesalers. Horyn adds a store of its own in Mayfair, very possibly open before the year ends.
The letters you can act on tonight
Collection F's own pieces will not appear on the market for months, and nothing lands on the secondary market until after the deliveries fade. The older letters are what you can hunt now. Elusive indexes 175 pieces from Collections A through E across European retailers, from the Drop Trousers in Tobacco at 5,830 DKK at Stoy to the Classic Shirt in Pink at 6,130 DKK, a Club Loafer 60 in Black at 8,220 DKK and Peak Sunglasses in Black at 520 USD. The carry forward logic is the archive logic too: the cut Philo keeps refining is already in circulation, at the price of a season ago.
- Phoebe Philo on Elusive, 175 pieces indexed
- Search "phoebe philo" on Elusive
- Drop Trousers in Tobacco on Elusive, 5,830 DKK last listing