If Ronan McKenzie called her spring/summer 2027 collection for Selasi “Going Places”, this week it did just that when Law Roach enlisted the designer to provide clothes for his most famous client. Yesterday afternoon, Zendaya appeared alongside Timothée Chalamet in a promotional video for , wearing look three from the show: a sleeveless halter-neck top and barrel-legged trousers in sandy shades of suede evocative of the movie’s desert landscape.
It’s always a thrill to see how far a collection can travel beyond the catwalk, particularly when it comes from a label with relatively modest resources. This was only McKenzie’s second runway presentation since joining the London Fashion Week schedule, staged in a mechanic’s garage and modelled by the designer’s inner circle, among them her mum, British contributing editor Zezi Ifore and entrepreneur Charlene Prempeh.
“Their presence underscored a central idea behind the collection: these clothes are intended to live beyond the runway,” read the show notes. “Going Places is grounded in pieces that can move through different bodies, ages and lives.” Another headline-making moment from Selasi’s recent runways was the rediscovery of 59-year-old model Evelyn Effrim-Botchey, who has since gone on to make waves on Paris’s most rarefied catwalks.
Of course, Roach could commission custom looks from any number of luxury fashion houses – he has even been known to charter private jets to ensure Zendaya is dressed in just-seen-on-the-runway haute couture gowns – but he has made a concerted effort to champion emerging designers, too. The previous press tour saw the actor wear Torishéju and Paolo Carzana, while she was an early supporter of Peter Do and Maximilian Davis’s Ferragamo before that. For a young designer, a co-sign of this calibre can make all the difference, offering a way through an industry difficult to break into. “The energy you put into something won’t always lead to the outcome you imagine,” McKenzie told not long ago. “But you still have to fight, keep going, restart and pick yourself up off the ground.” It’s paying off.