Simone Rocha’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection unfolded like a rite of passage, a fashion meditation on the fragile, awkward, and luminous moments of adolescence. At London Fashion Week, she stripped the stage of elaborate sets, allowing the garments themselves to narrate a story about crossing the liminal space between childhood and adulthood.

The opening look set the tone: a flower organza skirt puffed over layers of crinoline, paired with a sequin bralette slipping from the shoulder. It felt like the shy vulnerability of a first school dance, equal parts innocence and exposure. Models wore tiara-like headpieces and asymmetric necklaces, their accessories evoking childhood dress-up games now reimagined through Rocha’s romantic yet subversive lens. Even the silk pillows carried as bags hinted at the tension between comfort and performance, sleep and awakening.

As the show progressed, the mood grew bolder. Chartreuse dresses with padded hips asserted a more controlled silhouette, while sequin gowns buoyed by crinoline floated away from the body with architectural force. Rocha’s well-known codes of romance emerged in striking passages: a cotton poplin dress encased in glossy floral vinyl, a quilted pink twinset tied with inky black bows, and a satin gown marked with the bloom of an Icelandic poppy. These moments of refinement grounded the collection, reminding the audience of Rocha’s extraordinary craft.

Yet Rocha embraced discomfort as both subject and method. Some ensembles leaned deliberately awkward shoulders, slouched, piled accessories high, and had hesitant postures. At times, the narrative edged into costume, threatening to overshadow the poetry of her cuts. Still, this disjointedness was part of the point: the messy beauty of growing up is not meant to be polished.

Taken as a whole, the collection extended Rocha’s ongoing study of girlhood, a multiseason narrative that has moved from schoolyard innocence to the charged terrain of adolescence. With SS26, she charted the uneasy, transformative middle ground – a place of vulnerability, experimentation, and the promise of what comes next.

In doing so, Rocha reaffirmed her place as one of London’s most cerebral storytellers, unafraid to stage not just the beauty of becoming but its awkwardness, too.