The Chopova Lowena SS27 show did what Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena do better than almost anyone working in fashion right now: it built a world so fully realised, so internally coherent, that leaving it felt like a small loss. One catwalk show a year, and they make it count.
Witchcraft, Slavic folklore and a 1950s bowling champion
The Chopova Lowena SS27 show drew on two sources that, on paper, have no business being in the same room. The first was the supernatural female power of Eastern European folk tradition: Baba Yaga, Poland’s death goddess Morana, the whole lineage of pagan women who live at the edge of the forest and are not to be trifled with. The catwalk was scattered with talismanic objects and spooky branches, the atmosphere somewhere between ritual and reverie. Hair and make-up (courtesy of Kiyoko Odo and Lauren Reynolds) completed the transformation into something genuinely otherworldly.
Then came the second reference, which is the kind of move that separates a designer from a world-builder: Marian Ledewig, a 1950s female bowling champion who routinely beat the men. That biographical detail unlocked the entire second chapter of the collection. The catwalk setting was a bowling alley. The clothes answered accordingly: retro boxy bowling shirts, boxer shorts and striped leggings appeared alongside the witchy blouses, worn not as costume but as a genuine argument about women who refuse the limits others set for them. The folkloric and the athletic, united by a shared stubbornness.
The signature Chopova Lowena vocabulary was fully present: puff-sleeve blouses, beaded bodices, and the carabiner-pleated skirts that first made the duo a sensation. Patchwork constructions layered lace, tartan, faux fur and gingham; chintzy tights grounded everything in something almost domestic, which made the wildness of the rest land harder. It was, as collections that actually work tend to be, focused precisely because it was free.
Beyond the skirts: bags, shoes and a dog in the mix
With their first London store now open, the Chopova Lowena SS27 show also served as a declaration of range. The label, founded in 2017 according to CB Insights, has always been more than its skirts, but the collection made the expansion explicit. Bags arrived in force. A shoe collaboration with Dr. Martens extended the universe into footwear. More menswear appeared on the catwalk, and (perhaps most perfectly in keeping with the Chopova Lowena spirit) a dog outfit completed the line-up. The label’s world has always been inclusive in the loosest, most joyful sense of the word.
The Clubhouse: a permanent home in East London
That world now has a fixed address. WWD reports that the new store, called the Clubhouse, sits at 84 Teesdale Street, London E2, in the stretch of East London between Bethnal Green and Hoxton. It opens Thursdays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm, and Sundays from midday to 5pm, according to Vogue UK. The name is apt: this is not a conventional retail space but an extension of the label’s communal, slightly fevered creative atmosphere.
The move to a dedicated shop marks a real shift in how the label operates. WWD also notes that the designers’ former studio, in Deptford by the River Thames, had functioned as an unofficial shrine for devotees: fans would plan dedicated trips for studio tours and try-ons, treating a working workspace as a destination. The Clubhouse formalises that relationship, giving the Chopova Lowena community somewhere to gather that is actually designed for them.
One show a year, and they arrive with a new store, a new shoe collaboration, a dog outfit, and a bowling alley. The radius of the Chopova Lowena universe is expanding, and it is doing so on entirely its own terms.
