The collection draws inspiration from the underwater landscapes of Aotearoa, New Zealand’s rugged coastlines. Sea grass sketches drift across trench coats and dresses, layering into a camouflage of shoreline textures. Ink-drop prints, lifted from the intricate patterns of submerged rocks, spill across slouchy suits and crushed silk turtlenecks. The palette flows with tidal shifts: inky anemone beside coral pink, kelp green, sun-bleached sand, and volcanic earth.

Rory William Docherty continues to merge the poetic with the practical, balancing masculinity and femininity through clothes that move fluidly between seasons. The Painter’s Shirt, an anchor of the brand’s collections returns in new forms: a loose khaki cotton jumpsuit, a pale chambray shirt, a crisp white tee, a floating full-length silk dress. The zip-through parka hood evolves into a trench coat detail, draping as a sailor’s collar over striped shirting and dresses. 

The Re-Work series expands: vintage denim deconstructed and rebuilt with signature prints, patchwork panels, and origami sleeves. These architectural folds also sharpen a black patent leather jacket, gleaming like rock after rain.

 Collaboration deepens the narrative. The Lyttleton Hat Company hand-blocks cloche hats that drip with jet beads or unravel into straw fringes touched by salt spray. Grinter Glass Studio creates hand-blown glass beads, forming sea anemone clusters that adorn necklaces and embroider an admiral’s jacket cut in sandy Harris Tweed. 

Rory William Docherty introduces customisable stainless-steel cuffs at wrists and ankles, allowing hems to taper or fall loose. Soft silk tailoring takes on a universal appeal: a long double-breasted jacket doubling as a dress, wide-legged pants with elastic backs for ease, silhouettes designed to welcome interpretation.

 The show space reflects the clarity of design. Natural light filters beneath the Andaz London’s 1901 ballroom dome, a glass canopy echoing the purity of line and proportion. Here, craftsmanship, timeless materials, and classical tailoring techniques ground Rory William Docherty’s vision. The atmosphere feels like being submerged inside a quiet bubble within East London, a pause away from the city’s noise, where quality and beauty endure.

 This debut follows transformative years. From the first runway at New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria in 2023, to Australian Fashion Week in 2024, the journey leads here. London holds particular resonance: during early years in the city, Rory William Docherty worked at Yohji Yamamoto and Miu Miu, absorbing the balance of conceptual design and craftsmanship. Those formative years remain embedded in the ethos: the practical and the poetic, held in tension. 

London has changed, and so has Rory William Docherty. Yet this debut feels like a homecoming. The brand returns not to dream from the sidelines but to share a vision, seasonless, ageless, gender-inclusive clothing, rooted in Rory’s own original artworks and crafted with care. With The Tides, Rory William Docherty moves forward, fluid and enduring, like the sea.

Words & Images Courtesy: Agency Eleven