George Trochopoulos AW25 Collection30 Images
Within about three minutes of meeting George Trochopoulos, the rising designer is dragging one of his delicate, spidery knits across a rough surface to demonstrate how close to completely un-snaggable it is as I look on in horror. “It took a long time, but we finally figured it out,” he tells me, laughing at the face I’m pulling. “You can also just chuck them in the washing machine. Crazy, right?”
We’re at his cosy North West London studio, where he’s just moved after sharing a space with demi-couturier Ellie Misner, and he’s “still kind of settling in”. The front room of the compact basement flat is dedicated to his eponymous line, with more of his signature knits crammed onto rails around the walls and a series of sewing machines stationed on a table in the middle.
Beyond a door leading through the basement flat is his bedroom – he’s literally eating, sleeping, breathing fashion, fulfilling orders that are flying in at a wild rate metres away from where he brushes his teeth. “I love it!” he says. “I don’t have to commute and the rent is so cheap for a studio flat in London. I got really lucky.” Illuminated by soft lamps and flickering candles, and with classical Greek music softly playing from a speaker, for anyone who’s ever known the hell that is the London rental market, the space really is a pretty special find.
How long Trochopoulos is going to be able to operate out of this tiny flat, however, is unclear. After plugging away for the last few years after graduating from London College of Fashion, the designer is garnering attention from the industry after becoming a go-to for the likes of Miley Cyrus, Kylie Jenner, and Dua Lipa. In fact, it was Lipa who propelled him in the direction of virality in 2022, when the singer opted for a sexy grey asymmetric knit dress, almost see-through but for his trademark opaque stripes.
“The dolls [of Athens’ ballroom scene] always looked so fierce and cunty, and it really shaped the kind of woman I wanted to dress in my clothes. I love strong, sophisticated, intelligent women” – George Trochopoulos
Now he’s struggling to keep up with demand – and fit his growing team around the sewing table – as orders rush in and luxury retailers take note. Releasing small drops on a frequent basis, when we met in December he was working hard to fulfil close to 700 pre-orders which had amassed when he teased a small capsule on his Instagram stories. This time around, the drop consisted of a slinky black wiggle skirt with a jellyfish-like mass of multicoloured woollen tentacles gathered at the knee, and came with a free sheer top as if to sweeten the deal.
Trochopoulos always loved dressing up when he was a young, but as a queer kid growing up in a conservative town close to Athens, he didn’t find it easy to express himself. Solace came in the form of the ballroom community of Greece’s capital – from the age of about 14, the designer would sneak into the city to hang out in underground clubs and bars, before heading home in the early hours, trying not to alert his parents to the fact he’d been missing at all. “I wasn’t formally adopted into a house, but I had so many people looking out for me, giving me advice and guiding me,” he says. “The dolls always looked so fierce and cunty, and it really shaped the kind of woman I wanted to dress in my clothes. I love strong, sophisticated, intelligent women.”
Eventually, life in Greece got too constrictive and Trochopoulos set his sights on London. First, he took on a couple of internships, without, by his own admission, having no idea what he was doing. “I’d be like ‘Yeah, sure I can bead’, and I absolutely didn’t know how to bead, and I’d get fired after a couple of weeks,” he laughs. “Then I’d move onto another one. I never lasted more than about three weeks.” It was at London College of Fashion he really started getting to grips with his craft, and began honing the sensual but inherently fun and flirty aesthetic he’s fast becoming known for.
Something striking about Trochopoulos is how ambitious he is, but how measured he is about getting there. Where many designers fresh out of school and working in fashion feel like a failure if their work doesn’t immediately score them a space in Dover Street Market and interviews with major fashion media outlets, Trochopoulos is happy to take things slow – or at least “slow-ish” – as he gets to grips with running a successful business. And despite making his London Fashion Week debut with a well-received show back in 2022, that means holding his horses when it comes to joining the schedule for a follow-up.
“I’m a total perfectionist, so until I can do it exactly how I want to do it, I’m willing to wait” – George Trochopoulos, on staging a second runway show
“I’m a total perfectionist, so until I can do it exactly how I want to do it, I’m willing to wait,” he tells me. Though he had a runway moment in his sights for AW25, things didn’t quite fall into place in time, so rather than cobble a show together and hope for the best, he took a breath, decided to scrap the plan, and hold out for the right moment. Instead, he opened up his studio to the fashion press during the London women’s shows back in February, where he presented a fully-realised collection spanning sinuous floor-sweeping gowns and skirts, curve-skimming wiggle dresses, and a standout bolero pieced together using discarded mussel shells. Later, he carted it all to Paris, where word had spread. “We’ve had a few really exciting buyers come visit,” he told me when I visited him there.
With AW25 wrapped, Trochopoulos is now looking to SS26, and actually just teased a new direction for his label via Instagram – menswear is coming soon. “You asked! And we finally might be delivering,” the caption below a carousel revealing diaphanous tanks, asymmetric tops, and backless long-sleeves read, meaning by the time LFW rolls around in September, we might be seeing a co-ed collection on the catwalk. Whatever else, the designer enthuses that his long-awaited return to the show format will be “cunty as hell”. “I’m going to have all the dolls, all my girls walking,” he says. “I don’t know exactly what it will look like, I just know it has to be fab.”
