LFW: Kent & Curwen redefining British preppy style

Kent & Curwen, the menswear heritage brand that started out making Eton school ties, is banking on preppy style becoming the new streetwear as it looks to reposition itself as the British answer to Polo Ralph Lauren.

Established in 1926, the brand began as a maker of club and college ties for Oxford and Cambridge universities and creating sports kits for rowers at Henley and rugby players at Eton, and in the 1930s, cricketers, including becoming the official outfitter of the Hollywood Cricket Club, which included actors Errol Flynn and Boris Karloff as members.

In recent years, Kent & Curwen has been favoured by the British royal family, including Diana, Princess of Wales, and even caught the eye of footballer David Beckham, who invested in the brand in 2016 and became the face of the brand under parent company Trinity Group.

The brand, however, has had a turbulent few years, with Hong Kong-based Trinity Group falling into administration in 2022. Last year, Kent & Curwen was acquired by Guangzhou-based Biem. L. Fdlkk Garment group, which also owns the Parisian menswear brand Cerruti 1881 and its signature Biem. L. Fdlkk golf clothing company.

Kent & Curwen relaunches at LFW with a return to its British collegiate style

For spring/summer 2025, Kent & Curwen relaunched the brand during London Fashion Week under the creative direction of Daniel Kearns, who has returned to the brand to create menswear, womenswear and accessory collections that combine tailoring, sports and fashion inspired by the contradictory concept of a school and sporting ‘uniforms’.

Looking to capture the subversion and eccentricity of great British style, the new look Kent & Curwen plays with the codes of its heritage, offering a sense of nostalgia, alongside modern reworkings to elevate traditional British staples such as rugby shirts and trench coats for the “come-as-you-are spirit of the British eccentric”.

The collection has also been designed to be genderless, intended to be “shared and borrowed,” to offer the brand’s first take on womenswear. Trousers were blown out to wrap the body, pleated skirts designed to reveal the boxer shorts beneath, and patterned scarves frame jackets and shirting, while country furnishing fabrics were mixed with a touch of an English country garden.

There is also a place for Kent & Curwen’s founding product, the club tie, which reappears throughout, worn traditionally, tied at the waist, and transformed into a dress. While the rose emblem of the brand is embossed, stitched in fabric, leather, or crochet as a tactile reminder of the brand’s heritage, and the brand’s signature cricket sweaters sport its Three Lions emblem, inspired by the Kent family crest.

Kearns also utilised a castle motif taken from the brand’s archives, to continue homage to its heritage, while representing a coming of age, as an act of becoming the ‘king of one’s own castle’.

Accessories also stood out with classic school satchels and book holders, alongside backless house slippers, Mary Janes, and leather loafers, lined in red, in a nod to the red socks of the brand’s founder, Eric Kent.

“The emphasis, above all, is on an unaffected, singular, and British sense of style. A journey from belonging to becoming,” explains Kent & Curwen in the show notes.