A debut collection that
arrived already known.
A graduating CSM designer launched her first collection with a campaign that read like a third-album release.
I wanted a campaign, not a portfolio site. They gave me both and made it look like one thing.— Leyla Marr, Designer
A debut, with a budget the size of a deposit.
Leyla had a Central Saint Martins distinction, a sample line of fourteen pieces, and a press list assembled from her tutor's address book. She had six weeks before Paris.
The brief: don't make it look like a debut.
We treated the lookbook as editorial.
Instead of a pre-collection film, the studio commissioned a 24-page newsprint zine — written by a former i-D contributor, photographed in Margate over two days, distributed to a pre-cleared list of 200 editors and buyers.
The website launched the same morning the zine landed on desks. One launch, two formats, the same sentence.
She sold out the wholesale order in ninety minutes.
The waitlist filled in 48 hours. Vogue Italia ran the editorial unprompted. Six stockists across London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York placed orders before the first season ended.
The studio still gets sample-sale invitations. We attend.