John Alexander Skelton XVIII: A Celebration of Rural Romanticism
John Alexander Skelton, one of London’s most original fashion talents, has long drawn from history to create evocative, handcrafted garments. His latest collection XVIII, for Autumn/Winter 2025, explores rural life and midwinter festivity, reflecting his continued engagement with heritage, sustainability, and nostalgia.
Inspired by Paradise Lost: Paintings of English Country Life and Landscape 1850-1914, a collection curated by Christopher Wood, Skelton examines how Victorian painters romanticised the countryside while industrialisation reshaped it. "The countryside and the way it was cultivated, as the painters once knew it, started to change, which subsequently affected not only the way it looked but also led to the loss of wildlife and certain flora and fauna," he notes. Skelton embraces this tension, celebrating the beauty of rural life while acknowledging its impermanence.
Working with recycled fabrics—antique linens, grain sacks, and old wool—Skelton dyes, over-washes, paints, and patches each piece, ensuring each garment carries a sense of history. "My work over the last few years has had a common thread involving the natural world. I personally seek out the countryside on a regular basis as a way to refresh, energise, and heal." His designs reflect this philosophy, evoking both past and present through a slow, considered approach to craft.
Presented in an intimate East London church, the show was an immersive experience. The air carried the scent of citrus and cloves, candlelight flickered against whitewashed walls, and a communal wooden table adorned with foliage set the stage for a celebration of tradition. A fiddler played as models processed in pagan straw helmets, later removed and carefully placed aside—a nod to midwinter folk traditions.
The garments themselves spoke of labor and ritual: rugged wool coats, loose-cut pinstripe suits, and raw-hemmed shirts in ochre, moss, and rust. Subtle refinements modernised 19th-century silhouettes, balancing nostalgia with wearability. "I wanted to create something that paid reverence to this pivotal point in the year—to the countryside, the natural world, and to the essentialness of celebration and festivity."
Skelton’s work resists fashion’s fixation on the hyper-digital, reminding us of the power of slowness and ritual. His garments are not merely clothes but objects imbued with memory, inviting us to reconsider our relationship with history and craft. "There is a sense of joy and celebration in the paintings of seemingly ordinary scenes of daily life... something that we as a society have lost or that has been corrupted by commercialisation." Collection XVIII is a love letter to the countryside, the changing seasons, and the rituals that give life meaning.
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For further information:
https://www.johnalexanderskelton.com/
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Image Credits:
All Images by William Waterworth