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Selected fashion collections from graduating students at the University of Brighton will go on public display as part of the university’s 2026 Summer Shows programme, which celebrates student talent across art, design, media, fashion, architecture, engineering, and performance.

Ahead of the exhibition, the fashion collections were unveiled during a student-led Graduate Fashion Show held at St Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton on 30 May. Organised by students and staff from the University of Brighton’s fashion courses, the runway showcased work combining craftsmanship, sustainability, personal storytelling, and cultural commentary.

This year’s collections explore themes including identity, masculinity, heritage, memory, sustainability, and contemporary British culture, with students using fashion to examine both personal experiences and wider social issues.

Among the featured designers is , a Fashion Design with Business Studies BA(Hons) student, whose menswear collection United 76 challenges traditional ideas surrounding English football culture through a fusion of football fashion and references to American gay rodeo culture. 

Design by Molly Ringer

Design by Frankie Sturdy

Inspired by family connections to Texas and the role gay rodeos played as safe and celebratory spaces for LGBTQIA+ communities in 1980s America, Molly’s collection combines sportswear silhouettes, sequinned tartans, embellished accessories, and repurposed fabrics to create a more expressive and inclusive vision of football identity.

Molly said: “I wanted to challenge traditional football fashion ideals and create something more expressive and inclusive. The collection uses camp aesthetics to bring humour, energy, and individuality into a space that can often feel very rigid and uniform.”

Another standout collection comes from Frankie Sturdy, recent winner of the British Fashion Council X British Library Fashion Research Competition with Paolo Carzana, whose project Monkey See, Monkey Do explores ideas of British identity, tradition, and social behaviour through experimental tailoring and sculptural accessories.

Inspired by archival photographs from Christian beach camps in Cornwall during the 1970s, Frankie combines vintage fabrics, repurposed swimming pool tiles, and handmade accessories to create a collection that mixed humour, nostalgia, and social commentary.

The work features sculptural garments and unusual accessories including tile flip-flops, a soap-on-a-rope handbag, and a 3D-printed banana case inspired by the Cerne Abbas Giant. Frankie also experimented with unconventional pattern-cutting techniques developed from wrapping and reshaping a wooden figure model to create new garment forms.

Frankie said: “My work this year has been about questioning the traditions and structures people grow up around, and how clothing can reflect ideas about identity, belonging, and community. I wanted the collection to feel playful and slightly surreal, while also thinking carefully about sustainability and reusing materials.”

Alongside the featured collections, students are presenting work spanning experimental weave, digital fabrication, and low-waste design approaches. Many collections incorporate recycled or repurposed materials and reflect the collaborative nature of Brighton’s creative community.

Daniel Crabtree, Course Leader for BA(Hons) Fashion Design with Business Studies at the University of Brighton, praised the originality and ambition of this year’s graduating students.

He said: “This year’s collections truly capture the diversity and flair of voices within the course at Brighton, where we support students to realise their individual creative potential and find their home within fashion and wider creative communities.

“Through the in-depth exploration of identity, technique, and responsible practice our students enter a dynamic and changing world equipped with the skills to follow their passion, question established norms and succeed. We’re excited to follow them on this journey as they take their next steps into industry and beyond.”

The show also marked the culmination of students’ creative development throughout their studies, bringing together research, collaboration, live projects, and professional practice developed across their time at Brighton. Many graduating students are now preparing to move into careers across the fashion and creative industries, continue their studies, or develop independent labels and practices.

Based at the University of Brighton’s City campus, fashion students benefit from specialist workshops, industry-focused teaching, and opportunities to develop their creative identities within Brighton’s wider artistic community.

The collections will feature in the Art, Media and Design Graduate Show at the university’s Grand Parade City campus until Sunday 7 June. The free public exhibition is open weekdays from 10am to 5pm and weekends from 12pm to 4pm.

The University of Brighton will host undergraduate open days this summer on 6 June at the City campus, 13 June at the Moulsecoomb campus, and 26–27 June at the Falmer campus. Find out more and book a place on the University of Brighton website.