Liza Keane on Survival, Vulnerability and Her LFW Debut

Runway photographer: Chris Yates

NW - How are you Liza; after your LFW debut, what are the thoughts running through your mind?

LK - I'm happy I'm not stressed or anything. I guess I kind of wasn't super stressed throughout, but I just, I didn't sleep for a long time. So I'm catching up now. 

NW - How was the build up to the show? Were you able to show everything you had conceptualised? 

Yeah, I mean, there were things that just didn't materialise. I think there was a lot of ambition. I definitely want this or that but of course, there is not enough time to do it. It was mostly accessories, I suppose they're just only necessary in my head, but in reality, kind of looking back on it, it is maybe not even needed. 

There was one thing that I really wanted in the show. There was the white angel but there was also a black angel and they kind of went together. She's wearing, like a leather hoodie, and her wings were supposed to be in the back, like she's taking them off, like she doesn't want to be that anymore. The white one is like a broken one, so she's carrying her goodness in a very broken way, and together, they kind of were meant to tell a story like that, but we didn't have time to make the black wings and we really tried, but there just wasn't a way that was going to be realistic. 

Backstage photography: Reece

NW - Were you planning to have the black angel walk last? 

Not necessarily, like, there wasn't really actually an order until the end. It wasn't until we cast all the models that an order kind of made sense, but initially, I had a lineup that was just like more of a ‘how and when am I going to make this design.’

NW - On the whole, though, how do you feel about debuting? 

There was a very specific goal I had, which was that I need this show to do something for my company that I wouldn't have been able to do within a short time. Just growing the business in a very natural way. I want to shift it to a place where it is, just through a different place by the time I leave BFC, and I think it fell to me like walking through to lodge before, like, yes, there is a slow growth in sails season to season, but it's so slow that I. I'm not sure the production is catching up to the sales and it's just getting more difficult whilst there's like not enough people know about the brand. to kind of justify bigger sales and so production must stay the same. I think this issue, I tried to resolve it structurally, and it just, it seems like mission impossible in a way, some days. Ultimately, I'm not a logistics person, I'm not a production person. I just don't have time to think about certain aspects of the business and depth, the way they need to be be thought about, because I have two collections a year running constantly, one I'm making for sales, and then one I'm developing for new seasons, and it's just my attention to so spread that I think I just needed to do something, something big and loud, that hopefully can shift, like, it's like a big step forward in less time. And I think that's kind of... I'm just waiting to see what will shift. Like, what can I do next to continue walking like that in, like, increased steps to hopefully, by the time I leave BFC being in a different place. Is that so I can continue on my own without support, and that be a healthy kind of continuation. 

Do you have any designers that you look up to, not necessarily as direct references, but perhaps for their work ethic or the way they stage a show?

I think it really shifts for me. I went through a phase of really loving Geoffrey Beene, and then I’d leave it for a while. It would stay as a reference in my mind, and eventually I’d come back to it. Some of my icons are actually quite unlikely choices, not for their aesthetic, but for the way they approached brand building. People like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein were geniuses of marketing. Their approach to brand building is something I aspire to. Ralph, for example, built an entire world. You walk into one of his stores and it feels like stepping into a house. The people he dresses feel like they belong in that world. It’s completely different from anything I do aesthetically, but I love the ambition behind that kind of world-building and how complete it is. People often reference Galliano in this context, and he’s created some incredibly beautiful catwalks. But when it comes to the completeness of a vision, extending all the way through customer experience and every touchpoint of the brand, I’d actually point more towards Ralph Lauren. In terms of branding a product, Calvin Klein is another fascinating example. Its logo is on everyone’s waistband. It’s become so ubiquitous that it almost feels beyond branding. If you wear it, it doesn’t even register as a specific brand anymore because it’s so universal. It’s like the original underwear brand in a way. A bit like Apple. It’s almost not a brand anymore, it’s just a phone.

So is that the kind of the way you envision Liza Keane the label as?

I'm not sure yet. I know I love building worlds, but I think there’s a certain type of person who connects with my work. If it became too widely available, it might not be what it is now. But I also think that’s quite a limiting way of thinking. At this stage, I don’t really have an answer, because I’ve never had to consider questions like, What will your shop look like? Once I do, I think I’ll naturally start thinking about those things. Even now, when we think about our runways, it’s already an expansion of that idea. What will it smell like? What will the lighting look like? Who is this person wearing the clothes? As each new challenge presents itself, you have to push yourself to think beyond simply imagining the look. I imagine a world for every collection, but I don’t necessarily have an idea yet of what a store should look like, or what an underwear line would look like. I just haven’t had to consider those questions. I’d like to be in a position where those are the challenges I’m presented with and where I have to find the answers. I don’t think I want to stay small forever.

Backstage photography: Reece

When you were thinking about what the models would wear in terms of, you know, scent and makeup and hair, what was the thought process that went into what kind of a look you want to go for there?

I think they live in a world where they're not considering these things. They're more a kind of bare necessities type of existence. So, in fact, some of our directions for makeup was, don't do makeup on this girl. There was absolutely, like, no intention for glamour or, like, creating a sense of like, we just wanted naturalness. Teensiest touches to enhance what was already the model's look, and we cast in the way that the model came with something that she added to the clothes in terms of character, there was a very kind of shy girl, a blonde, very like angelic face. So it's almost childlike and so we put her in a very soft look. Then we asked her to take a walk, and she had this stumpy, very strong walk. So we gave her, like, a leather dress as well, like a slightly more armoured look, and it was quite nice to see the contrast, but, you know, she brought that herself and it was just for accident. We saw that she has these two sides to her. 

The clothes have become just a second layer of skin for them at this point because they're just trying to survive. Where did the concept of having them walk through the rain come through? 

Joel from Playbody initially presented me with a rendering of the set. Visually, I liked it, but I always need a narrative behind an image in order to make sense of it. In the render, there were figures holding up the structure, but they had no defining characteristics. They were almost like basic computer-generated forms: muscular, featureless, entirely anonymous. To me, they looked like angels. I started asking myself why they were holding this huge structure above the runway. It felt oppressive. That’s where the story began. 

The characters are moving through a world that has already been devastated, trying to endure and survive. The rain becomes part of that struggle, almost a trial that they have to pass through. The six silver-painted figures who entered before the models felt like divine beings preparing that ordeal. They switch on the world, hold up the weight of it, and create the conditions the characters must move through. I imagined them as neither good nor evil. They’re painted grey because they’re neutral. We often talk about the divine in very moral terms, but what if it exists outside of that? What if it’s more like nature, something powerful and unknowable that isn’t concerned with human ideas of fairness? Nature isn’t good or bad, it simply is. That was the role of these figures. They're not there to punish or save anyone. They're simply part of the structure of this world. The rain, the mud and the physicality of the set were important because the collection is about resilience.

What interested me was showing different responses to hardship. Some characters are heavily armoured, almost mechanically resilient. Some seem completely broken by what they’ve endured. Others remain vulnerable in a more romantic way. None of them are presented as the correct way to survive. They’re simply different visions of survival within the same world. My hope was that, because there are so many different kinds of characters moving through the storm, people might find something of themselves in them and connect to the collection in a cathartic way.

• 

• 

Runway photographer: Chris Yates

Interesting that the two characters with the quiver of arrows seem to be the only ones in full clothing. Everybody else was all tattered and battered with destroyed clothing. 

I hadn't noticed that myself, but yeah, that's very true. I made an Excel to give to all the teams of, like, a vulnerability scale from one to five for each character. And so, like, the casting got the same, the hair and makeup got the same, photography, everybody, so we know where to place each person and what walk they would have, what look we can consider for them, et cetera. And the archers were, like, I would say, like, like a level two. (So five is the most vulnerable, and one is the least.) So one would be the guy with the mask, but the archers, whilst they are similar, they still have kind intentions, and they're more human. There's like an intent to take off their humanity and almost an intention to transform into the world that they live in, to merge with the harshness. The last level – level five – is the harshness. They've already merged. They’re it. 

What was the thought behind the little child? That there is still innocence? 

Well, for that one, the mother is, like, she's living in this world, and the image I had in mind for her is like when a cat has some babies, like a litter, you can't approach her, she becomes vicious. you can't even touch the babies, she'll attack you even though it's a tiny cat. It's, like, almost quite dangerous. She has to take on that character to protect that softness, and the baby is almost like a symbol of everything from another life. It's all the tenderness that's not allowed here anymore, but she keeps it, and she's vicious on the outside, but it's to keep that beam of hope alive.

When you were creating this, did you come up with something new, something that was different from the way you've created your work previously? I was going through the 2022 MA collection and I was looking through your work and you can see the tangent on which you've grown as a designer and a storyteller. There's also so much refinement and technical mastery that wasn't there.  

I think part of it was that this was the first time I’d really had the opportunity to say, this is who I am, on a larger scale. There’s a certain pressure that comes with that, but I also enjoyed having a much broader cast of characters to work with. With Rain On My Parade, there were so many different personalities and emotional states within the same world. It allowed me to think not just about making a statement, but about the kinds of clothes I genuinely wanted to create.

Over the last four years, I’ve simply made an enormous amount of work, whether that’s for wholesale, customers, films or shows. Even as a small brand, you produce a huge volume of clothing, and almost everything passes through my hands in some capacity. Through that process, you naturally learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to refine techniques. A good example is the moulding process. When I first discovered it during my MA, it was still closer to an art practice. The pieces functioned more like sculptures than garments. Since then, a lot of my work has been about figuring out how to take those ideas and turn them into real products that can exist in people’s wardrobes. They need to be comfortable, wearable, commercially viable and repeatable in production, while still retaining the emotional intensity of the original concept. That’s where the technical challenges become interesting. Something as simple as inserting a zip into a moulded dress becomes incredibly complicated. It’s almost like cutting an opening into a sculpture. The material has to be rigid enough to hold its form, but soft enough to move through a machine. The pattern has to work across multiple sizes while retaining the same silhouette. Every notch has to align. A detail that seems straightforward suddenly becomes a major engineering problem.

For the SS27 collection, that thinking extended into new material developments. We developed treatments that looked like wet mud but were actually dry, wearable and durable, which allowed us to create the impression that the characters had physically moved through this ruined landscape without compromising the garment itself. The collection’s armour-like leathers, distressed surfaces and weathered textures all required a balance between storytelling and functionality. In many ways, evolution has come from constantly asking how far I can push an idea while still making it wearable. I’ll often look at something and think, I know exactly how difficult this is going to be, so how can I make it even more difficult for myself? But I genuinely enjoy that challenge. Solving those problems is one of the most rewarding parts of the process.

Backstage photography: Reece

Do you have any pop culture, or perhaps less mainstream cultural references, that influenced this collection? Beyond the themes of existentialism and nihilism, were there any specific sources you kept returning to?

I became really fascinated by something called the Disturbing Movies Iceberg. It’s this strange corner of internet culture dedicated to obscure, often deeply unsettling films that sit on the fringes of cinema. What interested me wasn't necessarily the films themselves, but the mythology that builds up around them. Sometimes I'd spend more time imagining what a film might be than actually watching it.

One film I kept returning to was Melancholie der Engel. I never really watched it in the conventional sense. I skipped through parts of it and often just listened to the audio while working because I found it difficult to confront directly. Before seeing it, I had built an entire narrative around it in my head. In many ways, the imagined version was as influential as the film itself. There were certain images and compositions from it that ended up on my mood board. Some of the characters in Rain On My Parade came directly from those references, not in a literal sense, but in the emotional atmosphere they created. The symbolism and visual language were so concise that they became useful storytelling tools.

Alongside that, I was listening to a lot of black metal and exploring darker subcultures. What interested me wasn't simply darkness as an aesthetic. It was the pursuit of a certain kind of realism. These films and music often strip away romanticism altogether. They present difficult things bluntly, without resolution or moral framing. There's an honesty in that which I found compelling. A lot of these works are uncomfortable because they remove the narrative structure we often use to make sense of darkness. There's no redemption, no clear lesson, no attempt to make suffering meaningful or beautiful. You're simply confronted with it. It's ugly, harsh and often deeply unsettling.

Of course, fashion does the opposite in many ways. A runway show inevitably aestheticises things. Even when you're dealing with difficult ideas, you're presenting them through clothing, performance and image-making. That's why I wasn't interested in reproducing those references directly. I don't agree with glorifying or sensationalising real suffering. What I wanted to take from them was the emotional residue, that feeling of vulnerability, unease and endurance. With Rain On My Parade, which centres on survivors moving through the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe, I was interested in what happens when beauty and brutality coexist. The collection's mud-stained surfaces, weathered armour, distressed angel wings and rain-soaked runway all emerge from that tension between resilience and ruin. Rather than depicting darkness literally, I wanted to translate the emotional weight of it into something more symbolic and human.

I completely understand what you're describing. It is fascinating to take something rooted in discomfort, morbidity or even ugliness and bring it onto one of fashion's biggest stages. What makes the collection resonate is that it doesn't simply aestheticise those ideas. It acknowledges the contradiction between survival and beauty, vulnerability and strength. As humans, we're full of contradictions, and Rain On My Parade seems to embrace that. The characters are wounded yet resilient, hardened yet deeply sensitive. Seeing those opposing forces coexist feels both reassuring and emotionally intense, because it reflects something recognisably human back to us.