FROW NEWS #130: Leomie Anderson Leads Lefties Into the UK, ASICS Designs Around Women and Barbour Becomes Wearable Art 👖👟🎨
Some weeks arrive with one obvious headline. This one has given us Leomie Anderson in head-to-toe denim for Lefties’ UK arrival, a running shoe shaped around women’s feet, ten Barbour jackets turned into art and six women walking above Victoria Square. Not a bad range for one inbox.
Jorja Smith is celebrating a decade since Blue Lights, and Slow Love has made its first move into denim. Beauty is looking backwards and thinking smarter, with H&M revisiting our first-perfume years and Tangle Teezer acknowledging that one brush cannot work for every head of hair. There is also a timely new book making the case for leisure before September fills every spare hour. Here’s what’s worth knowing.
Leomie Anderson Leads Lefties’ UK Arrival in Denim 👖
Lefties may be new to the UK, but it has not arrived quietly. Leomie Anderson leads its new Live in Denim collection, wearing head-to-toe indigo alongside relaxed shapes, collegiate pieces, leather-effect jackets and pointed slingbacks to break up all that blue.
The collection includes a £25.99 toggle denim jacket, £17.99 skort and £22.99 super-wide-leg jeans, while studded wide-leg jeans and the matching jacket cost £25.99 and £29.99. The jeans and skort currently run from UK sizes 6 to 16, while the jackets vary from S to L and S to XXL.
The timing could hardly be neater. Lefties has opened its first UK store at Liverpool ONE alongside the launch of its UK website, so this is one European holiday discovery we can finally shop without boarding a plane.
ASICS Built Its New Running Shoe Around Women’s Feet 👟
Women’s trainers should be designed around women’s feet. Obvious, yes, but it has not always been the starting point. ASICS says its new BLOOMSTRIDE was informed by feedback from women and more than two million foot scans, resulting in extra room for the toes to spread, a closer fit through the middle of the foot and lower-profile cushioning designed to move between running, walking and everyday life. The shoe arrives globally on 1st September.
That thinking carries into the latest NAGINO clothing collection, which covers running, tennis and whatever happens after the workout. Adjustable tights, a front-zip sports bra and a water-repellent long jacket are among the 19 pieces, with clothing prices ranging from £36 to £114.
Jimmy Turrell Has Given Ten Pre-Loved Barbour Jackets a Second Life 🎨
Barbour jackets are known for getting better with age, but ten pieces from its Re-loved programme have returned looking nothing like their first lives. ASOS reshaped the jackets before British artist Jimmy Turrell added collage, drawing, print and paint, turning each one into a completely unique piece.
Nine of the one-off jackets are priced between £349 and £499. Centrepoint is raffling the tenth, a Mosaic gilet, for £5 per entry until 4th September. Only one person will take it home, but every entry supports the charity’s work with young people facing homelessness.
Slow Love Knitwear Is Giving Denim the Slow Treatment 💙
Slow Love Knitwear is stepping outside the jumper drawer with its first denim collection. The four-piece capsule includes two jeans shaped by the 90s and two workwear-inspired jackets, all made from rigid 100% cotton denim designed to soften and develop character the more it is worn.
There is no stretch here, so anyone who needs a little give in their jeans should take note. The twisted-seam and carpenter styles cost £165 and come in UK sizes 10 to 18, while the Bellows and wrap-front Atelier jackets are £185 in S to L.
Gerard Darel Brings Its Parisian Wardrobe to Regent Street 🥐
If your idea of French style is less logo and more a very good coat, Gerard Darel has opened a new two-floor flagship at 221 Regent Street. Designed to feel like a Parisian’s London apartment, the space mixes art and vintage furniture with the label’s full womenswear and accessories collection.
The Autumn/Winter 2026 collection gives the new store plenty to work with, including menswear-inspired jackets, rich textures, coats and knitwear, with Dree Hemingway returning for a second campaign. The familiar 24H bag, Anna jeans and signature trench are there too, while anyone outside London can find the wider collection online.
VEJA and Baserange Have Found Autumn’s Trainer Palette 🍂
If your white trainers are beginning to feel a little too summery, VEJA and Baserange have taken the Jitsu into deeper territory. Returning Amarante sits beside new Walnut and Almond shades, all three firmly in the autumn mood without simply turning another trainer black.
The £160 Jitsu is made in Portugal with suede and textile panels using discarded Lacaune wool and organic French hemp. It currently runs from UK sizes 2 to 13, which is a refreshingly broad size run for a fashion collaboration.
Fairfax & Favor Looks to the Saddle for the Connie 🤎
Fairfax & Favor has looked to traditional saddlery for its latest handbag without expecting us to build the rest of the outfit around riding boots. The Connie comes in Tan and deep Mahogany pebble-grain leather, with a curved saddle-bag shape, brass hardware inspired by a horse bit and two interchangeable straps.
Made in Italy, the bag costs £295 and can be found online and in Fairfax & Favor stores. Of the two colours, Mahogany makes the strongest case for packing away the summer bag.
L-R: Deep Mahogany and Tan
Vagabond’s New Leather Jacket Has Pockets for Days 🖤
Vagabond usually has us looking from the ankle down, but its latest leather drop has moved further up the wardrobe. The £465 Utility Leather Jacket swaps the usual biker zips for four oversized cargo pockets, a high funnel neck and an adjustable waist, allowing the shape to be worn loose or pulled in.
If your wardrobe already has the biker and bomber jackets covered, this sits somewhere between a leather coat and a classic field jacket. The limited-edition jacket comes in sizes S to L and is also available at selected concept stores.
H&M Beauty Is Taking Us Back to Our First Perfume Era 💿
Before fragrance wardrobes and layering routines, many of us had one bottle on the dressing table and wore it everywhere. H&M Beauty is revisiting the late 90s and early 2000s with five limited-edition scents, moving from the juicy Pink Wednesday and Daily Apple to the fresher Crystal Glow, berry-floral Powder Pink and warmer Call Me Orchid. Each vegan Eau de Parfum comes in a 50ml bottle and costs £12.99. The only decision is which version of the 2000s you want to revisit.
Tangle Teezer Knows One Brush Doesn’t Fit All 💆🏽♀️
We will happily upgrade our shampoos, masks and serums while the same hairbrush sits in the bathroom for years. Instead of making one supposedly universal brush, Tangle Teezer’s new £22 Complete Carebrush comes in Fine, Straight to Wavy and Curly to Coily versions, each with a different level of tooth flexibility to detangle, smooth and massage the scalp on wet or dry hair. It launches on 1st September at retailers including Boots and LOOKFANTASTIC.
AKT Is Taking Santal Season Beyond the Perfume Bottle 🔥
If sandalwood is your signal that autumn has officially arrived, AKT has found two new places for you to wear it. Santal Nomad blends honeyed saffron and warm orange with leather, sandalwood, smoked cedar, vetiver and musk, bringing that fireside scent into both deodorant and body mist.
The Deodorant Balm costs £21 for 50ml, while The Haze is a 100ml alcohol-free body mist for £35. They can be worn separately or layered, depending on how far you want to take the fireside mood.
Six Women Are Taking the High Wire in Birmingham This Weekend 🎪
Six women, three interconnected high wires and one very public celebration of sisterhood are coming together in Birmingham’s Victoria Square. Created by female-led circus company Daughters of the Wire, ElevateHer combines wire walking with movement, music and spoken word to explore the performers’ own stories of female friendship, defiance and strength.
The free performance is part of Birmingham Weekender, the city’s bank-holiday festival taking place across the centre. It can be seen at 2pm and 4.15pm on Sunday and Monday, with BSL interpretation and audio description at all four performances.
Jorja Smith Is Celebrating Ten Years by Turning the Tempo Up 🎶
Ten years after Blue Lights introduced us to a teenager from Walsall with something to say, Jorja Smith is marking the anniversary in motion. Her third album, What Are The Odds, moves through UK garage, grime, 2-step, funky house and Afro house, with P2J producing the record and Wizkid and Devlin joining her along the way.
The 12-track album is out now, while tickets for her 10 Years of Jorja Smith tour have also gone on sale. We have looked back at the decade that took Jorja from Walsall to the world, and why coming home still matters. Read the full piece here.
A New Book Is Asking Who We Are Without the To-Do List 📚
September has a habit of turning life into one long list of things to achieve, which makes Akshi Singh’s In Defence of Leisure rather well timed. This is not another book trying to make our rest more productive.
Singh brings the work of twentieth-century psychoanalyst Marion Milner into conversation with her own experiences of grief, uncertain work, friendship and a changing life, asking what rest, play and creativity can reveal about what we actually want. The 256-page paperback was published this week at £12.99, just before September starts asking everything of us.
That closes our final FROW News of August. September is already coming in with fresh denim, new scents and a fashion calendar that has no intention of easing us in gently, so we will see you back here next week with the stories actually worth opening another tab for.
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