April 14, 2026

A New Kind of Tale: Inside LOVELOUDER’s theatrical runway

During London Fashion Week, LOVELOUDER dismantled the fairytale as we know it, creating a runway where every look feels like a chapter in an unfinished tale. Nicola Jiang delivered a story shaped by emotion, identity and transformation.

For only her second official runway show, designer Nicola Jiang presented a complete collection from everyday-ready looks to couture pieces, right through to the inevitable bride all set within an intensely theatrical atmosphere.

The show hinged on emotional intensity. Upon entering the Porchester Hall, guests were immediately immersed in the world of the brand. The venue was draped entirely in deep crimson fabric, with matching carpeting that lent the space an almost regal air and set the scene like the opening chapter of a fairytale.

And revisiting our imagined stories while reframing them within our own reality was very much the intention behind Tales of Wonder. Rather than approaching the idea of the fairytale through a purely fantastical lens, Jiang offered more like a narrative in perpetual evolution. The collection moves beyond make-believe and reconnects us to our emotional landscape.

Jiang explains that she wanted to explore fluid identity, self-reconstruction and migration. “I’m trying to tell you my story about the world, about my feelings. I don’t feel like I belong east or west. I feel like I’m creating somewhere: the clothes are a part of my image. Whether the music, the location, the colour, or everything material: these make my designs,” she says.

The pieces she proposes reflect the uncertainty of our present moment. Far from idealised tales, the designer offers an introspective metamorphosis: a narrative shaped by the emotions tied to exile, the search for grounding, and the need to belong. LOVELOUDER becomes a living conversation between the body and the shifting experiences that constantly reshape us. Uncertainty is not an obstacle; it is simply our future selves still in formation.

A tale steeped in darkness

LOVELOUDER oscillates between the romantic romantic, with its overtly dramatic aesthetic, and the contemporary. A gown with a visible crinoline, ceremonial dresses paired with embellished military jackets, and modern gothic silhouettes were interspersed with bridal looks (that appeared almost mournful as they made their way down the aisle). The contrast was particularly striking: a pearl embroidered bodice, its oversized droplets falling like crystallised sorrow, offered a poignant inversion of a moment traditionally associated with joy.

Through its looks and especially through its beauty direction, Tales of Wonder evoked the Gothic terrors of the nineteenth century and its vampires: pallid skin, stretched blackened eyelids, and bloodshot eyes all played their part. There was romance too a dark, red and black romance forming the collection’s backbone. The result was a series of highly theatrical silhouettes.

The essence of LOVELOUDER: jewellery as more than an accessory

Jewellery holds a central place at LOVELOUDER. Here, it is no longer a mere accessory meant to complement the garment, but a piece in its own right integrated into the silhouette and enriching it with detail. Fully beaded bodices became a kind of delicate armour, while tops overflowing with jingling charms, crosses glamorised with rhinestones, and oversized heart-shaped pendants all adorned the looks.

LOVELOUDER imagines a new approach to creation by bringing together Chinese craftsmanship, global textile traditions and found or reclaimed materials. Everything is reassembled to be reborn anew. The collection inhabits a suspended space where temporalities blur. And this is a fitting choice for a show built around the history embedded in materials. Through the meeting of cultural techniques and the reuse of textile fragments, each piece seemed to carry the traces of multiple journeys.

The LOVELOUDER woman is no longer a figure to be depicted; she becomes her own storyteller. She is the subject, the voice, the narrator: a force of authorship and self-determination. She shapes her own narrative from what she perceives, lives and redefines.