How a cancelled cult designer rose again

The rise, fall and rise of Art School's Eden Loweth

- JOE BROMLEY

Between 2017 and 2021, Art School a seedling counterculture label with a USP of luxury non-binary fashion was by some distance the buzziest brand in London.

Rave-loving Central Saint Martins kids worshipped it; Kylie Jenner was buying it; queer community figureheads were its supermodels; and its catwalk shows acted as a foghorn for the lost and ostracised across the country.

Taking to its runway was a creative status symbol - some hoodies read "I walk for Art School", while big, boxy blazers, torn silk slip dresses, inverted lapel leather coats and the odd skin-tight leopard-print strapless mini made up the Art School wardrobe, which packed the rails of Matches Fashion, Dover Street Market and Selfridges.

If the capital's queer fashion scene was a kingdom, co-founder Eden Loweth was its gender-fluid monarch - until June 2021, when everything came tumbling down.

What began as a handful of disgruntled Instagram stories from unpaid models rapidly snowballed into a number of allegations of exploitation and misconduct levied at Loweth, which he at first ignored, then denied. In a matter of days, the LGBTQIA+ community Art School was supposedly made for had turned their backs on him. He left London, and within a month had signed for the liquidation of his label.

In his first interview since, Loweth, 31, reveals he has spent four years living and teaching in a small town in Rutland, broke, broken and burnt by the job he had longed for.

"For a big chunk of time I didn't want to engage with life. I found it very, very difficult to operate.