LONDON — Martine Rose’s spring 2026 show venue was full of surprises.

The designer invited guests to St. Marylebone Jobcentre, where one floor was dedicated to the show and another was turned into a street market with stalls selling T-shirts, magazines, antiques and accessories.

“The show space was an opportunity to celebrate all of the creative people in London and everyone that contributes to the cultural life and dynamism of London — and that needs celebrating,” said Rose.

All the elements of a market were there: children running around, people socializing and swapping summer plans and guests having a look around the tables, including Romy from band The xx and designers Simone Rocha and Feben.

“I’m a big fan of Martine’s work and I’ve loved wearing a lot of her clothes on stage,” said Romy.

“This feels really exciting because we thought we were coming just to a show and we were running late, and then we’ve just come into all these amazing designers who said that Martine called them up to give them a platform to share their own. This is amazing and it shows her sense of community,” added Romy.

The musician, who is the guitarist and co-vocalist of the band, teased that she’s working on new music with The xx and that she will be DJing in Ibiza this summer, one of her “favorite things to do.”

There was a running thread of sex and fetish throughout the market stalls, a nod to Rose’s show, which touched on Mills & Boon romance novels.

Anthony Campbell, founder of the zine Crap and a friend of Rose’s, was selling issues three and four of the publication.

“It’s a magazine that explores fetishization of garments and it’s thematically linked through color. The first issue was white socks; the second was gray mile, so thinking about gray mile track pants; third issue was Oxford blue, about city boys, and the new issue is camouflage,” he said.

Next to Crap, fetish and kink were all the rage with Ladycotton, a screen-printing studio that sells T-shirts that say “Dream Girl,” “Humiliation” or “Spanking Stimulates Virility.” Ladycotton prides itself on being a sex-positive brand that’s rooted in the experience of being gay or queer.

“We work mainly with artists in the music industry and we do merch, traveling from festival to festival to sell our T-shirts,” said the brand’s cofounder Maarten Van Der Horst, who studied at Central Saint Martins with Rose, Craig Green and Rocha. 

“[The brand] is specifically aimed at queer people. I don’t like plastic rainbow flags and I think we want a uniform that’s a bit more militant. We work with queer artists such as Fever Ray and drag terrorist Christeene. We’re building our own community of people that are queer and are a bit more assertive,” he added.

Jawara Alleyne, the London-based, Jamaica-born designer whose designs have been worn by Shakira, Rihanna and Lewis Hamilton, also had a stall.

He was selling his signature T-shirts that feature a solar eye and black logo held together by safety pins, as well as pieces from his Untitled collection, an experimental range with one-off pieces.

“It’s an ongoing collection of research experiments and products. It’s essentially where I do my sampling because it’s so expensive for a small brand to be sampling. I don’t want the pieces to get discarded and the Untitled collection is a space where we can rework and upcycle things,” said Alleyne.

He commended Rose for giving a platform to himself and other brands.

“Community is really important because that’s the last thing that we have to hold on to. We’ve been robbed of so much in the last five to 10 years. The human connection is the most valuable thing that we have,” Alleyne added.

Nearby, Scott Ramsay Kyle was displaying his collage-based artwork, which uses embroidery and textiles. He met Rose more than a decade ago when they collaborated on a collection together.

“We made these amazing denim pieces with hand and face embroideries. I look at fragmented bodies and identities [in my collage work],” said Kyle.

Smut Press, an Irish publishing collective founded by Jordan Hearns and Jack Scollard, was one of the few stall holders who didn’t know Rose personally. They were invited because the designer had taken a liking to their printed badges that say “Assigned Fierce at Birth,” “Raving Homo Sexual” and “H&H,” which stands for “high and horny,” using the H&M typeface.

Smut Press has published numerous books, including “After Life,” a photobook of photographer Michele Baron’s raw images, and “The Horny of Plenty,” which documents Scollard’s first 12 months in London through a series of photos.

Besides printing, Hearns and Scollard also organize one-off parties every three to four months in London. The duo met through clubbing.

Their next party is on July 12 (it sold out within six days) and they will be doing a takeover at the festival Field Maneuvers in Norfolk in August.

“With Smut, we try to keep everything as accessible as possible. Our latest book is 26 pounds and it’s a hardback photography book. We understand that access can be difficult for so many in our community so we try keep the prices reasonable and set aside separate access tickets for those more marginalized within our community,” said Hearns.

Nearly all the guests left the marketplace with a T-shirt, a book, a magazine or a slice of pizza that was being handed out after the show.