Unfinished Business: Inheritance, Softness & Legacy

For Spring/Summer 2026, Tolu Coker presents Unfinished Business, a collection steeped in reflection and intention. It is a moment of reckoning as well as celebration — a designer looking back to what has shaped her, to the stories that clothes carry, and to the traditions she wants to preserve and pass on. Coker stakes her claim not merely as a maker of beautiful things but as a keeper of legacies, focusing on texture, soft strength, and womanhood.

"Unfinished Business," as Coker herself puts it, is about inheritance: clothes as heirlooms, garments that outlive their original wearer. It's a motif she's woven through her previous seasons, but here it feels more grounded and earnest. Coker sees her work as an anthology: each season builds upon what came before, the dialogue between past and present ever alive.

One of the most arresting elements is that Naomi Campbell, fronting both the film and the campaign, becomes not just a wardrobe but an embodiment of the theme — a woman seen under many lights: public, intimate, and maternal. Coker frames the tension between how the world views her (as a supermodel, icon, and extroverted presence) and her private self — entering motherhood and facing vulnerability.

The tailoring that made Coker's name return in this collection: structured, 60s-inspired jackets, clean lines, and sharp shoulders. But alongside those, softness enters with purpose: puff-ball sleeves, flowing skirts, velvety shirting. One butter-yellow flounced skirt, for example, spans 14 meters of circumference, designed to feel feminine and buoyant, yet crafted to endure.

Material choices reflect the collection's duality, balancing vulnerability and strength.

Earth tones, sky blue, and teal leather sit next to softer fabrics. There's an interesting reuse of fabric offcuts — a pattern designed to accommodate waste material that might otherwise be discarded - giving garments an echo of sustainability woven in.

Colour in Unfinished Business is thoughtful and symbolic. Earthen tones paired with sky blues and teals suggest a sense of groundedness with uplift; buttery yellows evoke both warmth and lightness. Texture plays a significant role - leather furnishes its structure, soft shirtings and twills offer flexibility and flow, and voluminous skirts catch the air.

There is a sense of vulnerability here: not weakness, but openness. The collection allows softness in the seeing; it honors womanhood, not as polished performance but with edges, weight, and experience. Coker speaks specifically of softness and vulnerability as strength — particularly for Black British women, who are too often seen only in terms of their visibility, not their interior life.

Coker doesn't use her theme as window dressing. The idea of inheritance, legacy, softness vs structure, appears across silhouette, material, colour, campaign, and presentation. It feels coherent and heartfelt. Pieces like the enormous flounced skirts take time and show discipline. The effort to integrate offcuts and think about clothing that outlives its first wearer is timely, responsible, and resonates deeply. The presence of Naomi Campbell as muse, the domestic warmth in campaign imagery, the value placed on private identity — all of this gives the collection a weight beyond trend. There's a sense that these are clothes with a memory.

The balance between structure and softness is delicate: structured tailoring can sometimes feel at odds with the voluminous, flowing parts. In some looks, this juxtaposition works beautifully; in others, contrasts may feel slightly jarring. Big pieces, such as the whole flounced skirts, demand space, height, and dramatic staging; their real-world wearability is limited. Translating those showstoppers into accessible pieces will challenge the brand if its audience demands versatility. Messaging around vulnerability and softness can be powerful, but there is always a risk of it being diluted if too many parts of the collection lean safe. The voice must remain distinct and the contrasts sharp enough that vulnerability does not feel like compromise or sentimentality.

With SS26, Tolu Coker seems to have crossed a threshold. Her work has evolved from homage and exploration to something more grounded — she is articulating her message more clearly and targeting her audience more effectively. Being a finalist for the LVMH Prize is no small milestone, and this season's film presentation reflects a confidence in her message.

This collection positions her as part of a wave in London fashion that not only questions aesthetics but insists on meaning, heritage, sustainability, and representation. Coker seems unwilling to allow her identity and story to be aestheticised only; she treats them as materials of equal weight to fabric, pattern, and stitch.

Unfinished Business is among Tolu Coker's most mature, resonant collections to date. It is clothes as conversation: between past and present, public image and private self, structure and softness, durability and beauty. She asks: what does legacy look like when sewn into seam lines, when cut to allow movement, when colours warm toward what is lived?

For a designer who often treats aesthetic and craft with equal reverence, SS26 feels like a defining moment — not a reinvention, but a claim: that garments can be legacies, that vulnerability can be strength, that heritage can be both honoured and made new.