Hosting the first major party of London Fashion Week can be a bit of an inconvenience, especially if you’re Jean-Pierre Braganza. “Let’s be honest: This isn’t my kind of venue, but this is what I’ve got to do to do what I do. Walking here, I was actually dragging my feet,” the rising designer admitted to The Cut at the Club Alto party held in his honor on Friday night. “I said to my PR, ‘Do I really have to be here?’ Even though all my close friends are here, there are all these strangers [too]. Honestly, I’d rather just go out and hang with friends after a show. It’s been so intense.”
In 2008, the London-born, Canadian-raised, Central Saint Martins–educated Braganza was chosen by Karl Lagerfeld for the prestigious Protégé Project; since then, he’s been mounting steadily uphill, showing his bold futuro-classic collections each LFW. At his opening-night party, the self-proclaimed sci-fi geek (he cites Blade Runner as a huge influence) was surrounded by many an intergalactic-themed guest; his friend, Daniel Lismore, sported a full-bodied silver space suit fashioned by Braganza himself. But friends or no, Braganza said he finds the fashion façade difficult to digest. “Doing the whole fashion thing and interacting with people I just generally have no interest in, it kind of pains me … But, that’s the thing, like T.S. Eliot said, ‘You prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,’ which is the same in business and in life.”