“Oh honey, no!” says, as I enter backstage at ’s spring/summer 2025 presentation, where a clutch of assistants has been struggling to position a cumbersome lightbulb mirror onto a makeshift glam table. “You didn’t have to bring that big honking thing in here! I’m for real, you can take it back. But, listen, if you anyone f***ing touches these,” the musician adds – now unsmiling and gesturing towards a sea of crisp packets scattered around various make-up brushes – “I’ll be so mad.
” In a couple of hours, Ditto will join the journalist Tish Weinstock, photographer Thurstan Redding, stylist Ben Schofield and filmmaker Jordan Hemmingway on an open-air catwalk in the courtyard of Somerset House: the same arts institution that’s housed the Loverboy studio since 2016, and this weekend opened a retrospective that commemorates the brand’s 10 years in fashion. To have survived the convergent blows of the pandemic, Brexit and a widespread defunding of the arts is no mean feat – the fashion business is precarious enough – and this show was a celebration of the collective effort that is so often required to see it through. Front rows were dotted with Loverboys past and present while Jeffrey recreated his collective’s playfully countercultural spirit on the catwalk: denim minidresses pierced with Cupid’s arrows, cartoon-ified naval jackets and skewed tailoring with duplicated sleeves and off-centre collars.
Ditto wore fuzzy, animal-clawed brogues and a s.
