Fashion is very good at announcing returns, and it is less interested in accounting for what happens in the time in between. Designers disappear, reappear and are soon asked to explain themselves, preferably in the language of growth. London-based designer Nicomede Talavera has done this twice already. His new collection under his eponymous label Nicomede, Sacred Journey, is somewhat of a third arrival, serving as a reminder that stepping away can sharpen a vision, not dilute it.
Talavera first emerged in the early 2010s, graduating from Central Saint Martins after completing his MA under the late Louise Wilson. His graduate collection was spare and self-reflective: elongated silhouettes, largely monochrome, drawing on clerical dress and ceremonial uniforms, softened by sportswear references and distortions of proportion. The clothes felt protective and inward-looking, garments that suggested ritual, faith and restraint. Even then, there was a sense that Talavera was less interested in fashion as spectacle than in fashion as a way of organising feeling.
The industry responded to his work quickly, and soon after graduating, he launched his namesake menswear label and joined Fashion East, showing on the Man schedule. It was the familiar early-career escalation: press attention, buyers, momentum. Then in 2015, he stepped away.
He returned in 2019 with Nicomede, reframing the label around wellness and working on his own terms. Then, in 2023, he paused again. Now, with Episode Seven (Talavera names each collection by episodes), he reappears refreshed and unhurried. “Every time that I pause, I come back so much wiser,” Talavera says, speaking from Shanghai, where his partner lives. “I have such a deeper understanding of craftsmanship. I have just a deeper understanding of where I want to navigate to.” What distinguishes this return, he adds, is curiosity. “I’ve come at it with such a playful outlook, but with all of my past experiences coming in and out of the industry.”
Sacred Journey began two years ago during a period Talavera describes as reflective and inward. He was doing consultancy work, researching and meditating. Crucially, the pressure to produce was gone. “The sense of urgency being taken away just started to give me so much more clarity on where I wanted to go,” he says. Fashion’s six month cycle, he suggests, has a way of flattening imagination. “Sometimes you get out of the loop of your dreams and how powerful they are.”
That slower pace shaped how the collection was made. This season, Talavera worked largely alone, without interns helping with cutting, stitching and research. There was a spirituality to it. “Isolation is a teacher in itself,” he says. “I’m only hearing my own voice.” He compares the experience to a chef working every station in a kitchen, including the dishes, knowing every part of the process intimately.
The resulting collection feels measured and deliberate, described by the designer as “soulful elegance underpinned by the island spirit.” Tailoring is central but never rigid. Lapels are slightly deconstructed, plackets twisted, silhouettes elongated and composed. “I like to call them abstract classics,” he says. “There’s just a slight shift in them.” The details are intentional but discreet, often legible only to the wearer.
Talavera’s reconnection with his Filipino heritage runs through the collection. Growing up in Britain, he experienced that culture largely within his family home, but over the past three years, he has returned frequently to the Philippines, travelling between islands, learning mythology, studying craftsmanship, encountering artists he hadn’t previously known. Shells became a key conduit. In his childhood home in the Philippines, shells adorned lamps, plates and ornaments. In Filipino culture, he explains, they function as symbols of protection.
The shells that informed Sacred Journey were beach-foraged and shattered. Seeing their interiors revealed unexpected twists and pinches, which inspired the pin-tuck stitches and curved details throughout the garments. “I definitely believe that spiritual outlook really has input in what I've created – when I was draping [my] womenswear I did meditations beforehand. It was also about letting go of perfectionism,” he says.
On a recent trip to the Philippines, Talavera encountered the work of the modernist artist Arturo Luz, particularly his Boxes and Shells series. What struck him was the tension in the work. “There was something so futurist about it,” he says, “but then something so ancient with the shells.” In that imagined space of shadows, another image appeared. “That was the starting point of the collection,” he explains. “I envisioned the guy and the girl meeting there for the first time.” That image unlocked Talavera’s potential to create womenswear for the first time, embedded in the house he was already building.
Asked how he hopes to be understood beyond a comeback designer, Talavera answers: “Resilience,” then: “Creativity, creation … a real celebration of imagination.” Whether this return represents continuation, transformation or a new arrival, he opts for all three. What matters most is how the work is felt. “The main reaction to this collection I get is: it’s beautiful and it’s handsome,” he says. “Those are the words that really resonate.”
