The pioneering MAN project refreshingly embraced inclusivity and gender-fluidity at London Fashion Week Men's

Art School, Rottingdean Bazaar and Stefan Cooke are definitely ones to watch in 2018 
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Hannah Rochell7 January 2018

The MAN initiative - which was established by Topman and Fashion East - has been supporting London’s emerging menswear designers since 2005.

Past recipients include huge successes such as JW Anderson, Craig Green and Martine Rose, which in turn makes it a popular show on the London Fashion Week Men’s schedule.

This season’s event showcased collections run as back-to-back catwalk shows from Art School and Rottingdean Bazaar, who have both shown at MAN in previous seasons, and newcomer Stefan Cooke.

First up was Art School, which is the brainchild of Eden Loweth and Tom Barrett who studied fashion at Ravensbourne and art criticism at Central Saint Martins respectively.

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In an exploration of non-binary gender identities and contemporary queerness, models of all shapes and sizes wore one armed leotards, nude stocking dresses over brightly coloured satin shirts and pleated skirts and jackets in college stripes, all styled with black kitten heel boots.

Next, a large dose of irony with James Theseus Buck and Luke Brooks’ popular label Rottingdean Bazaar, named after the East Sussex seaside village that this design duo work from.

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The collection opened to birdsong and a middle aged twitcher, whistling down the catwalk with a pair of binoculars strung around his neck.

He was followed by a succession of tongue-in-cheek logo looks, including a man of larger stature sporting a T-shirt with the slogan ‘WE DO BIG SIZES!’ and a model wearing a top with a wooden block attached to the chest featuring the carved words ‘personalised cheese boards’.

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A highlight was a woman wearing two dart boards as a hat and necklace, a rug that could have come straight off a pub floor as a skirt, finished with a trail of bunting.

Finally, Stefan Cooke, a brand which only set up last year after its namesake and his partner Jake Burt graduated from Central Saint Martins, used photographs of items sourced from eBay as the basis of the collection, including jeans, a leather jacket and a mohair jumper.

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To this end, digital prints gave the illusion of denim and knitted skinny trousers, while slim-fit tops featured a snake effect. The knitwear - a collaboration with Kate Brittain - appeared as deconstructed cricket jumpers which were actually made from individual diamond-shaped panels sewn together.

Judging by the enthusiastic response of the fashion editors in the audience, this is certainly brand that fulfils MAN’s ethos perfectly, and is one to watch for the future.

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