Leo Prothmann AW26

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Feb 24

First Thoughts: Leo Prothmann’s CABAÑA is the Future of the All-Gender Uniform

Leo Prothmann’s Autumn / Winter 2026 collection arrives at a pivotal juncture. Staged once again at the Mandrake in Mayfair, but this time as his first official inclusion on the London Fashion Week calendar, CABAÑA tests not just his growing platform, but also the tensile strength of his entire proposition: a label caught between culture and commerce, built on sculptural leather and cult intimacy in our current economic climate.

Prothmann’s design practice has long revolved around engineered curvature: his signature shoulder, precise and architectural, anchoring the pieces as they hold their outline before relaxing into movement. Speaking to Leo after the show, he notes that these more modular constructions akin to cages don’t make up the brand’s primary product lines. His design process typically starts instead with evolving the accessories and pret-a-porter garments that underpin his collections with larger commercial appeal. This season, that logic extended to his more indulgent creations: quilted parkas reinforced with internal boning and leatherwork built from upholstery-grade hides typically reserved for interiors for their durability.

For emerging designers built on craft-intensive processes, scaling can introduce a paradox. The same hand-made intricacies that generate cultural credibility can also limit production and accessibility. London’s fashion scene is especially renowned for putting concept before infrastructure but here, the infrastructure is the concept. Working with leather sourced from by-product suppliers and invasive fish species taken out of fragile ecosystems, the brand’s material experimentation is made more sustainable with a measurable environmental strategy. This is the kind of pragmatism that makes Leo Prothmann stand out from the herd. A notable collaboration with Dr. Martens reworks the Jadon boot into a waterproof hiking silhouette, grounding the collection in a globally recognised product category. Similarly, this collection also saw Prothmann develop a limited-edition pair of resin-based sunglasses with British eyewear manufacturer Cubitts, adding to the list of entry points beyond his high-ticket leather outerwear, building a brand community through accessible price architecture as well as ideology.

Speaking of community, the world of Leo Prothmann appears to remain intimate amidst its expansion: London-based jeweller Ollivion’s sculptural designs made another appearance this season, as did stylist Edda Gudmundsdottir who reframed the colour palette instinctively, reinforcing a modular ecosystem rather than a top-down auteur model. Much like this tight-knit crew, Prothmann’s work has always been rooted in concepts of shelter. Not only in the literal sense of protective garments but also in the psychological one. With CABAÑA, he draws from the visual and material memory of mountain cabins, avoiding the trap of rustic escapism to touch on themes of refuge: desaturated earthy pigments reminiscent of weathered walls, silhouettes that expand outward like protective structures and leather shells fit for a life lived between indoors and wilderness. By grounding technical rigour and design mythology within a network of partners spanning footwear, eyewear and academia, CABAÑA ultimately proposes that with solid architecture, intimacy can scale. In doing so, Prothmann positions his studio not only as a leather specialist, but as a major contender in the evolving market for accessible, gender-inclusive, longevity-driven luxury.