“Wouldn’t it be interesting if the neighbors recognized me?” asks Saul Nash when we speak a few days before his photograph becomes plastered on billboards across London.
Nash and a number of his collaborators appear in his eponymous brand’s Fall/Winter 2026 campaign, photographed by Laura McCluskey for their partnership with billboard company Build Hollywood.
The designer grew up in Hackney, which accounts for 13 of the 37 billboard sites erected on Monday morning. The London borough is also where the campaign images were shot. “It’s almost like we’re putting Hackney on a billboard,” muses Nash.
It’s all part of Build Hollywood’s Your Space Or Mine initiative, which, according to their website, is built to give artists and creatives a platform on the street. “We believe the street is one of the most important spaces for culture — a place where ideas can be seen, shared and experienced by all.
The fashion strand of the program gives us an opportunity to champion exceptional young designers and bring their work into that space, giving them the scale and visibility they deserve,” said Khaly Nguyen, marketing director at Build Hollywood.
It took almost two years of back-and-forth emails to make the partnership happen, but for Nash, it was worth it: “Build Hollywood doesn’t just give you advertising space; they really respect the artistry of what you are doing,” he says.
“Saul Nash is redefining what fashion can be, bringing movement, music, and culture together with a point of view that is unmistakably his own,” adds Nguyen. “He represents a generation of designers who are challenging where fashion belongs, who it speaks to, and how people experience it. We’re excited to see what happens when Saul’s world takes over the streets across the UK.”
“A billboard is a chance to capture new people who might not necessarily know your world — as opposed to, let’s say, a brand’s Instagram, where people land only if they are already interested in this space,” continues Nash. “I found it a very useful exercise to think: ‘If somebody’s never heard of your brand, what’s the one essence that you want them to take away from what they see?’”
The moment feels particularly special because the brand hasn’t activated in London for a while. After about five years of presenting his collections during London Fashion Week, Nash moved the brand’s shows to Milan Men’s in January 2025. That transition is reflected in his design language, which over the last few seasons has evolved from pure sportswear, informed by Nash’s experience as a choreographer and dancer, towards something a little more tailored.
“Previously we were focused on technical garments cut for movement, but we’ve now gone beyond that. We are looking at suiting and more formal options,” he explains.
“It’s always through the lens of movement, but I felt it’s important to spread the message that the clothing we create is not only for dancers. We came up with a new tagline, “Designed for the body in motion”, and we felt this campaign would be a great moment to introduce people to it.”
Nash and his team are punctuating the billboard moment with a three-day pop-up at Dray Walk Gallery (Truman Brewery) in London’s Shoreditch from September 18-20. Pieces from the FW26 collection will be available to shop first, ahead of the global online launch the following week. Mood boards, sketches and other elements of the design process will be on display.
The pop-up is titled ‘Masquerade in Residence’, after the fall collection’s theme, which was conceived at last year’s Notting Hill Carnival. It’s there that Nash “experienced masquerade as a story” and began looking at the concept of masquerade through history.
“The collection kind of uses that as a starting point to look at how we construct our identities today,” he adds. A panel talk on that subject will also take place in the pop-up, open to anyone who subscribes to the brand’s mailing list.
Says Nash: “The pop-up is an opportunity to step inside our world. A lot of what people see from us is often online or within retailers — other people’s spaces. This is an opportunity for us to actually be in an environment that fully represents us as a brand. It’s three days for people who follow the brand to come and experience our universe.”
How are they going to measure the success of the entire campaign? “We will know it worked if people sign up to our mailing list,” answers Nash. “But to me, what’s important is that this campaign will reach people who have never heard of the brand. If I ask my auntie to go down the street and look at the billboard, what does she think about it?”
Something tells me she and the neighbors will be very proud.