Watch the runway show for Genaro Rivas AW26 ‘A Glass to Break’ at London Fashion Week
Genaro Rivas AW26 ‘A Glass to Break’ Runway Show highlight video
In a powerful meditation on fragmentation, resilience, and the courage to break through invisible barriers, Young Creators Award Winner Genaro Rivas (Vogue Business x Visa) unveils ‘A Glass to Break’. His most daring collection to date will debut on the 22nd February at 19:00pm, as part of the official London Fashion Week evening schedule.
The genesis of A Glass to Break began with two quiet yet striking moments in Berlin: a photograph of a glass pane marked by a bullet impact, and, weeks later, shattered glass discovered on the ground during a walk with his astrologer. These images became enduring metaphors for Rivas’ own journey: a self‑taught designer navigating an industry shaped by invisible barriers. From those fragments emerged a vision not of destruction, but of reconstruction, a fashion language built from rupture, healing, and strength.
The collection consists of 26 predominantly womenswear looks, with selected menswear silhouettes, exploring the act of rebuilding from what has been broken. Exaggerated tailoring introduces architectural silhouettes, while deconstructed garments are reassembled with intention and technical precision. Sleeves extend dramatically, proportions elongate, and jackets reveal bursts of fabric that emerge like wounds making it emotional and structural at once. The palette is stark and evocative: deep blacks, slate greys, luminous silvers, and sharp accents of red that cut through the darkness like flashes of exposed emotion. Materials are central to the narrative. Printed silks, mohair and denim are combined with innovative textiles developed in collaboration with forward-thinking biomaterial partners including Ponda, Savian by BioFluff and Banofi.
Ponda, a pioneering biomaterials company, creates regenerative textiles made from plants that actively help restore wetlands. Their innovative approach to supply chains and plant-based insulation materials, including BioPuff® wadding, reinforces the collection’s dialogue between regeneration and design.Ponda Insulation was present throughout the collection, in lightweight pieces as well as padded jackets. These padded jackets combine reclaimed ocean-sourced nylon, insulated from Ponda, and plant-based bio fur engineered by Savian by BioFluff.
Several sculptural dresses crafted in Banofi’s plant-based leather alternative push the boundaries between sustainability and avant-garde design, challenging traditional perceptions of luxury materials The Plant-Based Leather developed by Banofi also features in accessories and select hand-crafted garments, extending the texture innovation of the collection. A fur coat made entirely from plant based fibres debuts on a London Fashion Runway, in collaboration with Paris and New York based material science company BioFluff, their plant based fur, Savian c features in six looks, including a coat
worn by influencer Gigi North, further expanding the presence of next-generation fur alternatives on the runway.
Hand craftsmanship is present from intricate closures and acrylic detailing to the introduction of accessories for the first time in the designer’s runway. All headpieces were developed by Roberta Cucuzza, some of which integrated biomaterials, adding sculptural warmth to the structural language of the collection. Sustainable denim experimentation also appears throughout, emphasizing a
commitment to responsible textile development.
The aesthetic navigates a space between beauty and force, delicacy and rawness, classicism and modern rebellion. Hair direction by Richard Philipart and lead makeup by Manuel de Castro amplify the emotional intensity of the silhouettes. For the first time, headpieces co-designed by Genaro and milliner Roberta Cucuzza, all handcrafted by Roberta , crown the looks, sculptural extensions of the collection’s shattered‑yet‑rising spirit.
‘A Glass to Break’ is a defiant collision of light and dark, a collection that doesn’t just acknowledge the glass ceiling but dares to shatter it.
Catwalk Image credit: Willy Wee @millyywee
