Words: Eilidh Duffy
“The weather’s wrong,” Cecile Tulkens laments over the phone. We were catching up last Tuesday morning, which was, indeed, depressingly cold and wet. I agree with her as I swaddle myself in a hoodie and ginormous scarf. “It’s the Spring-Summer collection, so I’m making all this linen knitwear and cotton outerwear. It’s a ‘Yeah got my jumper on, because that’s all you need!’ kind of thing.”
Shown at twos last Friday evening, the collection, titled ‘A Dream of John Ball’, takes its name from the William Morris short story of the same name, in which the protagonist falls asleep only to be taken back to the peasant’s revolt of 1381 when an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 peasants marched to London and demanded an end to serfdom. It was unsuccessful, and set abolition back another 200 years.
“This young man from Victorian England ends up having a conversation with one of the leaders of the peasant revolt,” Cecile explains. This was John Ball, a priest from Essex who was hanged, drawn, and then quartered for his challenge to the crown. “He is explaining the concept of modern capitalism to Ball, who then is like, ‘Oh, surely nobody’s happy’,” she continues, “and I guess that really resonates in terms of how we all feel now.”
Cecile seems particularly attuned to the atmosphere – and not just the dreich summer weather. ‘A Dream of John Ball’ is a collection that she’s made while thinking about how we all feel right now, particularly how squeezed our generation is, financially and politically.
As if by some strange perverted allegorical twist of fate, the day we spoke, riots broke out in Belfast that turned into racist pogroms during which Loyalist youths attempted to burn non-white people out of their homes, and on the day of the show, four young people who took direct action against Elbit Systems were sentenced as ‘terrorists’ through a grim sleight of hand by the UK government and English justice system.
A cohesive identity in left-wing, anti-imperialist English radicalism is sort of over now. At least that which can be found in the figures of William Morris or the Diggers or the Levellers or indeed John Ball himself. “The lost Anglo-Saxon ‘utopia’ has been made to disappear,” cultural studies legend John Clarke opined on this great podcast about his new book, The Battle for Britain, I was listening to shortly after speaking to Cecile last week. “People [are mobilising] for different versions of what they think Englishness to be.”
So yes, at the moment these romantic figures of English radicalism such as John Ball feel particularly appealing – and particularly now.
“Fashion is so emotional, so process driven, that thinking about something political and how it comes out, it’s not didactic,” she explains, “it’s like an oily soup version of all that thinking.” If there is any notion of politics to be found in the collection, though, it’s a sense of liberation. Clothes that, as she explains, carry “a level of romanticism”, a type of vibe that she describes as “grandma’s handbag – a freedom in the textiles, because you’re not actually trying to keep anybody warm.”
Cecile’s version of ‘Englishness’? “I guess it came out a little crusty free rave,” she laughs. The harsh aniline dyes of the madras cotton shorts and blue perforated suede bomber; the bootleg Westwood orb leggings (“she took it from Harris Tweed so I’m just continuing the cycle!”); and those svelte knits in light, airy linens. It all felt particularly hot and free and seemed to want to rupture the surface of things.
The day of the show, the sun finally broke through a near two-week bank of rainclouds, and as it drew to a close, Liam Casey’s soundtrack phased into Dunstan Bruce’s strident tone bashing out his 2024 song F***ING EXPENSIVE whose lyrics lament the price of living in late capitalism. “COCAINE (FUCKING EXPENSIVE), FREEDOM (FUCKING EXPENSIVE), FREE SPEECH (FUCKING EXPENSIVE), IDEAS (FUCKING EXPENSIVE),” he shouts in a distinctive Northern twang.
Someone, in hushed tones, whispered to the person next to them, “Cecile Tulkens, fucking expensive…” It brought the few who could hear it back to the reality of fashion in 2026. Clothes can indeed speak to something inherently subversive, but designers still need to work out how to pay the rent.
Read on for Cecile’s recommended books to get you through this working week and a rare glimpse into how one of the very complex and impressive knitted pieces came to be ✪
After the show, I wanted to give some insight to the more process based things we get up to in the studio, so here is the process behind the ‘Ikat’ knitted chemise.
‘A Dream of John Ball’ is all about misplaced nostalgia, or longing for a pastoral past that perhaps never actually existed.
For me, scrambling a ‘pastoral scene’, making it like a Jean-Antoine Watteau painting on acid, would discuss this a bit. There’s a romance to it, like being driven in a fast, expensive car down a country lane by your boyfriend.
We took very fine knitted cotton yarn and painted it with dyes.
Then unwound the painted knit, and reknitted into the same shape.
Our textile experiment then needed a vessel – and what better than the Swedish military thermal I got from bog itself!!
Here are the cut pieces.
And here is the finished piece!
I am unfortunately suffering from quite severe studio brain rot, however lovely Rosie sent me this incredible podcast by Blood Work on Afghan War Rugs. The section where grenades and pomegranates blur really speaks to the hard-to-pin-down nature of textiles and their shifting meanings.
Thinking a lot about building, homes, rooms as complete alternative universes. I got this book from Anna about Woodstock’s self-built homes, and also plan to go see Cosmic House and Eltham Palace as soon as possible too.
I also got a new book called Working Hands which is about what people do all day and how they feel about it. It’s from the 1970s and spans loads of different jobs from steelwork and call centre labourers to sex workers. Nice to read about people complaining.
I’m also now officially converted to instant coffee and would highly recommend it to those anxious and hardworking nighttime people ;) Nescafé gold with milk in the morning then a short espresso style one for a 9pm emergency.
Show credits
Styling: Max Permain
Casting: Piotr Chamier Casting
Hair: Tasos Constantinou
Jewellery: CC Steding
Music: Liam Casey
Studio team: Aeyesha Cundy, Faye Simister, Zoe Noble, Calantha Gerrard, Flint J McDonald, Jeanine Richards, Steph Linn, Carla Barwick & Oonagh Phipp
Special thanks: twos & Josh Cook, Alan Gaynor, Anna Howard, Joe Skilton, Rosie Woodhouse, Alfie Dyson & Sam Thompson
Ciao for now!
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