In many ways, Macy Grimshaw is your typical gen Z Londoner. The 25-year-old lives in a house share in Hackney and arrives at her Broadsheet interview having been waylaid by a Lime bike with a flat tyre. But her achievements as a recent fashion graduate aren’t typical at all. “Everything blew up after I showed my bachelor’s collection in 2024,” she explains.
That collection had a highly personal theme. “It was about my grandmother and her Alzheimer’s. I used paper to represent all the photos of her life that my grandfather took. It’s such a fragile material, just like memories.”
After one of the looks went viral, Harry Lambert, influential stylist to Harry Styles and Emma Corrin among others, was one of the many people to get in touch. “Right before starting my MA I got an email asking me to do a custom piece for Emma,” she recalls. It was for Vogue Germany. “The power of Instagram changed my life!”
After she’d been brought into Lambert’s orbit, it wasn’t long before he came to her with another project – this time for Harry Styles – that would go on to define her so far short but stellar career. “I was asked to send concepts about eight months before the album [Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally] came out, and a cut-out look with tabs was chosen,” Grimshaw says. The “paper doll” outfit was used in Styles’s album artwork and, subsequently, dozens more appeared in interactive displays around the world to promote the record. “So many cute Harry fans would send me pictures of them with it,” she says fondly.
Born to a French mother and an English father in Hong Kong, Grimshaw discovered a love of fashion after modelling in shows at her international schools. “Okay,” she recalls thinking, “now I wanna be on the other side – not the one getting stabbed with a pin. I want to be the one doing the stabbing.”
By the age of 18 Grimshaw had designed several collections – “They’ll never see the light of day!” she jokes – which she used to apply to UK arts schools, including Central Saint Martins. “When I got in, I realised this school is a big deal.”
Coming to London “was a really big culture shock”, she admits. “But I’m super observant, so I got used to taking photos of details that other people miss. I’m always 100 metres away from my friends on the street taking pictures.” She channelled her experiences of the capital into her graduate collection, which debuted at 180 Strand in February for London Fashion Week – styled, naturally, by Lambert.
The first look from the line was a 3D-printed, barrel-shaped leather corset. Inspired by a close-up image of shop shutters, it featured a graffiti’d “M” that has now become Grimshaw’s logo. “It plays with people's perception of everyday details that go unnoticed but can be beautiful in a different context,” she says. That idea clearly resonated with Lola Young, who wore the piece to the 2026 Brit Awards. Actress Simone Ashley, model Paloma Elsesser and singer PinkPantheress have all since sported Grimshaw’s creations, which have also been on sale in Selfridges.
When we speak in the summer, she is the definition of booked and busy – simultaneously working on another string of (NDA-hushed) commissions for celebrities and big September editorials. Her schedule is so packed that she’s had to postpone this month’s planned London Fashion Week show to February. “I’m super last minute,” she laughs.
So what else is in Grimshaw’s sights now she's a bona fide designer? “Well, it’s still so surreal when I get requests for commissions, but I’d love to create customs for Zendaya or Bella Hadid. I’ve DMed her stylist,” she says. “But first I need to get a studio as I’m still working from my flat.”
This article originally appeared in issue 5 of Broadsheet London's print magazine. Find out where you can pick up a copy here.