FJU Talents 26 marks 10 years of Taiwanese design at London Fashion Week

FJU Talents will mark its 10th anniversary at London Fashion Week on Saturday 19 September 2026 with a showcase at Fashion Scout in East London. Presented by the Department of Textiles and Clothing at Fu Jen Catholic University, the programme will introduce four emerging Taiwanese designers while revisiting selected work from alumni who have taken part over the past decade. The presentation begins at 3pm at 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY.

Since its launch, FJU Talents has created an international platform for emerging designers from Taiwan to develop their practice and present their work in London. The 2026 edition looks back at that history while placing a new generation at the centre of the anniversary showcase.

This year’s designers are Min-Hsin Yu, YUI Kao, Alison Lai and Ting Hsuan Chang. Although their approaches differ, each uses fashion or textiles to examine questions around identity, desire, belief and the body.

Four designers shape the 2026 showcase

Min-Hsin Yu, a Textile Design graduate from Fu Jen Catholic University, draws on the contrasting sunsets of Earth and Mars. Hand crochet and ribbon yarns translate changing light into layered surfaces, where orange-red tones meet deep blues. The collection uses colour and texture to examine individuality as something constantly shifting rather than fixed.

Fashion Design graduate YUI Kao takes a very different direction with Impulse Lover. The collection explores self-presentation and desire in contemporary romance, imagining lovers as products packaged to attract attention. Oversized genderless silhouettes and cord corsets reshape familiar body codes, while Taiwanese snack packaging, heart-shaped charms and vivid red tulle introduce humour and visual excess.

Alison Lai returns to FJU Talents after first joining the platform in 2019. She founded her label, (She)nanigans, in 2024. Her latest collection examines patriarchal structures and the female body through a woman’s perspective. References to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks appear through deconstructed tailoring, distorted black-and-white stripes and vivid red, creating tension between restraint and desire.

Meanwhile, Ting Hsuan Chang presents Cochlea, which takes parasitised snails as a starting point. The Textile Design graduate builds an imagined religion through ritualistic silhouettes and inverse-rib knit structures. Distorted optical textures and sacred imagery become tools for questioning collective belief, control, free will and individual consciousness.

A decade of Taiwanese fashion talent

The anniversary presentation also looks beyond the current cohort. FJU Talents will revisit designers who have passed through the platform and show how their practices have developed after their time at Fu Jen Catholic University.

Alison Lai’s earlier work includes Komorebi in Bloom, inspired by Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. Through photography, print and Lumen Print techniques, the collection explores the fleeting effect of sunlight filtering through foliage.

Xiaomo Chen, selected for FJU Talents in 2020, later continued her studies at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her project Situated Knowledge uses post-humanist ideas to examine boundaries between human and object, physical and virtual reality, and the role of perspective in shaping identity.

Zong Xing Liao, part of FJU Talents 2021, draws on Eastern Zen philosophy and karesansui in Silence Mode. Minimal silhouettes, subtle detailing and a restrained greyscale palette reflect themes of time, change and contemplation.

The retrospective also includes Timmy Chou, whose Embers collection references Indigenous culture and the image of families gathering around a fire. Traditional tribal dress informs fluid silhouettes and the relationship between fabric and body.

Shun An Chen, selected in 2024, explored individuality and resistance in Black Sheep, a project shaped by an era of pandemics, conflict and disaster. The work considers those who challenge social convention and seek greater personal freedom.

Chihwen Kuo, selected in 2025, specialises in knitwear and textile design and now runs his own studio and yarn brand, Wayne Knitted. His work uses knitting and knotting to create tactile structures where each stitch becomes a record of memory, time and accumulation.

Ten years after its launch, FJU Talents continues to use London as a meeting point between emerging Taiwanese designers and the wider international fashion community. The 2026 showcase combines that history with a new group of designers whose work spans textile experimentation, genderless fashion, conceptual tailoring and knitwear.