In recent seasons, fashion has become increasingly preoccupied with explanation. Collections arrive freighted with language before the clothes have a chance to exist on their own terms, accompanied by manifestos, mood boards, and conceptual frameworks that often feel more polished than some of the garments themselves. The expectation is not simply that a designer show work, but that they justify it in advance, situating every silhouette within a clearly articulated thesis.
Alexander Nicholson works differently. His collection, Naked & Fearless, presented for the FW25 TOFW offering by RCHIVE, reflects a practice rooted less in declaration than in accumulation. His work does not begin with abstraction or narrative. It begins with making, with fabric, construction, proportion, and repetition. Meaning, in his work, is not declared at the outset but allowed to surface through coherence, through the gradual alignment of materials, shapes, and instincts returned to again and again. Nicholson is a technical, kinesthetic designer, one whose thinking happens through the body and through fabric rather than above it.
That sensibility is not retroactively imposed. It is how he arrived at fashion in the first place. Nicholson traces his beginnings back to high school, where he began making clothes without much sense of where it might lead. “I just started making stuff for myself, clothes for my friends, and it slowly progressed,” he tells me. “I learned through trial and error, just doing.” The impulse, he explains, was not initially about fashion at all. “I don’t think it was as much about fashion as it was finding a creative outlet. I’ve always liked doing things with my hands.”
Even when Nicholson later enrolled in the fashion management program at Humber College in Toronto, he is careful to distinguish institutional knowledge from design practice. “I went to school for fashion management, but I didn’t go to school for design,” he says. “All of the design stuff I taught myself over the years.” The program, he explains, functioned largely as a business overview tied to fashion. The result is a designer whose technical vocabulary is self-assembled, developed incrementally through repetition, error, and persistence. “A lot of errors,” he adds. “A lot of figuring it out.”
That background produces a different relationship to structure than many designers trained within concept-first systems. Nicholson prefers to engage the process in the act of making itself. When he began assembling what would become Naked & Fearless, that logic held. The collection did not begin with a concept document or a look-by-look plan. It began late, under time pressure, and grew outward from pieces he felt compelled to make. “When I put together a collection, it wasn’t as thought out as you might think,” he says. “I didn’t sit down and say, ‘Here’s an idea, let me sketch out looks.’ I just kept making pieces.” He started the collection in late August, leaving little time for extended reflection. “I would make things without even thinking,” he tells me, “and then finally piece everything together.”
On the runway, that process translates into garments that feel resolutely physical. Utility jackets with exaggerated shoulders are layered over hooded sweatshirts and padded vests. Bombers sit above loose, low-slung trousers that pool slightly over heavy footwear. Cargo pockets, exposed fastenings, and reinforced seams recur throughout, grounding the collection in workwear and outdoor references. The clothes appear built to absorb movement, built to withstand harsh canadian winters, and above all are built to be worn.
What could easily have resulted in fragmentation instead produces a collection with a strong internal logic. That coherence does not come from narrative unity but from repetition. Certain materials reappear. Certain silhouettes recur. Proportion becomes a throughline. When asked whether the collection has an underlying theme, Nicholson resists the idea of a single unifying concept while acknowledging that personal references inevitably surface. “There are definitely themes,” he tells me. “But it’s not one thing where everything ties together.”
Some of those references are geographic. Nicholson speaks about his hometown of Bolton, Ontario, about tractor pull events and their graphics, about the visual culture of small-town environments that rarely make their way into fashion discourse. “A lot of it is my hometown stuff,” he says. “Bolton’s a small town outside of Toronto. We have tractor pull events. That’s a whole thing.” Others are tied to heritage. A Union Jack appears as a nod to his British background, not as a grand symbolic gesture but as an embedded marker of identity. Beyond that, his focus remains resolutely formal. “Other than that,” he adds, “it’s just silhouettes I find interesting. Shapes I find interesting.”
That emphasis on form over explanation carries through to the material language of Naked & Fearless. One of the most recognizable elements of Nicholson’s work is his ongoing development of a ghillie-like fabrication, inspired by hunting suits and camouflage gear. It appears across multiple looks and has been part of his practice for several seasons. “That’s something I started early on and just kept working with,” he explains. The material disrupts the outline of the body, trailing and catching light as the wearer moves, amplifying motion while resisting clean silhouette.
Silhouette functions as another anchor. Broad shoulders and oversized collars dominate the upper body, while menswear bottoms skew loose and grounded. Nicholson also pushes into less familiar territory with the womenswear, experimenting with tighter tops and more fluid shapes. “That’s a bit out of my comfort zone,” he admits. Fabric selection, too, becomes a point of recognition. “People see the camo and recognize it,” he says. “I think that’s becoming part of the identity.”
If the collection feels grounded rather than theoretical, it is in part because Nicholson designs with bodies and personalities in mind rather than abstractions. This becomes especially clear in the tracksuit look that plays with the visual language of Adidas and knockoff culture. While the reference carries a sense of irony, its origin is practical and personal. “I’ve always liked knockoff stuff,” Nicholson says. “When I was younger I bought a lot of knockoffs.” The tracksuit itself was designed for one of his closest friends, whose presence shaped the garment. “Instead of finding a model to fit the outfit,” he explains, “I made the outfit for him.”
This attention to the individual wearer gives Naked & Fearless a sense of wearability even at its most exaggerated. Many of the garments feel built to be lived in rather than merely observed. That balance carries through to the finale, which functions less as a conceptual conclusion than as an affective crescendo. The final look pairs a sculptural, hooded upper body with a voluminous skirt constructed from layered ghillie-style fabric, its uneven strands dragging and pooling as the model moves down the runway. Built just days before the show, the garment was developed in direct response to the music composed by Nicholson’s collaborator Sofiacide. “I just wanted a showstopper,” he tells me. “I needed something that went with that moment in the music. I needed something that looked like how that sounded.”
The hood, Nicholson says, is loosely inspired by the Peashooter character from Plants vs. Zombies. The reference is casual, even humorous, but it underscores a broader truth about his process. Influences are not filtered through hierarchy. They are absorbed intuitively and translated materially. “I just wanted people to feel something at the end of the show,” he says.
That emphasis on affect over interpretation runs throughout Nicholson’s approach to runway. “Runway shows are fifty percent the clothes,” he tells me, “but the atmosphere is really important.” Music, pacing, and mood operate alongside the garments rather than in service of a concept. Working with stylist Biba Esaad for the first time in a fully collaborative capacity helped sharpen that vision. By the time styling began, the collection was largely complete, allowing the collaboration to function as interpretation rather than correction.
Despite the scale of the show, Nicholson remains pragmatic about his position within the industry. He has shown twice with RCHIVE and speaks positively about the platform’s support. Much of the work remains self-funded, balanced alongside a full-time job. “If I had more money, I could do more,” he says plainly. “But I don’t think my struggles are different from anyone else doing this on their own.”
Looking ahead, Nicholson is thinking carefully about growth. He is interested in showing outside of Toronto to extend the life of his collections. He is also grappling with how to sell without diluting the project. Made-to-order models and selective releases feel like a natural next step. “The runway draws people in,” he says. “Then the other pieces are what keep it going.”
When asked to describe the ethos of his work, Nicholson hesitates. Eventually, he offers a few words. “Authentic to me,” he says. “Powerful. And pushing.” Articulating his process, he admits, remains difficult. “It makes sense to me,” he tells me. “It’s hard to explain why I do this.”
Naked & Fearless does not attempt to resolve that tension. It does not arrive as a closed argument or a symbolic system to be decoded. It unfolds through repetition, intuition, and physical engagement, trusting that coherence will emerge through the act of making itself. In a fashion landscape increasingly preoccupied with explanation and pomp over integrity of construction and material, Nicholson’s work suggests another possibility. Fashion as practice rather than proclamation.
Cody Rooney is the Editor in Chief and senior contributor at liminul.
He is a PhD candidate, digital content specialist, writer, editor, multi-media artist, and photographer.