Jawara Alleyne

Jawara Alleyne is a London-based fashion designer and artist, born in Jamaica and raised in the Cayman Islands. He moved to Britain to study fashion, completing a BA at London College of Fashion in 2016 and an MA in Fashion menswear at Central Saint Martins in 2020. In 2017 he co-founded the inclusive casting and modelling platform Nii Agency with photographer Campbell Addy.

Alleyne established his independent practice in London in 2020 and joined Fashion East for Autumn/Winter 2021, showing through the programme until Spring/Summer 2023. He subsequently developed the label through independent London Fashion Week presentations, bespoke work and collaborations. In 2024 he introduced Untitled, a made-to-order service built around reuse and closer client relationships, while also returning to Central Saint Martins as a lecturer. His label remained active on the London schedule through the Spring/Summer 2026 season.

Alleyne treats clothing as something that can be reconfigured rather than fixed. Draping, knotting, slashing and safety-pinning replace conventional seams or pattern-cutting logic, allowing jersey, denim, deadstock garments and found materials to gather directly around the body. The unfinished appearance is purposeful: exposed joins and improvised fastenings show how a garment has been transformed and leave open the possibility of further change.

Caribbean history, island life and self-authored identity provide the narrative ground for this construction. Alleyne has spoken about addressing Caribbean communities rather than merely using the region as an image, and his collections draw on figures such as pirates, sirens, carnival revellers and displaced travellers without treating them as costume. Reuse is both practical and conceptual, linking childhood habits of altering second-hand clothes to a broader circular practice. The result is a fluid approach to gender and dress in which memory, survival and invention remain visible in the making.