SC103 Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection

So. Many. Good. Pants. That’s one takeaway from SC103’s spring show, held in a rocky parking lot surrounded by corrugated metal walls topped with barbed wire in Brooklyn. Imposing on the outside, the mood was convivial within; pre-show, bags of popcorn and butterscotch candies were passed around to the crowd of hundreds; drinks were on offer afterwards. “When dreaming up this show we were thinking about the parking lots of festivals, carnivals, and rodeos. And unwinding in a calm open space after a long day,” wrote Claire McKinney and Sophie Andes-Gascon in an email exchange. “Bright lights set against the night sky reminded us of playing fields also. Just drifting in open spaces without a sense of time. Nothing better.”

The spring collection, created using silk and cotton, was a kind of idyll. McKinney said they had been “thinking about this sort of trance or sleepwalk style of being, this calm and kind of collected feeling,” and this was well communicated. Adding an element of frisson were the shoes, trial models all. There were “sandals covered and built up with leftover screen printed knits, lace-up sandals in exposed horsehair with cotton poplin lacing, and foil tape wrapped rope sandals in silver and gold. These last added a sort of intergalactic element to the proceedings, giving the rocky “terrain” a sort of lunar feeling. In fact the designers were exploring new territory. 

Without sacrificing any of their magic, Andes-Gascon and McKinney displayed a new maturity with this collection. Whereas in the past there was sometimes a hazy charm to their garments, a sense of clothes becoming whole before one’s eyes, for spring the borders here were more clearly defined, and this communicated a confidence that comes from experience. The models seemed similarly self-assured. “Over half of our cast was over 30,” McKinney noted, adding, “Sophie and I are both 32.” Aware that they are entering a “new chapter of our lives… we have been asking ourselves what our goals are outside of just the collection and how to merge that with what we want our lives to look like, what we want to contribute, and all of those things.” Self-determination suits them.

Opening the show like a full moon was a surprise—a relatively simple, all-white collarless long-sleeve shirt and a tiered skirt; this from designers who delight in color, silk-screening, and collage. “We were thinking about blank surfaces like drop cloths, sails and banners,” the designers explained. “These are all functional materials with simple yet powerful seams and hardware like grommets, often tethered together with rope.” The show continued with a white banded set in black sports mesh, a laced and grommeted tunic, and an asymmetric denim skirt and strapped matching top. There were stripes, both thin and wide, and their striation was mimicked in two shredded/fringey looks. 

Another recurring element were round drawstring cutouts, as on a brilliantly colored fuchsia dress that let the air in and created a breezy summer feeling that was reinforced by the soft lightness of the material which, like many pieces shown, had been washed and tumbled dry. “Our thinking about materials’ proximity to the body came through in garments that are very adjustable with channels, to leave air space and manipulate silhouette. Weather was a theme in general,” the designers wrote.

This spring collection demonstrated that comfort and chic can coexist. Of particular note was a butter yellow and licorice black silk chiffon dress with a vaguely ’20s air with appliques that were irregular but with a notably neat finish. Six years in, the designers are in a place where they can work more often and more closely with partners, which, noted Andes-Gascon, felt “like a better use of our brains rather than sewing robotically small runs of production.” This allows more time for experimentation and development in the brick-walled studio in Red Hook, a location that syncs with SC103’s independent approach to fashion. “We’ve stayed in our humble studio out in the corner of Brooklyn,” noted McKinney. “We’ve set up our own systems that feel right to us.” Hats off to them. As Shakespeare said, “to thine own self be true.”