Like many good tales, Antony Value and Marco Capaldo’s story begins at a celebration. It was 2019, and legendary octogenarian dressmaker Value – famed for shaping the visible identities of Roxy Music and Duran Duran – approached the 16Arlington designer and his late accomplice in life and work, Federica ‘Kikka’ Cavenati, to share a couple of heat phrases of encouragement. ‘We had simply began,’ remembers Capaldo, taking an extended drag of a Vogue cigarette in his east London studio. ‘He shared his love for the concepts of intercourse and glamour we had explored in these few seasons, and simply form of mentioned, “Preserve at it”.’
Within the years since, 16Arlington has turn out to be certainly one of London’s most distinctive unbiased manufacturers, its after-dark sensuality embodied by the it-girls and creatives who clad themselves in its sultry shapes on purple carpets and in nightclubs. By no means forgetting their first assembly, Capaldo obtained again in contact with Value simply over a yr in the past, after discovering a classic robe made by the designer that had belonged to Cavanti. She had sourced the piece to put on as maid of honour at her finest pal’s wedding ceremony simply earlier than passing away (the designer died in 2021, aged simply 28). ‘I reached out to Antony and mentioned, “I’d love to attach”,’ he says. ‘He emailed me again and mentioned, “Name me tonight at 8pm.” And that was it. That first night time, we had been on the cellphone until 4 within the morning.’
(Picture credit score: Felix Cooper)
Whereas generations aside, the 2 designers’ connection makes good sense. Each have constructed careers round concepts of glamour, extra and wonder. A designer’s designer – deeply revered throughout the business however much less broadly identified exterior it – Value’s profession is the stuff of star-strewn legend. He dressed David Bowie and Duran Duran, collaborated intently with Philip Treacy, and have become so instrumental to the aesthetic of Roxy Music that he was coined the band’s ‘invisible member’. His unrestrained work anticipated the louche, shoulder-padded, corseted silhouettes that will come to outline the Nineteen Eighties, and as we speak Value stands as one of many period’s nice architects of glamour. Many years later, Capaldo’s work at 16Arlington equally impresses its personal concepts of meticulously crafted, nocturnal dressing, with its personal neighborhood of figures on the coronary heart of its universe, from Adwoa Aboah to Lara Stone.
Yesterday night (17 November 2025), the pair unveiled the product of their unlikely inter-generational friendship, a particular assortment they’ve been engaged on collectively over the previous 12 months. The intimate one-off show was held inside 16Arlington’s Hoxton studio, and was dropped at life by 16 personalities in Capaldo’s orbit, together with Lily Allen, Aboah and Lila Moss. Unfolding much less like a conventional runway and extra like a woozy Nineteen Seventies salon, it was every part one would think about from the mixing of their worlds. Permitting visitors to absorb the designs up shut, their ‘fashions’ slunk by way of the room in a sequence of night robes reduce in midnight black velvet, chiffon, kink-leaning leather-based, and trompe-l’oeil animalier, rendered with an opulent consideration to craft – crystal-encrusted, feather-strewn and exquisitely sculpted to the physique. It was, after all, a research of glamour – treating it as greater than a sense, however a pressure that defies time, beguiles onlookers, and permits the wearer to turn out to be their most magnetic self.
(Picture credit score: Felix Cooper)
The pair began by delving into Value’s archives alongside the assistance of author and collector Alexander Fury. Amongst pleated lamé robes worn by Paula Yates, Swarovski-covered sculpted busts made for Philip Treacy, and a jacket for Bryan Ferry crafted from girls’s underwear, a theme amongst these treasures was Value’s reward for development. ‘One thing that basically caught out within the course of with Antony is the way in which he references the physique,’ says Capaldo. ‘He talks loads about creating the heavenly physique by way of clothes. Should you had been to take the linings out of a few of these items, simply seeing the element and the padding that has gone into the inners of those clothes is basically unimaginable – they’re like sculptures. To form of be up shut and private with these items was wonderful. The truth that they’re nonetheless right here and in good situation is a testomony to Antony’s work.’
When it got here to designing the brand new assortment, the method unfolded collaboratively over the months, with silhouettes coming into focus one after the other. ‘We actually centered on sculpting the physique, whether or not that is with the jackets or the attire,’ says Capaldo. ‘We’ve a couple of coats, that are actually unimaginable as a result of they’ve gown waist measurements on a bit of outerwear. Antony’s actually allowed me to go together with it within the sense of trusting what I really feel is correct for as we speak, while permitting us to totally discover his penmanship and apply that to the gathering. There are items of his that I’ve reinterpreted. There are items of mine that he is reinterpreted. I say this with hand on coronary heart, there hasn’t been a single second we’ve butted heads. It’s been wonderful.’
(Picture credit score: Felix Cooper)
Capaldo knew he wished to do one thing particular for the present. It is one thing he’s gained a aptitude for now, after stepping away from the style week calendar in favour of extra private occasions (for A/W 2025, he hosted a candlelit dinner at Almine Rech gallery, which was reworked for the night with an exhibition of Nineteen Eighties-reminiscent studio images by Ethan James Inexperienced). Final night time’s presentation, nevertheless, felt private in a deeper method – not least of all as a result of it was staged within the model’s personal studio, the place the crew work every day. ‘We wished this present to be a very intimate affair,’ says Capaldo. ‘For individuals to have the ability to see the garments up shut, to expertise them within the partitions that they had been made in. Bringing it into the area provides that stage of grit, which is one thing that is so current in each mine and Antony’s work.’
Worn by a forged of characters who’ve impressed Capaldo personally and creatively, the impact was as meant – a celebration of their shared concepts of magnificence, individuality and craft. ‘Each Antony and I’ve been surrounded by these unimaginable people, those that stand for issues and have a voice, who’ve naturally formed and impressed our careers,’ says Capaldo. ‘Jerry Corridor was someone that was very near Antony and his journey. My model of Jerry is someone like Adwoa. I’ve actually relied on my neighborhood and my buddies to deliver the present collectively and produce this assortment to life.’
(Picture credit score: Felix Cooper)
It was additionally, after all, a heartwarming celebration of their friendship – and of style as a language highly effective sufficient to bridge generations. ‘I communicate to Antony daily and I’ve for the previous yr, for hours on finish,‘ says Capaldo on the finish of our name. ‘He is an exquisite man, so proficient, so unapologetically opinionated, who loves nothing greater than bringing glamour to life and remodeling individuals by way of garments.’ Engaged on the gathering with Value, the designer provides, has been one of the vital rewarding efforts of his profession. ‘I personally felt Antony by no means actually acquired his flowers,’ he says. ‘To have been capable of witness such a legend at work has most likely been one of the vital unimaginable and pivotal moments in my profession. It has been actually magical.’
Supply: Wallpaper
