The rising style stars of 2026: Oscar Ouyang is taking knitwear into new realms

Knitwear carries with it a lineage of centuries-old traditions. Some are so ingrained that sweet geometric patterns or gridded cream cables are recognisable, even to the uninitiated, as belonging to Scotland’s Fair Isle or the rocky Irish islands of Aran. But a new school of knitwear designers is taking the craft into wonderfully unruly new realms. Among them is Oscar Ouyang, a Beijing-born Central Saint Martins graduate who made his fashion week debut last September. Merging inspirations from anime, medieval folklore and his friends’ wardrobes, his designs brim with a mystic kind of life, his experimental shapes – hand-spooled yak wool in wonky configurations, armour-structured weaves in Donegal yarns – unravelling expectations.

The rising style stars of 2026: Oscar Ouyang’s unruly, imaginative knitwear

Ouyang’s emotional and technically ambitious runway debut, at London’s 180 Strand, was inspired by messenger birds including owls, doves and eagles. It saw the designer’s grungy codes uplifted for the warmer months, with feathers salvaged from the meat industry festooned on honeycomb-weave short shorts and soft beanies, while fantastical explorations into traditional materials such as linen allowed skin to breathe. ‘But it was way more than just the clothes at the end of the day,’ Ouyang says of the display, for which he personally hand-folded hundreds of origami birds that scattered the floor. ‘It’s a whole experience you’re creating. Backstage, I hadn’t been so nervous since my MA show.’

In the months since the show’s high, Ouyang’s focus has sobered somewhat, shifting to clothes people can more feasibly wear. ‘Fit is something that young designers sometimes forget,’ he says. ‘Clothes are for real people. You have to think about the body type you’re dressing, how garments sit and how they move.’ The shift clicked during a recent trip to Milan, where time with factories and more seasoned designers set a study of garment construction and soft tailoring underway – groundwork for a more grown-up chapter of the brand.

Of how he’ll put a new spin on established codes, Ouyang teases only the broad strokes, stating his next show will imagine a wild house party set in the British countryside. But, while he might be plotting a riotous knees-up for his next display, his most important focus for 2026 is steadying life in his Shoreditch studio. ‘I’m learning to manage a team,’ he says. ‘It’s about balancing everything – the crazy ideas side, the product sheets, the production. I want to turn this into a proper business, something that lasts.’

@oscarouyang.official

A version of this article appears in the January 2026 Next Generation Issue, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today