Ashley Williams Lets Her Feelings Do the Talking

LONDON — If designer Ashley Williams was telling a story of shattered female naïveté last season — a woman facing the rage-inducing realization that adulthood is not, in fact, all that fairy tales and “Sex and the City” reruns cracked it up to be — then this season it’s all about peeling back her emotional armor.

So, what does vulnerability look like?

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In Williams’ world, it’s a colorful one, where strawberry ice cream pinks and banana pudding yellows of childhood sweets meet the minty greens and wan blues pulled from sterile hospitals and retirement homes.

Vulnerability is a personal theme for the designer, who had to take a few years off from designing after suddenly developing a chronic pain condition.

“I was really independent and not trusting of people,” she said. “But having a pain condition, where some days I won’t even be able to move or look after myself properly, forced me into accepting help and trusting other people.”

She channeled all her positive energy into her fall 2025 collection. The pieces include sweet drapey sweaters, pants and bodysuits dotted with prints straight from chintzy childhood blankets, as well as kittens cozied up together on a silk skirt.

Williams added a pretty pastel bathroom, perfect for a midday sob, printed on a T-shirt and floral patterned Korean toilet paper inspired miniskirts and cool slouchy dresses. The designer is an avid collector of cute toilet paper; she said her favorite roll was a pale pink quilted from Paris.

The brand has built its business off of designing clothes beloved by twentysomethings. But it was working with a trusted team, which included artist Claire Barrow, writer Biz Sherbert and assistant designer Phoebe Pendergast, that led Williams to describe this as her “truest, most authentic” collection yet.

“ Actually, as I’m talking, I have a single tear rolling down,” she said.

It’s hard to visually capture such an intangible feeling as vulnerability, and even more difficult to make it as desirable as Williams did.

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