King Charles' Collaboration with Edgy Fashion Brand Hits the Runway at London Fashion Week

Eco-campaigning fashion designers Vin + Omi's 20th anniversary fashion show will include a collection they worked on with the King

King Charles is making his mark on London Fashion Week.

Avant-garde outfits made from the weeds at royal residences will make their way down the catwalk on Sept. 13 at the Vin + Omi show as London Fashion Week kicks off with a retrospective of the brand's designs over the last two decades.

Using plant textiles painstakingly created from nettles, chestnuts, cow parsley, butterbur and flax salvaged from the compost heaps at Sandringham, Highgrove and the Castle of Mey, the brand's innovative and sustainable designs will form part of their retrospective 20th anniversary show. The collection will be modeled by Olympians, British TV personalities and American model Josie Stevens, to name a few.

While the edgy fashion duo and the King might seem like an unlikely combination, the three have become friendly over the course of the last five years and share a deep-rooted connection when it comes to protecting the environment, with the King not only providing resources but offering mentoring, too.

“Working with Charles is not like collaborating with anyone else,” co-founder Vin tells PEOPLE exclusively ahead of their hotly anticipated show at the aptly named Kensington Building in London. “We really listen to what he says, because he knows a million more things than we do. He’s leading the way.”

Quite literally, in fact, as the last time the designers saw the King, he was showing them around his Norfolk home, Sandringham Estate, where 26 Vin + Omi designs are currently on display as part of the exhibition, “Royal Garden Waste to Fashion’s Future.”

“We hadn’t seen it yet, so it was a first for the three of us, wandering around looking at each of the dresses. He really took time going 'round to each one,” says the designer, adding, “He wanted to touch them all, and we must have spent over an hour together looking at what we had done with all his waste plant materials. He was thrilled!”

Despite meeting him just two months after the monarch’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year, both Vin and Omi were delighted to find him doing well. “Even though he was recovering from his cancer scare, he was doing great," the designer says. "He was still walking around bouncy, agile and happy. It was a thrill to see him looking so joyful.”

It was after meeting the designers at an event hosted by the British Fashion Council in 2018 that Charles gave the pair an open invitation to rummage through his garden and see what they could find to turn into sustainable fabric. (At the time, they were researching cow parsley.) In the years since, there have been several collaborations, as well as many meetings and letters of support.

As for the King turning up at the Sept. 13 show, “I ask him every season," says Vin (who prefers to go by his first name). "He could surprise us, who knows!”

The designer adds, “We had the lovely gardener from Highgrove come one year, and she was so out of her comfort zone on the front row. She was sitting next to a woman who had a duvet over her head and just two eyeballs!"

The fashion pioneers have never sold their unique creations, which often end up acquired by museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. They rarely collaborate with other brands, but did make an exception for the King this summer.

“We designed a scarf for the Sandringham gift shop, which the King approved from a choice of three designs,” Vin reveals. “We looked at pictures of the late Queen’s scarves and decided it had to be floral and colorful.”

The scarf, which retailed for $112, has recently sold out.

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While they continue to educate the future generation about the impact of fast fashion on the environment, the designers know it’s a tough sell, much like it has been for the King for decades — but they always find a lightness to their chats with him.

“We are fighting our own battle the way Charles did, but he’s got such a sense of humor, which fits in perfectly with us," Vin says. "It’s always fun, but serious fun, if you know what I mean.”

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