New York — Sept. 15, 2025. Trapstar returned to New York with something sharper than nostalgia. The London label’s SS26 “Redline” show was conceived before tragedy and finished after it: a collection two years in the making that pivots around the loss of Nico, close friend, designer, mentor. What began in New York over a decade ago came back reimagined through the lens of Samurai culture. Honour, integrity, discipline, anonymity within brotherhood, translated into clothes that feel lived-in, battle-tested, and ceremonial at once.
The thesis was visible from the first look. Jackets and cargos arrived with patina and weathered finishes, like armour that has seen miles. The house’s Shuriken motif, a fresh adaptation integrated into the Trapstar logo, carried the Samurai reference without costume. Fabric choices stressed endurance and touch; silhouettes held volume but moved with ease, designed to look better after wear. It’s streetwear in origin, but the hand is couture-minded: the collection is handmade in Italy, every stitch with intent.
“Redline” reads like a code. There’s the discipline of cut, the straight-back posture of bomber shoulders, the swish and weight of panelled trousers, the anonymous swagger of face-shading hoods. Nico never walked runways; he accepted his flowers privately. The show’s tribute let the garments walk for him.
Set against the Williamsburg skyline in Brooklyn, the audience brought its own electricity. Fabolous, Ne-Yo, YG Marley, Selah Marley, Christian Combs, Pardison Fontaine, Colm Dillane (KidSuper), Sauce Gardner, JNR Choi, Zoe Spencer, Bouba Savage, Stunna Sandy and more filled the room, while Bloody Osiris closed the show, an on-brand choice for a label that has always understood the conversation between runway and street culture. Pepe Garcia, the Love Island breakout, also made his NYFW runway debut, highlighting Trapstar’s cross-cultural pull.
If the crowd told one story, the clothes told another: modularity. Looks stacked and unstacked cleanly, suggesting the interchangeability across genders, ages, and body types that the brand pushes for. You could remix a leather hooded jacket with beaded hardware into a sharp night uniform or throw the battered cargos over sneakers and keep moving.
The cultural arc matters here. Trapstar London grew out of a three-man operation, Mike Trapstar, Lee Trapstar, and Will Trapstar, and became a global signal for a certain London attitude: music-rooted, art-curious, fashion-literate. “Redline” keeps that lineage while levelling up the make. The Italian craft shows in the clean binding, the weight of the hides, and the way seams sit flat even under stress. It’s streetwear built to last.
Antonio Pulvirenti wired the collection to its influences without over-quoting them. Beauty direction sharpened the frame: Michelle Webb on makeup and Beppe D’Elia (Beautick) using L’Oréal Professionnel on hair gave models a disciplined, almost meditative finish, cool skin, defined lines, and controlled texture. Poly Global Advisory (Emily Bungert) steered production and PR with a city-scale sense of timing; the pacing let garments breathe, and the finale landed like a dedication.
The memorial thread for Nico is where the show’s emotion lives. The weathered surfaces speak to time, to use to carrying someone forward. Trapstar’s “Nico Style” doesn’t treat legacy as a museum exhibition. It asks: how do we build gear for the next chapter while honouring the person who taught us how to see?
London’s street ecosystem has always exported taste, through sound, slang, and silhouette. Trapstar’s SS26 asserts that grief can be generative, that craft can sit beside community, and that a brand born in subculture can stand in luxury spaces without translating itself out of its dialect. The show felt less like a pivot and more like a consolidation: the raw energy of streetwear fused to Italian atelier discipline, the public runway making room for a private dedication.
As the lights came up, you could feel the collection’s intended life cycle: premiere on a runway, then move through studios, arenas, back rooms, and airports, picked up by artists and athletes, stylists and kids who know exactly what Trapstar has meant for a decade. “Redline” doesn’t ask for reverence; it demands rotation.
