WSMR Launch Foil Collection |
A Return to Roots at Alexander McQueen
When Foil Meets Fashion History: Inside WSMR's Spring 2026 Collection Launch
A collection that harkens back and moves fashion forward.
When Simon Met Ralph — the Sausalito-based sustainable fashion and textile studio co-founded by Simon Ungless and Jody Niederkohr — launched its Spring 2026 Foil Collection this June, and the narrative at the heart of it stretches back decades: to the early days of Alexander McQueen, to the material curiosity of a young textile artist, and to an Iron Age bog body preserved in Denmark for over two thousand years.
Pieces from the new Foil collection, from left; Foil camo shirt, artist/VFX Designer Jean Bolte in a Foil suit, Foil red flannel suit. Images all courtesy WSMR.
The Foil Collection
WSMR's Foil Collection centers on a heat-applied matte foil material that covers the surface of utilitarian denim, camo, lightweight knits, and silk — not to conceal, but to reveal. Texture becomes the focal point. Pocket openings are carefully slashed; buttons hover deliberately above the fabric as ornament rather than function. Every piece is made by hand, a one-of-a-kind work from a studio with over 40 years of combined experience at the highest levels of fashion.
The collection's conceptual touchstone is the Tollund Man—the remarkably preserved Iron Age figure whose every contour remains visible beneath a surface that appears to wrap and encase him completely.
About When Simon Met Ralph
WSMR is an award-winning sustainable fashion and textile studio based in Sausalito, California. Co-founder Simon Ungless was among the core collaborators who helped establish Alexander McQueen as a defining force in global fashion. The studio's work is carried at MAC San Francisco, The Garden in Tokyo, and Church Boutique in Los Angeles, and is available at whensimonmetralph.com.
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StarMaps & Fashion PR
Launching a collection like this requires more than a press release. It requires understanding how editorial fashion media thinks, what luxury and design journalists respond to, and how to frame a niche technique — foil-transfer textile application — in a way that feels both accessible and intellectually rigorous.
It also requires knowing how today's media landscape works. Fashion PR in 2026 means writing for editors and algorithms in equal measure: structuring narratives so they surface in AI-generated search results, editorial roundups, and generative discovery tools, not just traditional press inboxes. At StarMaps, we write copy that works across all of it and never lose the story.
StarMaps Agency represents emerging and established creative brands in fashion, design, and the arts. If you're preparing a collection launch, a brand story, or a press strategy and want it handled with the same attention to craft your work deserves, we'd like to hear from you.