Fresh off presenting his latest collection via private showroom appointments during London Fashion Week, George Trochopoulos pauses his work day for a call inside his London apartment, where he also currently operates his design studio. Behind him are several wall-length posters of his most recent campaign, which was shot in Greece, fully immersed in his label. With his eponymous brand, he’s doing just that – building a new world. The brand’s beloved knit designs are ever-evolving and continuously taking on new shapes and forms, yet have become recognizable to the eye without any logo branding. His unlikely approach to knitwear is both innovative and beautifully ironic. The nature of his chosen fabrication has historically been associated with comfort and leisure, yet Trochopoulos’ vibrant designs are known for making women feel sexy, highlighting their curves, and embracing comfort in their own skin. While some of his pieces could probably make for ultra-chic lounging ensembles, their natural habitat is often a red-carpet, with celebrities like Dua Lipa, SZA, Kendall Jenner, and Miley Cyrus flocking to his designs. From his recent S/S 26 collection, Tyla wore a top crafted out of mussel shells with one of the brand’s signature skirts to Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards. Another red-carpet sighting had supermodel Anok Yai wearing a beautifully draped, royal blue knit dress to the annual BOF 500 Gala. Although George would say that the brand is only a year and a half old, it’s clear that his designs are no stranger to the press. Ahead, he speaks to Models.com contributor Greg Emmanuel about building his business at his own pace and managing success for an independent brand.
How does it feel to be running your own fashion brand that’s experiencing early success in your mid-20s?
It feels really crazy. I’ve been selling clothes for four years, but the brand is a year and a half old, which is when my stylist joined. This is the season when things are starting to happen and are working out. It feels weird because a lot of the time, you come into this without necessarily doing it consciously. I didn’t start the brand because I sat down and made a business plan. You kind of just keep doing it, and then you wake up, like, “Oh, this is a thing.” It’s a little daunting. It feels weird to be the person who’s making the work when you’re running a brand. It’s not like a consultant or a casting director, who is able to pop in and out of projects; you’re meant to be generating everything. You’re meant to be conscious about it. It feels very bizarre, but it’s also very fulfilling to be a part of that process and be a part of a conversation that I was looking at from afar for such a long time. It’s gratifying to be in a place where we cando this in a way that feels real.
Who were some of those designers that you admired from afar before fully delving into the industry yourself?
For me, I was more of an admirer of their freedom. How I got into fashion was through these i-D videos or maybe it was Dazed? I don’t remember, but they used to do these 20-minute videos of different designers in London going about their days and then going to parties. It didn’t feel like something that was necessarily about building a business or making the best clothes. It was about people who are doing what they do best and pushing their boundaries to be seen. I looked up to that lifestyle, the idea of expression, and community. I’ve always been very infatuated with designers who created worlds. Both Azzedine Alaia and Halston have been big inspirations for me. Two men who built businesses out of the idea that they loved women, and curated the women that were around them. When you think about these two brands, there’s a unique attachment and a way that women speak about them. It was almost like they wanted to cherish and nurture those people and those clothes. I’ve always admired that relationship between a designer and a woman as a wearer.
It’s no easy task being a designer and starting your own brand, especially in 2025. Even seasoned designers like Glenn Martens have compared the modern experience for a fashion designer to the Hunger Games. How would you describe your journey thus far with running your business since launching in 2021?
It’s been tough. I’ve made a lot of mistakes because I didn’t go into a BFC NewGen that could tell me what to do and what to avoid. We’ve played with everything and went broke after everything. I think it took a few years for me to realize that you’re regenerating the money. I’m starting to think that the way forward is to cap our needs and make sure that we’re not overextending ourselves in order to make more. There used to be a common courtesy that when you’re supporting a new, independent designer, you’re doing it more so because of the story, the craft, and the special thing that they’re giving you that you can’t get mass-manufactured from a different brand. That’s kind of gone out the window. It’s scary being completely independent, but there’s an autonomy to making sure that everything comes from the dresses. All the campaigns that we do, all the money that’s coming out, all the presentations that we have, we’re able to do them because the clothes are selling. As much as I wanted to look into an idea of quick expansion over two seasons, it feels attractive to start taking it a bit slower. We’ve had a good reaction from customers and private buyers. I hope we can remain in a place where we can make clothes that are exciting enough to keep the business going. I like the idea of selling clothes and making people happy.
What drew you and still draws you to focus solely on knitwear?
It was random. When I came to London to study, I was deciding between Central Saint Martins and I added knitwear as a backup at the London College of Fashion. Long story short, I ended up going into the second option and I didn’t think about it too much. It ended up becoming the thing I did in university. When I went in, I still wanted to be a designer who created a full range collection.
I think it’s given me a very unique perspective on how we’re approaching what we do. With knitwear, people who work within it are very specific and structured around the idea of knitwear, their love for it, and how technical and numerical it is. I never cared about that. It was about making clothes and knitwear was the way I did it. Even though we only design with knit at the moment, I don’t think there are a lot of dresses that we do out in the market. We are slowly developing into doing more cut and sew, but at the moment, it’s mostly about honing in on the technique, the craft, and learning as much as we can through producing ready-to-wear seasons.
You just showcased your new Spring/Summer 2026 collection. Can you speak to what inspired and influenced the direction of this collection?
I wanted to make sure that we presented a new offering from last season. I was listening to a lot of music from where my grandparents are from, which is geographically around Turkey. It’s very intense and vibrant. It has a lot of bells, a lot of umph to it, and it’s very quick, and that gave me a lot of the influences in terms of movement. A lot of the dances there have a lot to do with the sound that comes from the body, like the clicking of your feet on the floor, or the bells you’re wearing, so that was a big inspiration.
The other inspiration was when we got back from Greece after shooting the campaign. This was the first summer I didn’t go back to Greece for a vacation. It was about this idea of making things, while thinking about what it felt like being in Greece. That’s why the colors are slightly more intense. Then the bubble skirts came from the idea of creating shapes that feel very sensual. We wanted to start working with volume and shape, much more than we have already. They followed the idea of movement and dance quite well.
Let’s chat a little bit about celebrity because that was a big part of the early success and rise of your business. Your brand catapulted, landing on the likes of Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, and Kendall Jenner all within the first year of business. What’s your relationship/approach to celebrity clientele today?
I really enjoy it. It’s been a great platform to showcase ourselves and get to do exciting projects. This last season is the first time that I feel like we’ve had a conscious approach to it. I’ve gotten to play with the idea of being conscious about who we’re dressing, and it’s very important to me to dress women who have access to a lot of clothes. It’s gratifying to see women who look at clothes all day and have so much access to be wearing and taking on us as a part of their world.
Is there a celebrity that you would love to work with that you haven’t yet?
Yeah, there’s two I always say and I’ll scream it, Solange and Tracee Ellis Ross.
You mentioned you’re in the stages of building your team. What’s your process like working with your team and close collaborators like stylist Raymond Gee to continue building the brand and evolving the vision?
It’s my favorite part. It’s crazy that Raymond joined the team a year and a half ago, and we were talking very recently about how I asked him to be a part of the team at a time when I needed guidance because it was a rough time for the brand and myself personally. He came on and I put a lot of trust in Him. It’s very important to have people with different approaches to things. It’s been gratifying to have people who can do their job incredibly, but also hold me by the hand and take the time to understand where I am and where my head is – and also find a way to twist it to where it should be. We still do everything in-house. I make most of the dresses that we sell. So a lot of the time it can feel like everything is kept very shut, but then there are all these incredible people who open things up, get more people in, and create this extended network which allows us to be contextualized within fashion and to really be a brand.
Your brand tends to be one that sells out instantly when you release new pieces. Scaling inventory can be such a challenging experience for any business. What’s managing that part of your business been like?
It’s been challenging. I’ve learned to work quickly. We had to move the studio into my place so I can work more extended hours, which has been great. We’re hopefully moving into a studio again soon because it’s gotten a bit too crazy. We’re going into a place where we’re hoping to standardize it more. As much as I find myself stressed out and ventral over the fact that I’m stuck at 2 AM making a dress, I think when I see them out on the street or when I get tagged in something, it is important to me that it’s something that feels personal. I remember when I was making it. I remember what I was doing when I was making it. If I had started manufacturing things and standardized them earlier, maybe it would have been easier, but I think I wouldn’t care as much.
How do you feel about how fast things move and can be pressured to move with social media? How do you handle that when it comes to your business?
There’s a part of me that likes fashion’s fast-paced environment. I like the idea of managing two or even three seasons a year. There’s an idea of regeneration and being able to be on your feet and not thinking too much. There’s a part of me that thrives in that. The other side is that it feels like there isn’t enough time for people to look at things in the grander scheme of things. Sadly, the press is normally going to cover the designer who dressed the most famous people the night before. However, when we are talking about being an independent brand, we get to be included in the conversation because of the buzz, and in reality, we would never have been able to organically formulate ourselves as part of the industry if not for that.
What inspires you outside of fashion?
It’s mainly music. It’s a great way to depict culture and a time period. I think the way music is visualized through music videos or vinyl covers is very intriguing. Sometimes I get deep in music artists’ history and find random live shows from a very specific time. The other day, I was looking at Eartha Kitt, who kept singing a Turkish song. It was during the ‘60s. It was the most fabulous thing and half of the time she sings it, she doesn’t necessarily sing the words, but then the other half she does. It’s very intriguing to find bits of odd music pieces from an artist’s time. It’s a great way to be transported into places and feel different feelings.
How do you see your brand evolving in the next five years — more intimate and exclusive, or more global and scaled?
I think it would be going into a tighter, more exclusive, streamlined operation for the next few years, and then I would eventually like it to become a bigger thing. I would love to create more ready-to-wear pieces. We are intentional about eventually creating a brand that has a big offering. There are a lot of ways we can interpret what we do in a very ready-to-wear way. I would love to keep it small in order to get to know our woman, our client, and our customer in our world, and then eventually be able to take that offering to a bigger customer base.
Do you think that the customer will ever include men?
Yeah, everyone keeps asking, which is very fun. We almost dropped something, and then I realized that I wanted to take some more time with it. I think it would have been a version of our womenswear that was fitted to a man. I have a very specific relationship with dressing myself and the idea of male clothing. I would like to be able to make that offering conscious instead of it being more commercial.
What advice would you give to aspiring designers who want to run their own brand?
Two things. If it’s worth it, it should take a lot of time. I’ve realized that the more I do, I have an instinct and a sense internally to want things quickly and want them now. It’s a great lesson to take your time. It’s the only way that something can have groundwork. Another piece of advice is to care a little bit less and have fun. More creativity comes in that way.
