About The Journey

Part 10
The Journey
Pre Fall '25

Desirable and functional, the 10th collection from award winning designer Rory William Docherty uses the past - both literally and figuratively - to create a thoughtful future. In various ways, The Journey reinforces the designer’s message that true style has no sell by date.

Artworks from previous seasons are spliced together to make new prints for fine cotton voile, sheer silk organza and lustrous silk satin. Taking it a step further, they are cut into strips and hand woven together. The result not only creates a nod to Docherty’s Scottish heritage with a play on tartan, but layers of print weave together, exploring the relationship between 2D and 3D, to form a filmy sheath dress that appears to gently unravel at the hem. 

Treasured remnants of metallic foil fabric, left over from RWD’s ‘Love Collateral’ collection are repurposed and sewn together to create a one-off sculptural dress; a creative reflection of the designer’s devotion to timeless fashion.

Shirting is a constant theme for RWD. Drawing inspiration from the white pages of his sketchbooks, crisp white cotton ‘sheets of paper’ extend from shirt sleeves. They flutter as an open book around a skirt, and unfurl from necklines and bodices. “My black covered workbook inspired the structural extended sleeves in the Japanese Wool Jacket and Japanese Wool Skirt,” says Docherty. “Reflecting on my upbringing in rural New Zealand, and past experience in workwear, there is even a nod to the iconic bushshirt, but with the new 'book' sleeves, in a soft woven Japanese Wool, impeccably finished throughout. “ 

The Journey’s trans-seasonal clothes balance the  practical with the poetic, redefining the RWD brand DNA along the way. From the latest incarnation of his Rework Jean (now with inserts of cotton canvas and herringbone wool) and hard-wearing cotton canvas (made into a belted 'Universal Jacket', a pair of cropped chinos) to his signature Painters Shirt (this time around, made in striped Japanese cotton shirting and reinterpreted as a voluminous dress, or shrunken in a jewel tones of silk chiffon).