A perfect orange dollop outlined by an inky black border sat in the middle of my plate. It would make for a convincing piece of art at the Tate Modern, except I'm meant to dip four perfectly grilled stalks of asparagus in it and eat it. “We call it the Kenzo sauce,” says Santiago Lastra, chef and co-owner of Michelin-starred restaurant KOL, and designer of this delectable dish inspired by the tiger icon in the Japanese fashion brand's logo. Beneath his boyish charm, the Mexican native is a formidable chef who cut his teeth at world-class restaurants like Noma before landing on the list of World's 50 Best restaurants with his own Mayfair joint. Regulars at KOL include Dua Lipa and Tom Cruise, who can't get enough of Santiago's inventive Central-American flavours made with local British produce. But anyone lucky enough to try his chef's menu may also notice something else. “You see, we don't do traditional plating where you have five dots and a cracker,” he says. "It’s more conceptual or abstract, and has a lot of inspiration from fashion.”
As if on cue, a small, round dish arrives lined with strips of vegetable stems in red and green, layered onto a bed of tonka bean-flavoured tamal. If the colours and geometric lines look familiar, that's because this entreé was inspired the iconic zigzag print by Italian luxury label Missoni.
“It was a couple of years ago that a film director came to KOL and asked me how often I change the menu, and I said that we make three menus (spring, summer and winter), and he compared it to the seasons in fashion," Santiago tells GLAMOUR. “I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I realised there’s a synergy between fashion and food regarding the creative process. Both are seasonal; in the summer, you wear lighter layers and you eat lighter foods, but there are also similarities between creating a fashion collection and designing a menu."
Fashion's flirt with food can be traced back to ancient times. “There's no way to mark the beginning of this; you can see ancient textiles with pomegranates woven into them, but the end of the 18th century in France was when Louis XIV began branding luxury like food and fashion as this French phenomenon, as an economic driver, as a soft power," says Dr. Elizabeth Way, fashion historian and curator of costume and accessories at the museum at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). Alongside her colleague Melissa Marra-Alvarez, curator of education and research, the duo curated a fascinating exhibition, “Food and Fashion” in 2023.
Fast forward to the 20th and 21st century, fashion became enamoured with food as iconography, and co-branding became the poster child of our hyper-consumerist society. Think Karl Lagerfeld's supermarket Chanel show, featuring porcelain plate clutches and classic flap bags saran-wrapped like premium ribeye and Jeremy Scott's plastering McDonald's logos onto his irreverent ready-to-wear designs for Moschino. “At first it was about the fashion wearing food, but now I think also what we're beginning to see more so is almost like food wearing the fashion,” says Melissa.
Given luxury's slowdown and the ever-rising cost of living crisis, the need for brands to create more accessible touchpoints has never been more urgent. British designer Anya Hindmarch was a pioneer in this space, understanding early on that customers might not be able to fork out several grand on one of her luxury handbags, but they can get similar dopamine hit from a googly-eyed cake or soy sauce flavoured ice cream from her eponymous creamery in Sloane Square.
One could call it our decade's version of the “lipstick index," the post-World War II phenomenon which saw sales of affordable luxuries like lipsticks increase during economic downturns. It has also become an avenue for luxury brands to keep their audiences engaged in a volatile economy. “Ephemeral, accessible luxury like food can be comforting in many ways during these really tough economic times,” adds Melissa. “The Boomer generation was all about owning things, and younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials care more about experiences, because even if people can't afford things, when they have an experience, they feel they can hold onto it a little longer.”
The Prada Caffè at Harrods is a prime example. Walk past the Hans Road corner of the luxury department store on any given day, and you're bound to see streams of tourists queuing in front of Prada's mint green awning to taste its glossy, triangular confections. “While our retail clients are often seasoned luxury shoppers, the Caffè welcomes a wider demographic, including people who may be engaging with the brand perhaps for the first time," says Alex Unitt, Partnerships Director at Harrods. “It’s also highly popular with digital-first audiences, influencers, and those looking for memorable lifestyle moments. Guests are visibly thrilled when a Prada-logo'd coffee or dessert arrives; it’s a perfect fusion of fashion and hospitality. We see phones come out, photos are taken, and the experience is shared across social platforms.”
Social media is credited for minting trends every day, and the rise of haute fashion cuisine, too, has the proliferation of Instagram to thank. By welcoming a wider audience into these highly curated worlds, brands are getting “free advertising when they're posting it on social before people even get into perfume, bags or clothes,” says Elizabeth.
Where once Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren were the only players in the restaurant space, it seems every week this summer a luxury fashion house enters the fray. Louis Vuitton opened their St. Tropez restaurant at Hotel White 1921 last month, while Lacoste launched The ‘Summer by Lacoste’ menu at Shangri-La Paris (complete with “Lacoste-inspired waffles”). Rumours are already swirling that we may see a Prada restaurant soon in New York City's buzzy neighbourhood of SoHo.
As Melissa suggested, fashion used to wear the food, but social media's power is such that it has influenced food to wear the fashion. “I think one of the reasons that I try so hard for things to be beautiful is because of the pictures people will take and share. I want everyone to take amazing, iconic pictures when they come to KOL, so everyone else can see how unique the dishes are," says Santiago. He brings out a jalapeño ice pop, sprinkled with sour ants (yes, like the bug!), propped up on a wooden block meant to mimic fancy shoes displayed on wooden stands you see in the old stores on Oxford Street. "I think without social media it would probably not have to make so much effort on the presentations, because before you used to compete against only the restaurants people visited, now with social media you compete with every restaurant in the world that has a social media account, so it’s much more challenging to be unique.”
Santiago has also seen fashion move beyond pineapple prints and actually use pineapples as a viable, eco-friendly material. “High fashion is moving back to using more organic materials and thinking about sustainability, so they’re getting closer and closer to what the ethos of a chef is,” says Santiago.The slow fashion movement, after all, was borne from the pressing need for the industry to adopt more sustainable practices, and took inspiration from the slow food movement which called for the use of seasonal, local ingredients.
Stella McCartney, a trailblazer in sustainable fashion, has long been been an investor and advocate for leather alternatives, using mycelium-based “mushroom” leather for her ready-to-wear collections. Her 2025 is her most sustainable collection to date, and features a first-ever handbag crafted from Hydefy, a fungi-based vegan alternative to leather and garments spun from Kelsun, a seaweed-based textile used commercially in luxury for the first time.
Mushroom, pineapple, cactus…these are just some of the leather alternatives being used by luxury fashion houses from Chanel to Hermès. But now, it's not just food that's infiltrating the runway. Chefs have begun storming the catwalk, most famously starting with NYC chef of Mission Chinese Danny Bowien who strutted his stuff for designers like Eckhaus Latta, Sandy Liang and Collina Strada. Just this May, Kwame Onwuachi graced the MET Gala red carpet before the James Beard award-winning chef behind NYC restaurant Tatiana curated the dinner for the evening inspired by his Nigerian-Jamaican heritage.
Yes, chef!
The success of Emmy-winning show The Bear, which just dropped its fourth season, proves that our obsession with food has leapt off the plate and onto the chefs themselves. Even in a show about family trauma and the perils of the restaurant industry, fashion became a plot point, involving a custom Thom Browne chef coat that Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) gifts Sydney (Ayo Edebiri). Jeremy went on to model for Calvin Klein in his underwear in a now-viral ad. “Those Calvin Klein ads made the chef sexy,” says Santiago. “I think for a long time, the chef’s image was of an older, chubby guy, with a dirty apron, but I think now chefs are more conscious about their health and have an interest in other areas, like fashion and lifestyle. Chefs are becoming some sort of celebrities, who have a say and impact in different spheres.”
While we may not be seeing Santiago Lastra on the catwalk anytime soon, he certainly looked anything but grubby as he went up to accept his award for KOL, once again listed in the World's 50 Best Restaurants, one of only two restaurants in London to make the cut for 2025. He stepped onto the prestigious stage, wearing a dapper herringbone suit, a familiar zigzag printed shirt peeked out from underneath. Who had dressed this rising culinary talent for the occasion? Why Missoni, of course.
