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Henry Holland talks his new collection, famous friends and slogan tees backstage at London Fashion Week AW18

When it comes to London Fashion Week House of Holland is one of the most-anticipated shows on the schedule.

With over a decade of experience British designer Henry Holland is now quite an expert at putting together a new season spectacle - and his autumn/winter 2018 collection was no different.

Over the years Holland has become known for his quirky colourful designs and humorous slogan t-shirts. However, this season the designer took a step back from his usual tongue-and-cheek approach with a more grown-up collection, fittingly called Grow Up.

"We wanted to take a slightly different approach this season" said Holland before explaining that he wanted the collection to reflect what the House Of Holland customer wants and needs in their wardrobe.

Henry Holland backstage before his AW18 collection (PA Wire/PA Images)
Henry Holland backstage before his AW18 collection (PA Wire/PA Images)

With his AW18 instalment boasting plaid suits, bold knitwear and sensible shoes the collection definitely had all the key archetypical pieces a modern woman needs. However, Henry noted that they were still injected with "a massive dose of House of Holland DNA, personality and humour".

That said, one thing that was noticeably absent from the collection were his signature slogan t-shirts.

The tees, famous for featuring funny slogans about celebrities including 'I'm yours for a tenner Kendall Jenner' and 'let's breed Bella Hadid' in recent years, helped launch Holland's career in the early 2000s when he started selling them on his MySpace page.

Rather surprisingly, however, the controversial t-shirts have gained Holland more famous friends than enemies - his LFW shows always boast a star-studded front row.

In fact, House Of Holland's show on Saturday night started over an hour late as Henry’s friends including Alexa Chung, Edie Campbell, Pixie Geldof and Paloma Faith rushed from Christopher Bailey’s final Burberry show to support Henry at the Topshop showspace.

A post shared by Alexa (@alexachung) on Feb 18, 2018 at 2:32am PST

"We all support each other in all of our different stuff whenever we can" explained Holland. Before adding that his mum is still his number one fan as she has never missed a show.

When asked about the most important thing he's learnt from being in the industry for over a decade, Holland poignantly concluded: "To stay true to who you are, what your brand is about and make sure the messaging behind what you do resonates with you as a person...because it’s too exhausting to try and be something that you’re not."