SS Daley is the winner of the 2024 Queen Elizabeth II Award For British Design
Stokey-Daley, who has already scooped the LVMH Prize, was awarded the Elizabeth Award ahead of London Fashion Week's return
Words: Zak Maoui
Steven Stokey-Daley, the founder and creative director of S.S. Daley, has won the 2024 Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design. Presented at an exclusive event at the Royal Academy of Arts on the eve of London Fashion Week, the award is the seventh to be given to one of the design stars of the city, with previous winners including Labrum London, Saul Nash, Priya Ahluwalia and Richard Quinn, who was famously presented the award by the late Queen Elizabeth II herself.
Stokey-Daley was presented the award by Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh and Caroline Rush, the CEO of the British Fashion Council. It's no surprise that he is this year's recipient. S.S. Daley, which is known for its schoolboy aesthetic via baggy slacks and V-neck sweaters, has swiftly, in 4 short years, gone from burgeoning brand to bonafide highlight on the London Fashion Week calendar.
Coming from a modest Liverpudlian background (he grew up on a former council estate; his grandfather and father were both builders), before studying and overlooking the prestigious ground of Harrow, he has gone on to dress stars like Harry Styles, Industry's Harry Lawtey and Sebastian Croft that confront the British class system. His clothing does more than just cloak a wearer, and it's for this that he has charmed so many people, including Sir Ian McKellan who did a reading and walked his show last year.
This isn't the first award S.S. Daley, who is a Tom Ford and Alexander McQueen alum, has scooped either. In 2022, he won the LVMH Prize and the BFC’s Foundation Award for emerging talent, which propelled his brand even further, and later surely helped in securing him the prestigious guest spot at Pitti Uomo in January of this year.
It is also largely why the aforementioned Harry Styles decided to invest in the brand, which was announced after that Pitti show, and why S.S. Daley is now solidifying itself as both a menswear and womenswear brand at London Fashion Week, with Stokey-Daley's first standalone women's show on the opening day.
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