Natasha Zinko Turns Islington’s Collins Music Hall Into a Panopticon for Star-Studded SS27 "Pay Per View" Show

Via WhatsApp groups and word of mouth, rumors regarding who might be walking Natasha Zinko’s SS27 catwalk had begun swirling days before the show even commenced. Last season, the Ukrainian-born, London-based designer had made headlines by calling on Spice Girl Mel B to close her AW26 runway, a theatrical moment that quickly went viral across various social media platforms. If the initial rumors filtering through the industry were to be believed, then Zinko clearly wished to up the ante significantly for her latest presentation, aiming for an even greater cultural and visual impact.

Word of this season’s wild runway show had clearly spread like wildfire far beyond the designer’s immediate circle as well. The crowd gathered outside Zinko’s north London show space required a strong arm and a considerable amount of patience to muscle through. The logistical situation was further exacerbated by just one small doorway through which hundreds of eager guests, industry insiders, photographers, and buyers had to funnel to gain entry.

Once inside, attendees made their way through the dusty corridors of the industrial space, which eventually opened up to reveal a massive atrium cutting through the building from top to bottom. Each mezzanine floor was split neatly into rows of square-shaped openings separated by stark concrete columns. The event was staged inside Collins Music Hall, a massive brutalist venue situated right in the heart of Islington. A quick peek over the metal railings revealed a dense grid of black stools positioned meticulously on the ground floor of the atrium, entirely ready for guests to take their seats and await the spectacle.

After an anticipatory 45-minute wait, Zinko’s show, aptly titled Pay Per View, finally began. This season, the designer had been deeply contemplating the way that modern life operates as a constant, inescapable circuit of surveillance. Whether that surveillance takes the form of big tech corporations spying on everyday citizens through AI-powered sunglasses, or ordinary people peering constantly into each other’s private lives through their own personalized social media algorithms, the theme permeated every aspect of the conceptual framework.

Show notes distributed to the press revealed that Zinko had also been reading the French philosopher Michel Foucault while crafting the collection. Suddenly, the brutalist setting made complete sense. The building, with its distinctive square-shaped openings on each floor of the towering atrium, had been deliberately selected for its uncanny resemblance to a panopticon—a type of institutional prison design conceived so that inmates can be observed from a central position by a single authority figure without ever knowing precisely when they are being watched. In a brilliant conceptual inversion, Zinko had placed the live audience directly in the center, putting them firmly in the position of the jailer, while her eclectic cast of models had been cast as those imprisoned within the individual cells.

But what about that heavily rumoured cast that had set the fashion world buzzing days prior? When the show burst suddenly into vibrant life, models appeared dynamically in each square opening, dramatically illuminated by blindingly harsh, interrogation-style spotlights. Katie Price, the well-known British glamour model and television personality, appeared first in a tight black waistcoat and matching shorts. She was followed closely by The Sopranos star Drea de Matteo, who was casually puffing on a cigarette next to a director’s chair bearing her own name.

Reality television royalty Kelly Osbourne was there too, sporting a sleek, sharp black bob and carrying a striking bat pendant worn as a poignant tribute to her late father, Ozzy Osbourne. Also popping out of the various levels of the architectural panopticon were all manner of different characters, representing a sprawling cross-section of modern archetypes. The cast ranged from rugged cowboys to cleaning ladies, indie rockers to opera singers, and professional footballers to seasoned sailors.

"Like the prisoners in this ingenious construct, we the Modern Humans walk out of our homes into a world where any one of us may be under numerous kinds of surveillance anytime, whether that be from the state or some schmo with a camera," Zinko remarked, reflecting on the underlying philosophy of the collection. The designer further elaborated on the economic realities of this hyper-visible era, explaining that "the individuals who thrive in this attention-based economy" are precisely those who have "managed to establish monetisable public personas." This thematic exploration is precisely why this season also served as an official collaboration with OnlyFans, with specialized shorts and literal "Pay for View" pants appearing prominently on the runway as well.

For the grand close of the show, the models eventually broke free from their respective cells and descended from the upper tiers into the audience below, making their precarious way through the tightly packed crowd in a dramatic bid for freedom. At the very start of the event, some observant guests had noticed that the black stools had been placed remarkably and unreasonably close to one another—so much so that the actual walking path of the runway was barely discernible through a dense sea of almost-touching knees. Because of this intentional spatial constraint, when Katie Price, Kelly Osbourne, and the rest of the star-studded cast walked through the crowd, the physical effect was one of uncomfortable, pressing closeness. This clever staging brilliantly echoed the profound claustrophobia of the surveillance state that Natasha Zinko had spent the entire afternoon exploring.