STORY BEHIND THE STYLE: AUGUST BARRON
“When you see something you do or don’t like, it’s because you have an idea of what it represents. [It’s] an exciting challenge to see beyond an accepted idea and create something new” - Vestbø
SOMEWHERE IN EAST VILLAGE
Inspired by Madonna, the color pale pink, and vintage clothing, August Barron’s designs are intentionally askew: asymmetric silhouettes and voluminous proportions meet prints full of personality to create the brand’s distinctive style.
After graduating from Bard College with a degree in photography, New Yorker Benjamin Barron founded ALL-IN in 2015 as an independent fashion and art publication. Hearing about the magazine’s launch party in the East Village from a Facebook post, a young Norwegian designer Bror August Vestbø, attended the event by himself the same week he moved to New York.
TEXT TO TEXTILE
This decision would lead to him meeting Barron and the pair becoming both romantic and creative partners. The duo nurtured ALL-IN, and the creative platform served as a vestibule to their enchanting and slightly off-kilter world of fashion. After altering clothing from thrift shops in 2017 for an editorial, the magazine took a shift toward designing before officially selling garments in 2019, with Lotta Volkova and Maryam Massir Zadeh as some of their first clients.
GOING ALL IN
Evolution took its course, and for the next ten years Vestbø and Barron were ALL-IN. Each collection’s visual storytelling is inspired by fictional characters for whom the duo develops a fully-fledged persona. Clothes are made for pop stars, debutantes, and the feminine thresholds that exist in between. Their relationship with clothes took traditional garments and re-established how they inform the body: moving vests down the torso to sit as a skirt, using elastic bands to strategically lift cardigans to reveal what is normally concealed.
BECOMING AUGUST BARRON
Selected to be among 1 of the 20 designers out of 2,000 applicants, the Paris-based pair appeared as 2025 semifinalists of the 12th edition of the LVMH Prize alongside Alainpaul Tolu Coker, Soshi Otsuki, and more. Barron and Vestbø used their platform to speak on the importance of sustaining the art of upcycling. In the same season, the two transitioned their brand name to a traditional, eponymous format: August Barron.
REAL HOUSEWIVES
Today, August Barron has presented their Spring/Summer 2026 collection, informed by the traditional housewife and her non-traditional tendencies. Inspired by Japanese bondage magazines, garments are “suspended in moments of tension and release” to represent subversion and desire. The publication is still in production with the most recent issue No. 8 “Fan Fiction,” investigating themes of Fandom and “Real Housewife” as an anthology of photographs that align with the collection.
Partnering with esteemed stylist behind Balenciaga and Vetements, Lotta Volkova, the brand continues to gift us new experiences through text and textile.
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