Fashion can’t get enough cake right now

There are many reasons why Stefan Cooke tempted fashion’s crème de la crème to a garage on Shoreditch’s Corsham Street during London Fashion Week. After all, Cooke and his partner Jake Burt were relaunching their womenswear line, three years after giving us a very quick tease in 2022. The new collection also signposted a move towards Made in Britain, with almost every piece crafted in the UK. But, more importantly than any of that: cake.

​“There will be a large cake,” deadpanned the invite. No kidding: the party, which took place at Jake’s – the cult shop of curated curios run by Burt – included a mega candied cherry and almond gateau. Baked by Louis Thompson, a Stefan Cooke model turned pâtissier, the centrepiece stole the show. ​“Like anything chic I think a good fashion party dessert should be well considered, sophisticated, not overly ambitious, and not make a mess of the person eating it,” he says.

Fashion can’t get enough cake right now: designers are teaming up with dessert-makers to create bespoke cakes and, in the process, delectable Instagram content. Whether its Laura Lowena-Irons of Chopova Lowena dishing out bow-topped cakes at her baby shower (made by Lily Vanilli) or A$AP Rocky’s statement gun-shaped cakes for his first first AWGE show, cake is making its way into the world of the style elite.

This has meant that a new group of confectioners have been welcomed into the fashion fold. ​“It’s definitely a niche in the community,” Thompson says. He first baked under Claire Ptak, founder of voguish Dalston bakery Violet Cakes and pastry-chef-in-residence at Alaïa’s secret cafe on New Bond Street. ​“I was making cakes for clients like FKA twigs and Edward Enninful, so I’m used to it. It’s a bit elusive as all it really means is a particular client list, but I’ll take the endorsement of good taste,” he says. Across the pond, there’s Suea, the New York It girl who has baked darling cakes for the likes of GANNI, PAPER Magazine and Parade.

Of course, fashion’s love for desserts started long before this; it’s not like parties in the past didn’t have pretty pastries. ​“Both [fashion and cake] have always been used for conspicuous consumption – ultra lavish, spectacular food displays have a long history. But they also both represent basic needs that you’re souping up in the name of beauty and meaning,” Thompson says. But the hype has reached new heights. It makes sense when you think of the bigger picture: since the pandemic, cakes have become a major part of pop culture, mainly thanks to many of us becoming obsessed with baking and never looking back.

But why is fashion so fixated on sweets right now? Well, it’s partly down to the fact that the fashion dinner has never been more in-demand, replacing runways to create a more intimate setting and save a bit of cash in the process. In September 2024, Eckhaus Latta eschewed a traditional runway for a hybrid show-dinner in a Tribeca loft. Similarly, Thom Browne hosted the likes of Anna Wintour, St. Vincent and Justin Theroux for a sit-down supper.

Over at 16Arlington, Alva Claire and Adwoa Aboah were among the guests that tucked into a cherry cake – a sponge emblazoned with glacé cherries, to be specific – to celebrate the London-based brand’s AW25 campaign. ​“It was white chocolate ganache, bergamot curd and rhubarb jam. Marco [Capaldo, the man behind 16Arlington], wanted a modern ​’80s menu which is very my vibe,” says Paris Rosina, who devised the dessert. Similarly, Aaron Esh had an intimate dinner where he had some of the fashion pack round for tea at the House of Koko. With even the most modest runway show costing at least £60,000 (and many exceeding that) a smaller-scale dinner can save money in a time when fashion’s purse strings are tighter and costs for young designers are higher than ever.

In the confectionary business, you learn a thing or two – such as the cyclical cake trends, Thompson mentions. ​“Favourites have been grapefruit cream cake, chocolate cake with ginger caramel, rhubarb and hazelnut thumbprints, orange and walnut thumbprints.” And crucially, it creates a community feel. Cake brings people together far more than a runway; rather than the slightly clinical setting of the front row, a delectable centrepiece can get people talking. ​“It creates a sort of campfire effect as people are forced to gather and get involved around a giant dessert,” Thompson says.

Cake, like fashion, is all about reverie – until we cut into it, that is. It’s why former FACE cover star Olivia Rodrigo likes to smear it all over herself while performing her song all american bitch, turning perfection into disaster. Meanwhile, solidified head brat Charli xcx unleashed her inner sweet tooth at her recent birthday bash, and it was all kinds of fucked up, naturally. In fact, her cake was described by Vogue as ​“a disintegrating mound of icing and dough festooned in sloping candles.” Elsewhere, Marc Jacobs and bonkers creative duo Shadrinsky have been releasing absurdist videos of cakes on fire. And the video for Lola Young’s smash hit Messy, of course, features nothing but a massive flan which ends up flung across the walls.

Cake has layers and it means different things to different people. For Thompson, it is, like fashion, packed with more substance than meets the eye. ​“I think it’s cool that a food group is so well recognised for its symbolic power, even if only implicitly. People don’t really take fashion seriously because it’s all around us, even though clothes are our most prominent form of non-verbal communication. I think cake is the food version of that,” Thompson reckons. Now, thanks to him, Stefan Cooke and these other sweet-toothed tastemakers, cake is earning its place at the fashion table. Dig in.