Law Roach’s Inaugural Magnum Runway at Cannes Put an Unknown Designer Front and Center

Magnum’s annual Cannes showcase on La Croisette has for the past two years leaned on pop music — Troye Sivan and Charli XCX fronted campaigns. This year, the brand pivoted sharply into fashion, announcing stylist Law Roach as its first ever ‘Taste Architect’. His task was to design and curate a runway presentation built around nascent designers, using the brand’s ice cream flavors as creative briefs.

Roach handpicked Liverpool designer Ethan Leyland, whose work he first spotted on Instagram. Leyland had been posting a series that reimagined brands as couture, starting with Magnum’s Double Utopia Cherry flavor. Roach commented on the post, and the invitation to Cannes followed. “I knew that social media was my tool to find my audience, to be able to make this career a reality,” Leyland told CLASH.

On the runway, Leyland’s Magnum Classic piece opened: a chocolate brown leather coat unzipped to release a voluminous cream-toned dress. The gesture felt deliberate, a bypass of fashion’s traditional gatekeeping in favor of a designer who built his own audience. Leyland described a kinship with Roach over their mutual selectivity. “He’s very particular about who he works with, I’m very much like that as well,” he said. “He has a vision and he sticks to it.”

The runway was a prelude to a VIP party that drew Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Lucien Laviscount, Halsey and Avan Jogia to the red carpet. Music still had a presence: Angèle and Andy 4K performed, with DJ sets from The Blessed Madonna, Busy P x Carlita, and others pushing the night into balearic house.