At AFW 2026, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos returns with Vol. 5 Trojan/Motion - a richly personal collection shaped by Greek heritage, a trip to Athens, and the weight of woven history.
There is a moment, somewhere between the wild chaos of creation and the precision of final fittings, when Jordan Gogos pauses. It’s the day before the biggest show of his life – Vol 5 Trojan/ Motion Resort 2026 at Australian Fashion Week – and he is, impossibly, speaking to me. Not issuing orders or revising last-minute fittings, but sharing stories, laughing, and reminiscing about Greece, his family, and the op shop in Dulwich Hill that changed everything.
“This show is mega, mega, mega Greek,” he enthuses. The words echo, both in tone and truth. This collection, a deeply personal body of work under his label Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, is not just inspired by his Hellenic heritage. It is built from it, sewn together with memory, migration, history, and a textile goldmine of vintage Greek blankets and tablecloths, almost lost to time.
A Creative Reckoning
Jordan Gogos’ recent trip to Greece wasn’t just a holiday or heritage visit, it was a creative reckoning. Serving as the guest designer for Hautes Grecians, a premier haute couture event in Athens, Gogos was immersed in a cultural and artistic homecoming that blurred the lines between past and present. Outside the spotlight, he walked through the ruins of his family’s ancestral home and was struck by the fragility of legacy and the impermanence of structures. But instead of mourning what was lost, he felt compelled to salvage what could be remembered - and reimagine it.
This emotional confrontation with decay sparked the foundation for his Resort 2026 collection. It pushed him to source authentic Greek-made textiles, not just from Greece but from the diaspora, unearthing forgotten treasures that echoed the very fabrics he’d always seen in his grandparents’ home.
His approach became almost archaeological: combing through 80 fabric stores in Athens, asking, “Was this made in Greece?”, and then layering those discoveries into garments that weren’t just inspired by Greece - they held Greece. Every lining, embroidery, and blanket was a literal thread tying him to a past he refused to let vanish.
In short, the trip shaped the collection by giving it a material soul, woven from cultural inheritance.
A Greek Gold Mine
Gogos returned home to Australia not with melancholy but with mission. He had mined Athens. But then he mined Dulwich Hill, stumbling upon an op shop bursting with Greek paraphernalia.
“Two days after I returned from Greece, I was driving to my grandparents’ and happened to pass this place by accident. There were all of these Greek treasures out the front. I walked in and the whole op shop was Greek textiles and keepsakes.”
“It was like Sydney’s best op shop,” he says. “Kombolois, koúkles, tsóches. I’ve been gold mining that place for six months.”
The result: a collection brimming with authenticity. Linings made from Greek tablecloths and curtains. Dresses stitched from embroideries found in Greek households. One standout piece, created with Val Hans, features imagery drawn from Greek household art, as well as the Acropolis, galloping horses, and a female gladiator from the Halicarnassus relief. Not to mention, seven two-tone coats crafted from vintage Greek blankets. “It’s all really special - Greek blankets as a major moment,” he says with characteristic excitement.
The Art of Belonging
To describe Jordan Gogos simply as a fashion designer is to miss the point entirely. He is a multidisciplinary artist. A maximalist visionary. A community builder. He’s collaborated with more than 60 creatives for a single runway and held the first-ever fashion show at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. And yet he remains – always – the boy from Engadine whose grandparents raised him around tapestries and Greek Orthodox television.
This show, like all his work, was rooted in belonging and a tribute to the invisible hands that shaped him: familial, cultural, artistic. One coat was painted by his mother using motifs lifted from Greek souvenir bags, her first time painting again in 30 years.
“Before we were born, my mum was folk painting. The whole house used to be painted. Even the toilet paper holders,” he laughs. “She was very Greek Orthodox inspired – very Byzantian bronzes and gold.
He adds, “My yiayia runs around the house and points out all the things my mum painted. There are like 50 of these little things. But mum’s painting was always very domesticated, it never went outside that parameter. This show changed that.”
“I gave her these tourist bags that I brought back from shopping in Greece featuring random slogans – ‘One, Two, Three Fashion’, ‘Santorini Souvenirs’ – and told her to use them as the starting block for the paintings. So she extracted motifs from the bags and painted them all through an ionic coat.”
Another of the most unexpected looks came from a collaboration with UTS student Billie Ronis. While digging through old university notebooks, Gogos found a page filled with variations of his signature.
“It was the page where I was developing my signature,” he says. “There are about 40 different versions on it. You can literally see it evolve.” Billie transformed that page into a wearable artefact. “She crocheted the whole thing,” he says.
The Trojan Horse Reborn
The emblem of his brand - the Trojan Horse - reappears in this collection, not just as symbol but as sculpture, as headpiece, as gesture. Long used in Gogos’ work, the Trojan Horse is a recurring motif, a metaphor for the hidden complexities of fashion: the idea that beneath spectacle lies substance, and beneath surface, intention.
“It’s really about bringing new people into the industry and changing the way we engage in fashion,” he’s also said.
The ethos is alive on his runway. There’s Eleni Arbus in a golden dress etched with images of Gogos’ pappou dancing, made by Mary Argyropoulous (who has worked very closely with Jordan over the past five years). Tynga Williams in a dress made from Instax photos of Gogos himself. A four-metre silk toga hand-painted with St George and the Trojan by acclaimed Greek-Australian artist George Raftopoulos, born of a last-minute studio visit and years of artistic respect. A long-admired peer of Gogos, Raftopoulos is known for his bold figurative work that often explores themes of displacement, mythology and identity.
“I hadn't done a toga, and you know what? Togas are so simple, but actually so important,” Gogos explains. “In ancient Greece, the whole idea of Greek cloth was for it to fall on the body and show its silhouette - that's the simplicity of it. That was the nature of it. To literally become one with the body. And as complex as I love things to be, I think there's such an importance, sometimes to take things right back to the beginning and to have that on the runway.”
“Greek, Greek, Greek, Greek, Greek,” Gogos laughs.
With Love, From Yiayia
Among the many collaborators this season was Gogos’ grandmother - not in title, but in the detail with a quiet presence running through every stitch of the Greek tablecloths and vintage blankets. And, as every Greek grandmother does, she has her thoughts.
Asked whether she approved of the fabrics, Gogos brings up the video element of the show. “I’ve got a film playing on a big screen at the back of the show,” he says. “This year, they have me dancing on the screen the whole time.” Created with Motel Picture Company, the video ran throughout the presentation, a looping moment of the personal expression and vulnerability that defines Gogos.
“Yiayia watched it and said, ‘Jordan, do people want to see this? Do they want to watch you dance for 20 minutes?’” he laughed. “She was a bit shocked. She said, ‘You look a bit crazy… but I think I like it.’”
He explains, “She was hesitant to say her opinion because she’s actually a sweetheart.”
Gogos's grandmother, who grew up in the Greek village of Kato Assos, located in the Corinthia region of Greece, has watched his journey unfold - from the boy she once knew to the artist he is now. “Even five years down the line, she’s still processing that I’m an artist,” he says. “She tells me, ‘When you were growing up, I guess you were quite creative, but we didn’t really realise what was in your brain.’”
“It’s almost like a double take,” he says. “She sees me on the runway and there’s this sense of, ‘Is this really the same person?’”
Her responses are often grounded. “Every year she says, ‘This is your last one, right?’ Not because she doesn’t like them, but because she knows how much work they are. She’s like, ‘You’re going to kill yourself.’” Still, she shows up. And she’s so proud. “She’ll say, ‘I can’t believe what you can do.’”
“My family are big supporters,” he says.
Building Worlds, Not Just Collections
Gogos’s impact extends far beyond fashion week. As a GQ ‘Creative Force’ award winner, he has redefined what it means to be an Australian designer. He’s exhibited at leading galleries, served as guest designer for a haute couture event in Athens, and collaborated with brands, artists, and institutions across disciplines - often blurring the boundaries between fashion, performance, and installation. And he’s done it all while championing First Nations artists, redefining gender norms, and reminding a whole generation that creativity is an act of generosity.
One gets the sense that he doesn’t create for applause, though it follows him loyally. He creates to build worlds. Worlds full of colour, culture, chaos and heart. And whether it’s a felted wool coat, a gallery wall, or a hand-stitched Trojan Horse, Gogos will always fill those worlds with something greater than art - he fills them with love.
“What you do is cool,” his younger brother once told him. “You’re the coolest person in the world.”
Read also:
‘Creative Force’ Jordan Gogos, GQ Men of the Year Winner 2022
Beyond Words: Iordanes Spyridon Gogos AAFW23
The Alchemist: Iordanes Spyridon Gogos at AFW ‘24
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