Nothing is so beautiful as Spring' wrote the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

The spiritual meaning of the Spring Equinox this weekend, lies in a tender crossing: from incubation into visibility, from inward gestation into outward participation. You may feel energy returning to parts of your life that have been quiet. You may feel restlessness where there has been stagnation. Or you may sense something subtle shifting, even if you do not yet have language for it. Ancient sites aligned to the movement of the Sun still stand as reminders that human life was once lived in deliberate relationship with celestial rhythm.

But this is not yet bloom. It is the first break in the soil, or bud on a branch; a threshold between what has been and what is forming. And a willingness to face what is rising and to turn towards it.

Some springs are quiet: a shift in perception, a decision made inwardly before it is announced. Others are unmistakable: the end of a long chapter, and the spiritual significance of the Spring Equinox rests in this return of light, and in our willingness to align with it rather than override it. Given the state of the world at the moment it seems we are being asked for something huge and bold and unknowing. There is vulnerability here and we cannot know the entire path at this threshold.  

Modern life already asks us to move independently of season. To produce when the body is tired. To accelerate when a period of incubation is still needed. To respond to messages and flags immediately. To make judgements without true knowledge of situations. And for us in fashion to create and buy collections in winter darkness for summer suns. But light now returns, steadily unfolding in a rhythm. I believe in this Spring rhythm of natural growth and the sense of hope of better things to come… but there is also illumination of all corners of life even the darkest ones. And maybe the buds bursting have their own melancholy, like the blossom there is a transient beauty that we must embrace as it appears, however tender and however fragile. And maybe we even can feel hope rising in the warmth of the Spring sun and in the joy of new life and to trust nature's rhythm. We see life for ourselves in glorious blossom technicolour and in the bright light of longer days and we experience that pulse physically. Not redacted nor enhanced… but for real, when we look out of the window or walk along the street. Whatever happens we must try to believe in this ultimate super power of life to regenerate and make beautiful. 

 We celebrate this moment with our Connolly Spring Collection photographed very informally, upstairs in the Connolly Gallery by Jessica Ellis on London Gallerist and DJ, Freddie Foulkes and Claudia Ferrier, model and Cambridge undergraduate. This new collection is effortless and embraces the fabrics and cuts and colours and conversations of summer. Loose linens washed and striped, moire printed voile, crisp white cottons, deep brown and dark navy thread dyed poplin tailoring, silk jacquards, butter soft suedes and superb knits. Clothes to relax in and let the mood take over.

Connolly 2026 Spring Summer Collection arriving in store early April.

- Isabel