Gird your loins: London Fashion Week is back - and with it, another jam-packed season that reminds us why our capital remains the bubbling nerve centre of fashion. Where Paris and Milan may boast mega brands and debuts aplenty, London is, as ever, a season of firsts, a place where creative risk proves commercially viable, and where emerging names and established voices share the same stage. Consider this your guide of everything that is happening on the schedule.
The most significant debut isn’t on a runway but in the boardroom: Laura Weir, former ES Magazine editor-in-chief, takes her first bow as CEO of the British Fashion Council. In just a few short months, Weir has ripped up the rule book, waiving schedule entry fees, extending NewGen funding, and doubling down on the international guest programme. The results speak for themselves: an 18% increase in shows on schedule and a renewed energy among young designers who might otherwise have been priced out. It’s bold, it’s pragmatic, and it sets the tone for a London Fashion Week that feels newly galvanised.
Opening night is set to be a blockbuster. H&M makes its official on-schedule debut. Expect a thumping runway that will spotlight its AW25 collection, complete with heavyweight models, editors, and influencers flying in for the spectacle. On the same evening, eBay takes its ‘preloved is luxury’ mantra to the runway with a show of second-hand treasures. Add Harris Reed’s signature pageantry on Thursday night, and the week’s diary already looks like a full-blown festival.
Then comes more talent. The nouveau NewGen cohort is a riot of fresh names - 19 in total, seven of them joining for the first time: Aaron Esh, Aletta, Charlie Constantinou, Derrick, Ewusie, Johanna Parv, Karoline Vitto, Kazna Asker, Liza Keane, Lueder, Louther, Oscar Ouyang, Octi, Pauline Dujancourt, Steve O Smith, The Ouze, The Winter House, Tolu Coker, and Yaku.
The schedule itself is a matriarchy. From the NewGen talent to Priya Ahluwalia, Talia Byre, and Chopova Lowena (the cult it-kilt brand making a much-awaited return to the runway after sitting out last season), to Dilara Findikoglu, Tove, Simone Rocha, Emilia Wickstead, Roksanda and Edeline Lee - women are running the show, and running it with conviction. In between, Daniel Fletcher is flexing his tailoring muscles as the newly appointed creative director of Mithridate, bringing his contemporary sharpness to the Chinese brand’s London stage for his sophomore collection.
London’s institutional pillars are marking milestones too. Fashion East, Lulu Kennedy and Raphaelle Moore’s design incubator, turns 25 this year. A show, and a host of activations will celebrate not just its formidable alumni - Jonathan Anderson, Martine Rose, Grace Wales Bonner, Kim Jones, Craig Green, Maximilian Davis, the list is endless - but its next chapter. And speaking of anniversaries, both Roksanda and Erdem hit their 20-year mark, with Erdem commemorating the milestone by releasing a coffee-table tome with Rizzoli.
Elsewhere, Conner Ives, fresh from scooping the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund and still riding high on the success of his viral tees and Jimmy Choo collaboration, is one to watch. Jawara Alleyne will bring raw, conceptual brilliance; Paolo Carzana will once again remind everyone that London is best when it goes back to its defiant roots (last season’s pub show is still being talked about). Aaron Esh, meanwhile, continues to hone his razor-sharp menswear vocabulary - think skinny tailoring and sensual precision - cementing his status as one of the capital’s breakout stars.
Of course, there are absentees. Jonathan Anderson has traded a runway for an opening dinner, no doubt laser-focused on his Dior womenswear debut in Paris. But Daniel Lee at Burberry promises to end the week with the kind of blockbuster show only Britain’s biggest luxury house can deliver.
The world may be wobbling on luxury right now, but London has never looked more assured. What it offers isn’t simply clothes but proof that creativity - urgent, fearless, unfiltered - is the most valuable currency of all.
Come back here for regular updates live from London fashion week.
Henrik Lischke is the senior fashion news & features editor at Grazia. Prior to that, he worked at British Vogue, and was junior fashion editor at The Sunday Times Style.