Ripples of change: London Fashion Week’s resilience and creative evolution amid adversity

“These are challenging times for British fashion,” said Caroline Rush, the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) outgoing CEO, during London Fashion Week’s opening event on February 21. “Although we’d prefer the landscape to be different, one thing I know is that this community is resilient and creativity is heightened further when facing adversity.” It was a somber yet hopeful start to what was a shortened version of the biannual event, haunted by the ghosts of absent regulars yet uplifted by creative up-and-comers that have taken their place.

It’s no secret by now that participating in a fashion week is a costly venture. Though a select number of designers under the BFC’s NewGen initiative receive financial aid, and therefore take up many of the runway slots, others rely on sponsorships or must otherwise reconsider their priorities–whether that is to move to the more abundantly platformed Milan or Paris, or to skip out on shows altogether. For the autumn/winter 2025 season, it appeared that the latter took precedence.

Meaningful conversation at intimate dinners take precedence over costly runways

Some brands like Marques Almeida and Carlota Barrera were initially on the schedule and dropped out. Former mainstays, like Molly Goddard, Ahluwalia and Nensi Dojaka, were missing in their entirety. Others, meanwhile, chose to host dinner events in place of runway shows. Former NewGen participants 16Arlington, Feben and Aaron Esh were among those names, as was Patrick McDowell, who held his own intimate dinner in partnership with mycelium fibre company Ecovative, with which he celebrated the launch of a collaboration with biotech firm Huue.

In a press release, McDowell had said that this exit from a traditional format intended to “create a space for meaningful conversations”, adding that fashion was “as much about the people who wear it as it is about the garments themselves”. In a statement to Glossy, however, the designer also admitted to the heightened financial burden that comes with showing, particularly as “sponsorships just aren’t there like they used to be”. “A lot of marketing budgets have been reallocated, and that’s made it harder for smaller brands to justify the cost,” he told the publication.

Alternatively, what LFW does seem to be leaning into is its position almost as a breeding ground for new, high quality talent, many of whom go on to achieve global recognition before returning to the capital when the time is right. Harry Styles-backed S.S.Daley is a good example of such. The LVMH Prize winner had last year shown in the prestigious guest designer spot at Florentine menswear fair Pitti Uomo, and this season made the last minute decision to return to London. Here, the designer, Steven Stokey-Daley, celebrated British heritage, drawing on inspiration from Scottish painter Francis Cadell–slogan knits, for example, which fell alongside quilted jackets and a trench-mac hybrid.

Ireland’s Simone Rocha is another to have already garnered acclaim on disparate stages, having taken to Haute Couture Week as the guest designer to Jean Paul Gaultier. This season, she reinstated her commitment to London in what was a celebration of the brand’s 15 years of life. For the collection, Rocha aptly looked back over this period to inform on her designs, many reminiscent of iconic looks from her past that were brought into the present day. Ribbon-adorned, lace up dresses were the cornerstone of the line, and conflicted with heavier leather bomber jackets and more tailored suiting seen elsewhere.

Despite being among the more established designers at London, Rocha also recognised the challenges faced by the industry today when speaking to Elle prior to the event. The designer touched on how participants could reframe the current landscape to their benefit, commenting: “Even though London is a smaller season, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be as strong. Nor does it mean that you can’t put your best foot forward. Fashion is a reflection of the times, and we are in challenging times. I think what’s necessary is figuring out how you navigate it and being willing to take risks, interpret things in different ways and take your time and do things that are right for yourself.”

Star power and theatrics inject freshness into stagnant surroundings

It could be that London designers are taking notes from Paris and Milan, where star power helps to uplift exposure and draw in fans beyond fashion itself. Rocha, for example, tapped Alexa Chung and Fiona Shaw, among others, as models for her show, whereas Harris Reed–who also serves as the creative director to Nina Ricci–turned to Florence Pugh for his own runway, held in Tate Britain. Pugh’s poignant opening monologue ushered in a string of designs evoking Reed’s now synonymous drama, with deadstock tailoring wool incorporated into 3D structures and etched gold details standing starkly among dark but fluid chiffon and tulle.

Theatrics played a part elsewhere in London. Fashion week regular Richard Quinn staged his collection of couture-like pieces within a snow-clad, Kensington-esque backdrop. Mermaid silhouettes and fluffy tiered gowns traversed the runway, framed as a love letter to the city itself. Jewellery brand Completedworks, meanwhile, relied on Debi Mazar to play a shopping channel host in the midst of a breakdown in a theatre production alternative to a fashion show. Such formats brought much needed change to a schedule that otherwise remained fairly stagnated compared to the escalating scales of shows elsewhere.

The same could be said for the industry musical chairs in other fashion cities, where creative director debuts are defining schedules and propping up hype. London, in comparison, has calmer waters in this sense, yet some tides were changing–albeit very little. Mithridate was the only brand debuting a new creative director this season. British designer Daniel Fletcher was appointed to work on a rebrand and new collection in November last year, using this time to shift the brand out of its demi-couture roots into a more contemporary ready-to-wear approach, tying together Mithridate’s Chinese heritage to Fletcher’s own British origins.

Elsewhere, other designers are bouncing back. This is the case for Ashish, which had at once been a season regular in London, but financial constraints brought on by the pandemic and the fallout of former e-tail partner Matches forced designer Gupta Ashish to realign. Via support from the BFC, Ashish made its return with the collection ‘Crisis of Confidence’, a reference to the uncertainties felt in the present moment and the freedom of allowing one to fail. The message was quite literally portrayed through a slew of slogan T-shirts–some politically charged, ‘fashion not fascism’; others more tongue-in-cheek, ‘not in the mood’. The collection was delivered in Ashish’s signature campy style, marking a definitive return for the New Delhi-based designer.

Destabilising period for all format of brands causes change in tides

Ashish used his time away from the spotlight to launch his own D2C e-commerce platform. Its introduction was a response to a period which Ashish described to be “very destabilising" for a small independent brand. This only underlines the rocky nature of the current climate, a landscape that can’t even be avoided by larger names on the schedule.

The importance of traditional LFW brands like Burberry committing to the schedule cannot be overstated, however. As larger names like JW Anderson continue to be drawn to London’s Milanese and Parisian counterparts, there is a certain need for headliners to stay true to their roots in order to retain the city's relevancy and global exposure, no matter how much they too may be struggling in a financial sense. In this regard, Burberry has faced a bumpy road, a one riddled with potholes and has thrust the future of its collaboration with creative director Daniel Lee into doubt–speculation about Lee exiting the label has run rife in recent months.

Though, while there is an underlying sense of uncertainty, this was not present at its AW25 show, which served as the finale to LFW. Drawing in the usual cohort of famous fans–from Orlando Bloom and Skepta on the front row, to Lesley Manville and Jessica Madsen on the runway–the atmosphere was one reflective of a “great Friday-night exodus from London”, Lee said in the show notes. This feeling was also carried into the collection itself. Innately British fabrics were twisted into tailored suits, velvet damask dresses exhibited artisanal crafts and reworked smoking jackets, silk pyjama shirts and tweed coats with silk organza feathers were exhibited as newly interpreted heirloom pieces.

Akin to others, Burberry’s show took place at Tate Britain, marking a one-year partnership between the duo, underlining the necessity in cross-industry collaboration. And indeed, what the UK fashion industry really “needs” right now is this sense of widening support. While the BFC had recently secured one million pounds in funding via the UK government’s Great campaign to support NewGen, needs have grown beyond this with Caroline Rush also calling for “an improved trading agreement with the EU” and, once again, the return of tax-free shopping.

In the opening event, Rush, who is set to exit the BFC in June, said: “Further support from the government is absolutely crucial. We need to work with the government to help businesses access low-cost finance. It’s increasingly important to make sure [designers] have the opportunity to have the finance to grow their businesses. We have the talent, we just need that support mechanism to help them grow.”

Rush will be succeeded by former Selfridges exec Laura Weir, who joins the council in April, from which time she will lead initiatives focused on responsible growth and building opportunities for talent. She will also oversee the full implementation of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s Sustainability Requirements, which were introduced for NewGen designers this season, but will be rolled out to the full schedule by January 2026. With new leadership and drastic changes underway, LFW and its designers will be hoping for a much needed revival in the English capital, prompting the return of big names and a more stable platform for the newer ones.