NewGen talent shines at London Fashion Week

This season there was a lot of talk about who wasn’t showing at London Fashion Week, however, on the ground, there was a buzz surrounding the creative force that makes London one of the best fashion capitals when it comes to nurturing emerging talent, and at the heart of that was the designers talking part as part of the British Fashion Council’s NewGen initiative.

Launched in 1993, NewGen has played a key role in supporting some of the biggest names in British fashion, including Alexander McQueen, JW Anderson, Christopher Kane, Roksanda, Ahluwalia, Grace Wales Bonner, Molly Goddard, and Bianca Saunders.

The scheme, which selects designers across ready-to-wear and accessories, including all categories such as shoes, bags, millinery, and jewellery, offers each recipient financial support, showcasing opportunities, and mentoring to develop critical skills “to future-proof their businesses”.

NewGen in partnership with retailer Pull&Bear, also receives 2 million pounds in funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which covers showcasing costs and provides business mentoring for designers to grow and sustain their businesses.

The 2024/25 BFC NewGen cohorts include Aaron Esh, Ancuta Sarca, Charlie Constantinou, Chet Lo, Derrick, Di Petsa, Harri, Johanna Parv, Karoline Vitto, Kazna Asker, Leo Carlton, Lueder, Masha Popova, Paolo Carzana, Pauline Dujancourt, Sinéad O’Dwyer, Steve O Smith, The Winter House, Tolu Coker and Yaku.

The autumn/winter 2025 season saw Welsh designer Paolo Carzana showcase his collection in a classic English pub, Ayra Starr and Mia Khalifa walking in the Di Petsa catwalk show, Lueder took the fashion crowd raving, and Kazna Asker brought her deep sense of community to the official BFC show space with a vibrant souk supporting local traders from Sheffield.

Tolu Coker opted for a presentation, drawing inspiration from Yoruba spirituality and its diasporic migration, while Charlie Constantinou, a Central Saint Martins graduate, continued his pursuit of creative evolution, experimenting with texture development, including a collaboration with Ecco Leather in partnership with 1Granary, and French-born, London-based Pauline Dujancourt, who is looking to redefine womenswear with textile processes like crochet and handknitting, paid tribute to her grandmother and drew inspiration from the Vriesea plant, a rare beauty that bloomed only occasionally, revealing vivid red flowers before fading again, gifted to her grandmother by her father in the 1980s.

It was also bittersweet for Sinéad O’Dwyer who took the opportunity for reflection as she presented her final show as a recipient of the BFC’s NewGen scheme. This wasn’t a collection filled with her nostalgic hits but a showcase of the brand’s evolution and dress codes.

The most innovative presentation came from Yaku, founded in 2023 by Yaku Stapleton, who immersed guests into the ‘The ImPossible Family Reunion in RPG Space’ series, channelling themes of hope and belonging through Afro-Futurism. This season he drew guests into his fantasy worlds with a journey of discovery, where you had to discover which biome you belong to, as well as track down all the stamps to add to the passport presented on entry.

“The shows, presentations and events have been incredible,” said Caroline Rush, chief executive of the BFC on her last-ever LFW in charge. “There has been boundless creativity pouring out of London with an incredible international community of fashion leaders championing them to thrive.”

Three standout collections from BFC NewGen designers

Di Petsa ‘Reflections of Desire’ AW25

London-based womenswear brand Di Petsa, founded by Greek designer Dimitra Petsa, known for its signature ‘wet-look’ dresses worn by celebrities such as Bella Hadid, FKA Twigs and Doja Cat, offered up a sensual exploration of sexuality and the subversion of female desire archetypes for AW25.

This season, Petsa transformed the catwalk into a living poem, opting for a sensual and ethereal soundscape from BODUR, interwoven with her own poetry to showcase her collection reimagining menswear from the female gaze, inspired by poets, muses and goddesses.

At the heart of the collection was a sense of love and desire, as well as a longing and hunger, with handwritten love notes scattered throughout, along with imprints of the designer’s own lips, marking garments with “the intimate trace of a kiss,” explains the designer in the show notes, with the chest and the crotch a major focus.

The silhouettes continue Di Petsa’s signature tension between structure and fluidity, tailoring featuring velvet-covered lace and sharp cuts softened by cascading drapery, and vegan leather coats sculpting the body, reminiscent of Ancient Greek sculptures. Lace underwear is also shown as jewellery, draped and wrapped around the body, with white lace thongs encircling the neck, mixed with strands of pearls.

There was also a theatrical element to her catwalk show with a knight in silver body armour carrying a pearl and diamanté encrusted sword, while a silk-draped angel with heart-shaped wings was seen carrying a single red rose, and a bride in a lace blindfold was escorted by five hunky men in draped white underwear.

Lueder ‘The Shell’ AW25 collection

London-based unisex clothing label Lueder, founded by German fashion designer Marie Lueder, recreated the sensory experience of a rave for her ‘The Shell’ autumn/winter 2025 collection. Working in collaboration with DJ duo Two Shell, the LFW hub pulsated with sound, light and energy, drawing the fashion crowd into a club scene where boundaries were blurred between the audience and the performers, dancing under the spotlights around the show space.

Lueder has become known for blending modern sportswear and the aesthetics of medieval armour and for AW25 the label draws inspiration from 19th-century tapestry, elaborate curtains, and intricate carpet prints which camouflaged the upper class into the decadent interior of their stately homes, and reinterprets them with contemporary lens, offering washed-out prints, engineered cotton jeans and embossed tartans on second-skin, semi-sheer Lycra.

Sustainability and innovation remain at the forefront of Lueder’s design ethos and this season the brand introduced leather styles made from by-products from the meat industry, alongside sustainable fake fur made from wood pulp, while favourites from past seasons have been rejuvenated as upcycling and reworked deadstock to create the brand’s staple Phantasy T-shirts with a waterfall insert, alongside the brand's core charcoal garment-dyed joggers.

Chet Lo ‘Modern Antiquity’ AW25 collection

London-based, Asian American designer Chet Lo, who has become known for his avant-garde, textural and tactile designs, elevated his signature merino wool spikes into evening gowns for autumn/winter 2025 for his ‘Modern Antiquity’ collection.

This season, Lo decided to “confront the colonialist Western interpretation of Asian art,” to reclaim and transform chinoiserie patterned fabrics and motifs into “something distinctly and authentically Asian,” explains the designer in his show notes.

He took striking prints, such as tiger stripes, and deconstructed and distorted them, while traditional cloud motifs were reimagined through explosions of delicate floral formations. These sat alongside Lo’s signature textures, including his wool spikes and intricate woven pleating, as well as his use of a plush knitting technique to create dimensional floral patterns.

The collection embraced depth and structure through its fabric, form, and symbolism, offering Lo’s most comprehensive and coherent collection with a much darker colour palette of plum, black, grey and red.

Highlights included the slinky open-back Nineties style evening gown with a square neckline in his textural pleating, elevated outerwear, floral knitted pencil skirts, collared knitwear, tiger-embossed knitted hoodies and separates.

Lo also debuted a collaboration with footwear brand Converse, adding his unique signature spiked texture to the Run Star Trainer and Chuck 70 silhouettes, which featured a studded rubber strap across where the laces would go.

“This collection is not just fashion - it is an act of cultural reclamation, reinvention, and celebration,” added Chet Lo.