“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The release of London Fashion Week’s schedule posed a similar question. With the calendar shrinking from five to four days and British giants missing, the absence felt deafening. If online the condemnation honed in on the necessity of holding it twice a year, the comments eavesdropped throughout town were much more vicious. “It’s going from bad to worse. “Everyone goes from New York to Milan.” “What’s the point? All the best brands leave.” There’s no denying it—London Fashion Week’s success has the odds stacked against it: the logistical implications of Brexit, the increasing polarization of the industry between Paris and Milan, and an inability to maintain talent. Even so, most people I speak to who reminisce about the good old days weren’t alive to witness them. And, while complaining is undoubtedly fun, to say that the downfall of London’s magnetic pull reflects the quality of design overlooks the talent pool in the city. This season, designers proved the merit of British craftsmanship by doubling down on its aesthetic tropes.

Central Saint Martins MA
The season started in its usual fashion, with the Central Saint Martins MA show—the longstanding jewel in London’s crown. For decades, the show has acted as a north star to the industry, with the program as a breeding ground for fashion’s biggest names. During the week, an editor reminisced about what the show used to mean. “You used to be able to tell what was going to happen in the industry in the next year based on what you saw in the show. If you saw minimalism, it was going to be a minimalist year.” I wonder what she made of this year’s cohort. What did they predict? Perhaps, an increased use of AI in the industry—three out of the sixteen students utilized it in their final collections. Petra Fagerstrom, who opened the show and went on to win the L’Oréal Pro Prize, imagined classic 1940s and ’50s silhouettes through AI-generated errors. The result was a subversion of the trad-wife trope, hiding classic imagery behind micro-pleated skirts. Keogh Dewar, the duo made up of students Alison Keogh and Kate Dewar, based the materiality of their collection on digital textures. Lurex, latex, and lamé were all utilized to create uncanny smoothness. Of course, reducing the show to AI would be shortsighted. Some designers used their collections as a mirror to their experiences. For Zihan Liu, their journey across Europe over the summer was reflected as a metaphor for freedom. Kelechukwu Mpamaugo explored the duality of their identity—Nigerian and Black American—to express the tension between tradition and modernity.

Images courtesy of S.S. Daley.

S.S. Daley
If there’s one designer the recent graduates of CSM should look up to, it’s Steven Stokey-Daley. The designer behind S.S. Daley defines what success means for a young, independent designer. Not only was he the winner of the LVMH prize in 2022 but, just four years into his namesake brand, he’s become one of London’s most interesting names. This season, Daley presented his best collection to date. British archetypes weren’t just part of the Fall/Winter 2025 offerings, they were its core. Trench coats, duffle coats, Harrington jackets—among other English classics– were reconsidered but never defamed. A coat rendered in checkered cream, black, and red (and a matching suit) was particularly mouthwatering; a cropped, cinched trench coat, delicious. Daley’s Britishness is lighthearted, even campy at times—a corduroy brown suit was paired with a white shirt whose collar reached past the model’s waist.

Images courtesy of Simone Rocha.

Simone Rocha
Even Simone Rocha traded her idiosyncratic femininity for a British-like fantasy. Staged in Goldsmith’s Hall, an opulently decorated palace in the heart of the city, the designer’s Fall/Winter 2025 show unfolded amidst magnanimous paintings and imposing chandeliers. Drawing from her upbringing in Dublin, Rocha created a rolodex of adolescent characters—the rebels, the mean girls, the good girls, the rugby boys—all explored through the designer’s delicate vocabulary. Full leather looks were sweetened by flowy silhouettes. Lock-and-key enclosures were adorned necks, tasked with keeping heavy cardigans tight against the body. Fur trimmings flowed out delicate dresses. Rocha dove not into childhood or adulthood, but the limbo that sits in between. Plushies were held for comfort while seemingly suffocating the models’ necks—youth is as liberating as it is restrictive. The subject of school uniforms led Rocha straight into British classics. Trench coats, rugby polos, anoraks—all studied through her precious lens. Hoods embellished with oversized crystals and collars encrusted with pearls. Last season, Rocha explored the budding of flowers. For Fall/Winter 2025, the function didn’t change, only the form—after all, it’s not just flowers that bloom.

Stefan Cooke
“There will be a large cake.” Stefan Cooke delivered on the promise made in their AW25 invite. But, Louis Thompson’s sweets were hardly the only thing it had in common with Jake’s, the pop-up store where, every Saturday, loyal attendees (myself included) parade as part of weekend routine. Fostering community is often a forced endeavor—a cringey mix of TikToks and fan-service regurgitation of archives—sins Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt aren’t guilty of. Fall/Winter 2025 speaks to the community they’ve built. There’s aesthetic movement, with pleated panels in tight trousers and overlapping chains of leather geometric panels. All progress is made vertically. Surrounding the candied cherry and almond cake, cult favorites evolved in metal racks. The famous (and personally coveted) jacket-skirt was reinvented—its previous tweedy Britishness replaced with a Londoner’s scrappiness. Cashmere dresses masqueraded as skirt-and-vest sets. As the brand grows, so does its audience—or perhaps it’s the opposite. It’s hard to tell in Stefan Cooke’s case. This season marked a definitive expansion into womenswear, a path they’ve only dipped their toes in before. The co-ed collection doesn’t sway from the brand’s strengths—a characteristic take on casual deconstructivism. Vintage silk scarves are cut, rearranged, and patched onto Harrington jackets. The British label doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it just spins it.

Images courtesy of Dilara Findikoglu.

Dilara Findikoglu
If Stefan Cooke relates to London’s craft, Dilara Findikoglu speaks to what some consider the city’s lost underground culture. The designer’s last show was held in a gutted church in East London—a proper fit for the dramatic dance that unfolded inside. This time, Findikoglu took us to an inconspicuous location: a club on the second floor of a seemingly empty building. In front of me in line, Bautista Barilli, co-founder of Opia, the city’s premier queer rave collective, explained that the black-walled, red-lit club we were about to step into had once hosted an iconic hardcore goth night years before and currently hosts a regular sex party. Fashion was explored as fantasy with a level of craftsmanship that, in its sheer detail, defied industry rules. Where and with whom is craft allowed to have its apex? Findikoglu has a knack for defiance. Her visual vocabulary—what can only be described as gothic, punk, and cunt—is a stark contrast to what most are doing, not only in London but in the fashion circuit as a whole. This year the inspiration was Botticelli’s Venus, a reference that was taken both figuratively and literally by a model who wore nothing but a clam and long strands of hair. Explorations with this unconventional material continued in a voluminous cropped jacket and a pair of braided bodysuits, one in blonde, another in black. The maritime narrative continued in painstakingly placed, individually drilled seashells in ornate corsets. Safety pins punctuated both the precious corsets and the entire collection. The roughness that accompanies the beauty is not lost but sanded, polished to accommodate the standard of quality Findikoglu rises to with each season.

Images courtesy of Burberry.

Burberry
Daniel Lee’s Burberry, which served as the final show of the week, reached similarly new heights. For the past few seasons the brand has become a mirror to the criticisms made against British fashion. As the premiere British luxury house, the brand’s recent financial (and somewhat creative) rut has been used as one of the leading arguments towards London’s fall as a fashion capital. Daniel Lee, ever since he joined in 2022, has been criticized for his inability to turn around a ship whose course he didn’t set. Fall/Winter 2025 marks a turning point. If Lee’s mission to laser in on British identity has been hard to grasp in the past—lost in the political seas of what being British means—this season it’s made quite clear. Lee looked to the media representation of the country’s identity. Backstage, the designer cited Saltburn as an inspiration. Ironically, in what were very serious clothes—perhaps the least adventurous line-up he’s created in his tenure—the lighthearted approach was the reason for its success. The country-house, posh-sounding, emblem-having upper class was considered at face value, without the instinct to over-intellectualize. Printed silk pajama sets, shearling-lined jackets reminiscent of hunting attire, classic trenches adorned with curtain tassels—there was an element of satire in what Lee accomplished. The coats were sweeping, the accessories equestrian. There’s not a lot more we can ask of Burberry. Lee seems to have found a way forward. “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Obviously, just don’t be idiotic enough to miss it.