Autumn/Winter 2025 was a quieter season at London Fashion Week (LFW). The schedule was noticeably slimmer as a number of brands cancelled their shows or moved to alternative formats. British designers are still grappling with the closure of Matches, ongoing challenges associated with Brexit and the pandemic, and rising costs — forcing them to rethink how they show up at fashion week. But if there’s one thing London excels at, it’s rising creatively to a challenge.

“It’s been a tough time, not just for fashion but for our economy generally — a combination of a hard Brexit, the pandemic and, frankly speaking, a weak economy,” Mayor of London Sadiq Khan told Vogue Business at the opening of the new London Fashion Week Shop on Saturday. “Each year, fashion contributes more than £32 billion to [the UK] economy, and we have more fashion universities than any city in the world, so it’s really important to celebrate the success but also support some of the designers who are rising and emerging. It’s really important we’re optimistic because when you speak, as I do, to the mayors of Milan, Paris and New York but also the designers from those cities, they look at London with envy.”