Everything You Need To Know About London Fashion Week AW26
Following the appointment of the British Fashion Council’s new CEO, Laura Weir, the spring/summer 2026 edition London Fashion Week felt forward-looking, and fresh. Since taking office in April 2025, the former British Vogue editor wasted little time in scrapping the five-figure fees that had long priced designers off-schedule; securing a three-year extension of Newgen funding; and doubling the international guest programme to lure top-tier press and buyers back to the capital.
Things were looking good, then, when H&M opened the week with an Emily Ratajkowski, Romeo Beckham, Paloma Elsesser and Alex Consani-studded extravaganza at 180 The Strand, and even better – via successful catwalk debuts from Oscar Ouyang, Josh Ewusie and Talia Byre, milestone anniversaries for Erdem, Roksanda and Fashion East, and pulse-raising shows from Chopova Lowena, Aaron Esh, Dilara Findikoglu and Conner Ives – by the time Burberry returned to Kensington Gardens, where it closed out the season with a festival-themed finale watched live by Sir Elton John, Raye, Central Cee, Jourdan Dunn, Olivia Dean, Alexa Chung, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders.
The real test now, of course, will be whether the British Fashion Council can sustain that buzz, transforming London Fashion Week into a compelling, robust product, season after season. But if what’s in store for autumn/winter 2026 is anything to go by, well, that might not be such a tall order, after all. From the return of Joseph and Karoline Vitto – thank God – to the arrival of Ronan Mckenzie’s Selasi and Sanjay Garg’s Raw Mango, scroll on for the inside track on what to expect from the season ahead, including where to spot the great, the good and the freeloading in the wild.
Who’s new?
Central Saint Martins will jump-start the week by unleashing its 2026 MA graduates onto the world, and with them their unbridled vision for the future. “Poor, broke and single,” as last year’s Kate Dewar and Alison Keogh so memorably put it. “(Joking!)” Elsewhere, Fashion East will welcome a for-now confidential recruit into a line-up that includes Louis Mayhew and Jacek Gleba, while Julia Fox-favourite Liza Keane will make her debut on the schedule. Photographer, multi-disciplinary artist, gallerist – Home, her reimagining of a contemporary art space, ran until 2023 – and fashion designer Ronan Mckenzie will also present for the first time, after a year dedicated solely to her clothing brand, Selasi, on what I am told is a bleep-test inspired catwalk in a community sports hall in Bloomsbury.