40 Years of London Fashion Week: Highlights from S/S 2025 – Elite Traveler
As the sun sets on another London Fashion Week and brings to a close a year of 40th-anniversary celebrations, 72 designers took to the UK capital, bringing enough sequins, plumage and ruffles to suitably mark the occasion.
From established names like Burberry, JW Anderson and Paul Costelloe to emerging and exciting brands such as Simone Rocha and S.S. Daley, designers of all kinds brought in artistic and historical references, apt for this anniversary year. From literary essayists to ballet dancers to queer artists and icons, no matter the muse, this fashion week proved that London’s creativity was boundless.
With so much to catch up on during this momentous and exciting year for London Fashion Week, Elite Traveler has rounded up our highlights for Spring / Summer 2025.
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Burberry
All eyes are on Burberry this season as the pressure remains hot on Daniel Lee to turn the ship on the British label’s finances and fate. While we can only presume the mood (and sales) may be low in Burberry’s boardrooms, in contrast, Lee’s collection was a defiance of showmanship and (dare I say) pure optimism. Set against the Brutalist backdrop of the National Theatre’s lobby, which had been dressed by veteran Young British Artist Gary Hume, models walked as canvases of scrub-blue tarpaulins swung behind them.
The collection itself focused on what Burberry does best: serving a healthy dose of military-style jackets and trench coats, a heaving of workwear-inspired tailoring with a dashing of Burberry checks, seen on capes, parkas and biker jackets. While the whimsy and more edgy elements of Lee’s previous collections have been put to bed, a Hume-inspired color palette of matte pastels made an appearance in the more formal pieces of the collection.
JW Anderson
For those familiar with JW Anderson, the Spring Summer 2025 collection, at first glance, seemed surprisingly paired back. For the eponymous label of the creative director at Loewe, this was not so much a collection but an exercise in restriction and self-refrain. Narrowing Anderson’s focus to what he describes as the bare essentials, the whole collection was made using just four materials –cashmere knit, leather, silk and sequins – allowing Anderson to streamline his usual boundless ideas and creative ambition.
It made for a sharply designed and exacting collection, hinged on simple cuts, short hemlines, trompe-l’oeil prints and tutu-like silhouettes. Towards the end of the show, silk shift dresses were spotted sporting enlarged, type-written text from the 20th-century essay Art by critic (and Virginia Woolf’s brother-in-law) Clive Bell. Intended to be taken more metaphorically than literally, Anderson said after the show that the essay itself was less important than the blank page – or the silk shift – on which it appeared: “Starting from a new blank page ultimately, I think fashion needs to narrow a bit, to kind of refocus somehow its eye.”
[See also: Fall Capsule Collections Prove Louis Vuitton Remains Timeless]
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Paul Costelloe
A veteran of London Fashion Week since its very inception in 1984, Paul Costelloe was also celebrating four decades of presenting on London’s stage. Yet, for a year of such significant celebration, the Irish designer moved away from the UK capital and instead took inspiration from across the English Channel, transforming the Hilton’s Wardolf hotel into a painterly Parisian street for the show.
With his 80th birthday just around the corner, for this London Fashion Week, the master tailor took a more relaxed approach to his Spring Summer 2025 range, where ruffled skirts, dropped hems and bloomer shorts were imagined in soft blues and girlie pinks to form the backbone of the collection. Being Parisian-inspired, of course, tweeds were inescapable but reimagined with a youthfulness and playfulness, thanks to the pastel hues and blooming silhouettes. It was, as the French say, très jolie.
Simone Rocha
Breathing life into the grand, cold marble halls of England’s central criminal court, the Old Bailey, Simone Rocha brought equal heaping of seduction and whimsy through her Spring / Summer 2025 collection. Theatrical in both its musing and presentation, the collection was inspired by ballet, dance and performance.
As expected with Rocha, the standout silhouettes were voluminous tutu skirts, built on layers and layers of delicate organza and tulles, presented in bright shades of pinks and red hues, and embellished with jewels of carnation flowers. Not just bound to the stage, the collection also featured two paintings by Irish artist Genieve Figgis. Known for her ghoulishly abstract and almost grotesque depictions of everyday luxuries, the reference underpins Rocha’s otherworldly approach to fashion.
[See also: Miu Miu Launches the Balmoral Collection]
S. S. Daley
Steven Stokey-Daley was already having a pretty monumental London Fashion Week even before the models took the catwalk. Having been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design only a few days prior, in the audience at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, anticipation was high for the brand’s fifth year at London Fashion Week – and that was before global popstar (and brand investor) Harry Styles made a rare front row appearance.
That excitement and buzz was certainly not misplaced, however. For Spring Summer 2025 and the brand’s first venture into womenswear, it was a confident and assured collection, one inspired by the British painter, Gluck. Rising to prominence in the 1920s and 30s, Gluck – the artist persona of Hannah Gluckstein – was openly queer, would avoid identifying pronouns and was a proponent of masculine dress. Gluck’s influence, combined with Stokey-Daley’s principle of queering English classics, plays out in a formal yet nonetheless fun subversion of British sensibility.
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