Salutations Sugarcups, London Fashion Week is back and is bigger than ever
Beautiful, and if you haven’t already scribbled all over the London Fashion Week 2025 calendar then one piece of advice – just shift the Pilates class. Because this season? It’s no longer just about fashion. It’s about culture, it’s about business, it’s about collab-heaven and digital pods stacked up along row after row of stands. I remember my first every London Fashion Week (a long while ago now – supposedly) when I was fresh out of marketing college and there I was, outside Somerset House, in a pair of heels that looked as fabulous as the ones I tend to wear for work but really are medieval torture devices. LFWM felt like a castle wall and only the well-coiffed photographers and editors and buyers with their invites like golden tickets could get through the door, PRs running like headless chickens with their notepads and for everyone else who wasn’t famous? Forget it. Well, not so much this time around but, I’m not the one to be sneaking my way in anymore – I’ve been in those boardrooms, writing the strategy decks for brands who don’t want to showcase their garms but become something in the cultural zeitgeist.
And that is exactly why I will say it loud and proud: London Fashion Week 2025 isn’t about the runway. It’s about collaboration, digital activations and experiences that will stay with us long after the 12-minute show.
London Fashion Week 2025: Love, It’s More Than Just the Runway Now
When I got into this thing it was a members only invite kind of thing and now it is just a more sort of hybrid playground of real life IRL and digital life URLs where a beautiful rendezvous is to be had. 150+ designers and brands, 50+ runway shows, 20+ presentations, 64 events and 23 digital activations. And that thing nobody seems to be listening to.
The runway is still the main act but Activations and Experiences are the hottest ticket item.
A digital-first story is worth more than an editorial in print.
Partnerships used to be nothing but logo-slaps now they are turning into ecosystems.
And just like I did when I was a consultant, I’d ask the client: “Don’t count your LFW win as the last time you saw Anna Wintour’s face. Count it on your activation doing well on Tik Tok, on your collab bringing chatter on Instagram Reels and on the popup giving you data to feed your next CX campaign.”
Partnerships: The Secret Ingredient for Brands at London Fashion Week
All brands need friends – on and off the runway. The smartest brands get it, by working in collaboration they will be get community and be recognised. Burberry x Minecraft, Moncler x Pharrell, H&M x Perfect Magazine or last season’s arguably most successful snack’s magic hit, Jellycat? This is how you do cultural jiu-jitsu.
Why Partnerships Work
They increase the breadth of your audience beyond your immediate contacts.
Refection: “cultural cachet” by the value chain (luxury + playful, heritage + tech, fashion + F&B).
Sounds very much like something only a consultant would come up with, but actually – it’s real in the inflationy post-Covid economy.
What NOT TO DO
Not quite runway ready. (For the fintech that wants to do fashion, but has no muse on the horizon- Hold up, queen!)
One night stands. (Collabs that dont cumulate into long term strategy are just noise)
Over-branding. (Don’t plaster logos everywhere. Subtlety sells.)
The Rule is easy: At 2025 you want to win your partner. You want to make a conversation. You want to apply change. I would not imagine so much anything but that (but hey, I wrote in a series of things I can say that are not going to happen).
Digital Activations: From Hashtags to Holograms
No matter how long you’ve been holed up inside a marketing team or agency the past few months, you’ve been riding in the Oversized Marketing surf. Just last week Preksha Krishnan raved on LinkedIn about the photos of recent campaigns from Rhode Skin, Jacquemus, Stanley, and the like that are all selling and scaling, all at once. Oversized props, distorted proportions, emotionally resonant images all stacked on top of each other – can you really blame them? This is the moment to be scaled up yet be significant.
10 years ago, digital was a tweet of a cat walk. Cute but not very interesting. In 2025 digital activation is how your brand will be lived. Over the years I’ve had the privilege to work on AR pop ups in Covent Garden and even an interactive live stream where viewers voted for their favourite stylist on the live stream in real-time. The trick is, the audience is the story co-creator, not the brand.
Success Stories:
Phygital exhibitions (Barbour’s Carnaby Street archive pop-up, woven on a round loom artist, The Heritage).
-UGC Campaigns (think Tik Tok challenges where the fans are remixing the visual idea or the Keeps girl runway girl for a few weeks.)
Styling with AI- I attempted one last season that offered up outfits straight out of my closet… feasible, sure. But also… ick.
Gamification (unlocking limited drops through digital challenges).
It’s not a gimmick – but it is the BEST CX innovation on earth – with sequins.
Street Style = Free PR If You Do It Right (Brands & startups)
I’d be fibbing if I said the runway is the only ‘stage’ for London Fashion Week. The street outside is just as important as the runway. How many impressions are street style pictures getting compared to runway images? Street style photographers are more influential than editors. What’s it for brands?
Wrap your presents good. (You didn’t down all the PR drops everywhere. Send a seed five the right way and not 500.)
You are your best brand ambassador, and you are your first model.
Support British indie labels (Paul Costelloe, Harris Reed, Conner Ives). That’s the social currency.
Remember this always: street style is the runway for Gen Z and Alpha.
Name-Dropping for London Fashion Week 2025
So bestie, here’s the cheat sheet to all of the names that really count if you want your press release to be picked up or get your campaign retweeted:
Must Follow Creatives: Harris Reed, Bora Aksu, Emilia Wickstead, Daniel Fletcher, Richard Quinn, Conner Ives, Henrietta Rix and Orlagh McCloskey for RIXO
BFC News: New Gen update Race, Identity and Fashion Special Fashion East (25) British Fashion Council’s New Gen. ICA exhibitions.
Show me the brands to keep your eye on at Burberry, but stay away from the Tik Tokers which are blowing the streetwear videos into space.
Barbour offer a contemporary lifestyle with on-trend F&B brands such as 1664 Blanc, but is also a presence at LFW panels on tech brands in AI/AR.
Pro tip: put the correct titles to the correct arrivals London is still a small village and that’s even more reason to keep it curated. Stylestar is earned media gold and right now it’s unequivocally indispensable.
What LFW Means To Me As A Consultant
Okay then sugarcups, I’m just going to run over to my day-job and check what’s happening at LFW 2025.
