FROM LONDON TO MILAN: WHAT CHANGES?
Monday Briefing
London Fashion Week is over. Milan is about to begin. But perhaps the most interesting part of the fashion calendar sits between the two: what does a modern fashion capital actually need to deliver?
London Fashion Week has once again demonstrated the extraordinary scale of the industry around it. This season, the official programme featured 47 catwalk shows, 23 presentations, 10 digital activations and 53 evening events. Behind those numbers sits a huge investment of people, production, talent, travel, technology, content and money.
But scale is not the same as impact. And attention is not the same as value.
So perhaps the more important question coming out of London is not how much attention Fashion Week generated, but what that attention actually changed.
Did it create customers? Strengthen brands? Build communities? Open commercial opportunities? Create relationships that continue after the week itself?
There are already some interesting answers emerging.
M&S used its first London Fashion Week show to challenge the traditional separation between runway and retail. Its 59-look collection was made immediately available to shop, with the wider collection distributed through 46 M&S websites and 10 flagship stores, as well as reaching European customers through Zalando. The significance is not simply that M&S staged a show. It connected the creative moment directly to the customer and to commerce.
ASOS is exploring another model, partnering with La Watch Party around Chopova Lowena to bring the show experience to a wider audience. It is a different proposition again: using community and participation to extend the life and reach of a fashion moment beyond the people physically in the room.
And then there is Paul Smith and Selfridges, whose 40-year relationship demonstrates a completely different kind of value. Not a single campaign or activation, but a relationship that has endured across changing customers, markets and generations.
Three very different examples. Yet they point towards the same shift. Fashion Week may be becoming less about creating a moment and more about what you do with that moment. Fashion has never struggled to generate attention. The harder challenge is converting attention into something that lasts: a customer, a relationship, a community, a commercial opportunity, a stronger brand or a business capable of growing. The runway can start the conversation.
It does not necessarily have to finish it.
And that matters because London Fashion Week sits within something much larger than the five days of the official calendar.
The British Fashion Council estimates that fashion contributes £28.9 billion in direct gross value added to the UK economy and directly supports 819,000 jobs. When wider supply-chain and consumer impacts are included, the contribution rises to £67.5 billion and more than 1.4 million jobs.
That makes fashion much more than a creative showcase. It is an economic ecosystem. Designers, retailers, manufacturers, technology companies, media, music, art, hospitality and investment all intersect around it. London Fashion Week is simply one of the moments when that ecosystem becomes highly visible.
This is why the expansion of Fashion Britain is worth watching. The British Fashion Council's nationwide programme is taking fashion beyond London and connecting the industry with cities and creative communities across the UK. The ambition is broader than showcasing fashion; it is about demonstrating its cultural and economic contribution and connecting more people with the opportunities within the industry.
The opportunity, therefore, is bigger than creating another successful Fashion Week.
Can Britain turn creative advantage into commercial advantage?
Can emerging designers build sustainable businesses? Can British brands scale internationally? Can the industry attract investment and talent? Can the next generation of fashion companies turn creativity into something that can endure?
The Government's commitment of £1 million a year for three years to support the British Fashion Council's NEWGEN programme is one indication of the importance being placed on developing the next generation of British fashion talent.
Because creativity is the starting point. It is not the finished business. And now the conversation moves to Milan.
From 22–28 September, Milan Fashion Week will bring another extraordinary concentration of global fashion into one city. The official schedule includes 54 physical shows and six digital shows, alongside 88 presentations. Prada opens the week, with Fendi, Gucci, Marni, Moschino, Bottega Veneta and Giorgio Armani among the major names on the calendar.
But we are not simply focusing on Milan to ask which collection makes the biggest statement. We are interested in a different question:
How do established global fashion businesses stay relevant?
London and Milan have developed different strengths within the global fashion system. London has built a reputation around experimentation, emerging talent, cultural influence and new ideas. Milan has built extraordinary strength around heritage, craftsmanship, luxury and global fashion businesses.
But perhaps the opportunity is not to decide which model is stronger. It is to understand what each can teach us. London demonstrates the power of experimentation and new ideas. Milan demonstrates what can happen when creative identity, craftsmanship and brand equity are developed over decades and translated into global businesses. And yet the challenge facing both is increasingly similar.
How do you turn creativity into lasting relevance, and lasting relevance into sustainable value?
That means balancing things that have traditionally sat on opposite sides of the industry: creativity with commerciality, heritage with reinvention, culture with technology, attention with conversion, and short-term relevance with long-term value.
THE TFTT INSIDER VIEW
From inside the industry, the most important questions often come after the show. The industry has become very good at measuring the size of the moment: attendance, reach, views, engagement, coverage and social conversation. Those numbers matter. But they only tell part of the story.
The more revealing questions are often commercial and human. Did the show change how customers see the brand? Did it open a door? Did it create a relationship? Did it strengthen the team around the business? Did it create something that can still generate value six months from now?
That is the perspective we bring to The Fashion Think Tank. We are not looking at Fashion Week simply as observers looking in. We look at it through the experience of founders, owners, CEOs and leaders who have built brands, entered markets, created teams and dealt with the commercial realities behind the headlines. Because the future of fashion will not be decided by attention alone.
It will be decided by what the industry does with it. And perhaps that is the real connection between London and Milan. London has given us the question. Milan gives us the next perspective.
We will be watching what changes, what carries forward and what the two fashion capitals can tell us about where the industry is going next.
Inside Fashion, Not Observing It.
