THE NEW FASHION WEEK
Friday Review | Why the show is no longer the whole story
On Monday, we identified three signals to watch at London Fashion Week: the runway becoming retail, British heritage being tested as a growth engine, and fashion week becoming an experience. By Friday, those signals are no longer simply theories. They are playing out across London.
And perhaps the biggest story emerging from this season is that the runway itself is no longer the whole story.
London Fashion Week is becoming an ecosystem, part runway, part retail, part installation, part technology, part content and part cultural experience. That shift is changing not only how brands present themselves, but what fashion week is actually there to achieve.
THE RUNWAY IS BECOMING RETAIL
The clearest commercial example remains M&S. Today, the retailer makes its London Fashion Week debut during its centenary year, bringing 57 womenswear and menswear looks to the runway. But the important part is what happens immediately afterwards: the collection is available to buy from 12.30pm, with the show also being streamed digitally. That is more than a high-street retailer appearing on a fashion-week schedule. It is an experiment in compressing the distance between inspiration and transaction.
For decades, fashion has deliberately separated the moment a customer sees a collection from the moment they can buy it. The runway creates desire. Editorial creates awareness. Buyers and retailers determine distribution. Product arrives later. But the customer journey has moved faster than that.
A customer can discover a product on TikTok, see a creator wearing it, search for it, compare it and purchase it within minutes. The gap between attention and action has collapsed. M&S is testing what happens when fashion week reflects that reality: see it, want it, buy it.
That does not mean see-now-buy-now becomes the model for every brand. Luxury, designer and high-street businesses operate very different commercial systems. But it does raise a much bigger question for the industry: if the customer can move from discovery to purchase instantly, why should every fashion-week experience still be designed around a delayed transaction?
The runway is increasingly becoming part of the customer journey rather than sitting outside it.
BRITISH HERITAGE IS BEING TESTED AS GROWTH
The other major story is the return of some of Britain's biggest names to London. McQueen is back on the London schedule under Seán McGirr. Christopher Kane will make his much-anticipated debut at Mulberry on Sunday, marking the British heritage brand's return to a physical runway. Burberry, Erdem, Simone Rocha, Roksanda and other established names sit alongside NEWGEN and a new generation of emerging designers.
The significance is not simply that heritage brands are returning. It is what they now need that heritage to do. Recognition is not the same as relevance. A famous name can generate attention. A major designer can generate headlines. A runway can generate conversation. But none of those things automatically creates a sustainable business. The commercial test is whether creativity becomes product, product becomes desire, desire becomes customer acquisition, and customer acquisition becomes long-term growth.
That makes Christopher Kane's Mulberry debut particularly interesting. Kane's return is already one of the defining narratives of the week. But the real story begins when the collection moves beyond the runway. Can the creative proposition translate into product customers want? Can Mulberry's British heritage feel contemporary rather than simply historic? Can that proposition work across different markets and customer groups? Those are ultimately business questions as much as creative ones.
The same applies to McQueen's return to London. The house is bringing one of the world's most recognisable British fashion names back to the city where Alexander McQueen created some of its most memorable shows. Seán McGirr's collection will be presented on Sunday at Lincoln's Inn. The symbolism is powerful. But symbolism alone does not build the next chapter. The real measure will be whether the creative energy generated this week creates lasting relevance.
Because British fashion will not secure its future by protecting heritage alone. It will secure it by making heritage matter to the next customer.
THE CITY IS BECOMING THE SHOW
This is where this London Fashion Week feels particularly different. The official programme now includes 47 catwalk shows, 23 presentations, 10 digital activations and 53 evening events. The BFC is also explicitly positioning installations, exhibitions, retail experiences and cultural programming as part of the LFW experience.
That changes the role of the city itself.
London is no longer simply the location where fashion week happens. London is becoming the platform.
And today, TFTT will be experiencing three very different examples first-hand.
SAUL NASH: FROM SHOW TO WORLD
We will be filming Saul Nash's Masquerade in Residence at Dray Walk Gallery in Shoreditch, where the AW26 collection is being presented as a public experience and is available to shop.
That is fundamentally different from simply putting a collection on a catwalk. There is somewhere to go, somewhere to spend time, somewhere to experience the brand, somewhere to create content and somewhere for the customer to interact with the collection.
Nash has also been taking his brand into the streets of London through a 37-billboard campaign, with a significant number of sites located in Hackney, where he grew up. The approach puts the brand directly into the environment in which people live rather than waiting for them to enter a traditional fashion audience.
That is an important distinction. The traditional fashion model often starts with an audience that already knows where to look. Nash is putting the brand where people are.
The street becomes media. The installation becomes experience. The collection becomes content.
And the customer journey starts before someone has necessarily decided they are looking for fashion at all.
SELFRIDGES: WHEN RETAIL BECOMES MEDIA
From Shoreditch, the next stop is Selfridges.
The department store is participating in LFW with a curated edit of participating designers, giving shoppers the opportunity to discover and support emerging British fashion within a major retail environment. The BFC is also highlighting the long-running relationship between Paul Smith and Selfridges, which reaches its 40-year mark this season.
This is another important evolution. The department store is no longer simply the place where fashion ends up after the show. It can be part of the story from the beginning.
A store can create discovery. A store can create content. A store can create cultural relevance. And a store can close the loop with transaction.
That makes the physical retail environment increasingly valuable at a time when digital discovery is becoming more fragmented.
The best physical spaces are not competing with digital. They are giving digital something to amplify.
DOVER STREET MARKET: DISCOVERY AS EXPERIENCE
We will also be heading to Dover Street Market for the BFC Jewellery Showcase, which is open to the public throughout LFW and brings together a curated selection of jewellery from BFC Foundation designers and BFC Designer Members. Again, the location matters.
Emerging jewellery designers are not being presented in isolation. They are being placed within one of London's strongest fashion and cultural retail environments. The physical context becomes part of the proposition. Who discovers the product? Where do they discover it? What does the environment tell them about the brand? And what happens after discovery?
These questions are becoming just as important as the traditional question of how the product looks on a runway.
THEN TECHNOLOGY CHANGES THE SHOW ITSELF
If M&S is changing what happens after the runway, H&M and Nick Knight are questioning what the runway itself can become.
Their collaboration with SHOWstudio has brought AI and digitally manipulated imagery into the live fashion-show environment, reconceptualising the relationship between physical performance and fashion image-making. The important point is not simply that AI is being used. Fashion has already moved beyond the question of whether AI can generate an image. The more interesting question is what new experiences it can make possible.
H&M and Nick Knight are experimenting with that at the level of the show itself. But the event also demonstrated another reality of modern fashion week. The H&M event was disrupted by PETA protesters, with the incident becoming part of the wider digital conversation around the event. That matters because the fashion show is no longer contained within the room. It is filmed, streamed, clipped, shared, commented on and challenged. The audience is potentially everywhere.
The event is no longer just what the brand stages. It is also what everyone else does with it.
THE CUSTOMER DOESN'T SEE THE SILOS
Put these stories together and the underlying change becomes clearer.
M&S is connecting runway to immediate purchase. Saul Nash is turning a collection into a physical world. Selfridges is turning retail into a cultural platform. Dover Street Market is turning discovery into an experience. H&M and Nick Knight are using technology to rethink the show itself. And McQueen and Mulberry are testing whether British heritage can create contemporary desire and future growth.
These are very different strategies. But they are responding to the same customer. A customer who does not experience fashion according to the way the industry is organised internally.
They don't think: now I am consuming content; now I am experiencing a brand; now I am engaging with culture; now I am shopping.
It is one journey.
And that means brands increasingly have to design the journey rather than simply design the collection.
THE QUESTION WE ASKED ON MONDAY HAS CHANGED
On Monday, we asked whether fashion could turn attention into action. By Friday, London is giving us a clearer indication of what that requires.
The runway creates attention, the experience creates engagement, technology extends the story and retail creates access. But product is ultimately what gives all of that attention somewhere to go.
That is the real opportunity for London. The city's competitive advantage has never been simply the ability to produce great clothes. It is the ability to bring together fashion, music, art, culture, retail, technology and entrepreneurial thinking.
This season's LFW is showing what happens when those elements start operating as one ecosystem.
WHAT WE ARE WATCHING NOW
As we move into the second half of London Fashion Week, the questions we are asking are therefore different from the ones we started with.
Not simply: who had the best show?
But who created the strongest experience? Who connected creativity to commerce? Who gave customers a reason to participate rather than simply watch? Who created content that travelled beyond the room? Who used technology to create something genuinely new? Who made heritage feel relevant rather than simply familiar? And, ultimately, who can turn the attention generated this week into something that lasts beyond Monday?
Because fashion week has never had a shortage of attention. The harder challenge is making that attention work harder.
On Monday, we said the biggest story at London Fashion Week might not be who gets the biggest front row. By Friday, we think the more important question is becoming clear.
Who can build the biggest journey around the runway?
Because the runway still matters.
But increasingly, it is only the beginning.
THE FASHION THINK TANK
Inside Fashion, Not Observing It.
