Key takeaways
- London Fashion Week Spring Summer 2027 was defined by two major homecomings: McQueen returned to London after 25 years in Paris, and Mulberry stepped back onto the runway with Christopher Kane’s debut collection.
- Beyond the headline acts, the season delivered some of British fashion’s most compelling work in years: Harris Reed betting everything on structure and texture, Simone Rocha finding her most wearable balance yet, Erdem making couture technique feel young, and Roksanda delivering what may be her strongest collection to date.
- Marks & Spencer made its London Fashion Week debut in its centenary year, featuring 59 pieces, a see-now-buy-now model, and 50% of the collection priced under £50.
London Fashion Week has a way of surprising you just when you think you know what to expect. This September, the Spring Summer 2027 season brought back two major brands that had been away for years, introduced fashion week to a household name that has been dressing Britain for a century, and delivered a handful of fashion shows that I have not stopped thinking about since. These were my favorite shows and moments.
The homecomings
Few moments this season carried as much weight as McQueen’s return to London. The house last showed here in 2001, before moving its runway to Paris. Twenty-five years later, creative director Seán McGirr brought the brand back home. The collection he created was built around what he described as the synergy between the sacred and the subcultural: neo-classicism colliding with rave culture, a Piero della Francesca painting from the National Gallery meeting the energy of a South London club night. Tailoring was sourced from Huntsman of Savile Row — one of the most storied addresses in British fashion — and worn, in McGirr’s imagination at least, to a rave. The tension between those two worlds is exactly what the late Alexander McQueen, Lee to his friends, always did best; think of the Joan of Arc AW1998 collection, scorched fabric and all. McGirr is still finding his footing at the house, and this collection still felt exploratory. But consider the coincidence: just days before the show, St Paul’s Cathedral announced a four-year partnership with Fabric, one of London’s most iconic nightclubs.
Mulberry was the other homecoming the schedule had been waiting for. Christopher Kane, appointed creative director in March, showed his debut collection for the house on the same Sunday afternoon as McQueen. Kane drew on 1960s modernism, a far cry from the fearless sensuality that made him famous: mini lengths, body-skimming cuts, and clean geometric shapes in a palette of grey, white, blue, beige, black, and lemon. What made the collection genuinely clever, though, was the detail hidden in plain sight: Kane cut crenellations — the same scalloped edge as the flap of a Bayswater bag — into every hem, collar and neckline, thus connecting every piece to Mulberry’s leather goods heritage. For a brand returning to ready-to-wear and relevance after years away, that is a very assured first statement.
Other London Fashion Week highlights
Harris Reed opened the week by doing something counterintuitive: he stripped out all color and bet the entire collection on silhouette and texture alone. White, ivory, fawn and metallics only, what Reed called a “ghostly palette,” had an impact as theatrical as anything he has shown before. The focus was on silhouettes: corsets extending outward to frame the shoulders, crinoline cage dresses, curved high necklines. With color removed, texture became the focal point: hand-painted satin carrying white rose motifs, florals worked into piqué and scuba that revealed themselves only up close. The further you moved toward each piece, the more you found. It was a reminder that restraint, in the right hands, can be its own form of excess.
Simone Rocha did what Simone Rocha does best, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. The bows, the ruffles, the silk rose trim, the layers of lace and transparency, they were all present, all exactly where you would expect them. What made this collection stand out was the balance she struck between the spectacular and the genuinely wearable. A velvet mini dress in deep blue. A parka weighed down with embellishment. A lavender, menswear-inspired shirt worn over layers of taffeta. Rocha understands that woman better than almost anyone at London Fashion Week right now. Her current adidas collaboration, which has been selling out consistently, is proof that her aesthetic travels well beyond the luxury runway.
Another one of my personal favorites, Erdem made his case entirely through what he added to the surface. The silhouettes were almost secondary; what you noticed first was the accoutrements. Feathers, beading, fringing that hit the floor, appliqués in pastel against black lace. Raw edges pressed against encrusted bodices. It was couture-level technique worn by younger women who are not necessarily going to a gala. And that, in my opinion, feels like where Erdem is at his most interesting.
There is one name on the London Fashion Week calendar that I have followed for years: Roksanda Ilinčić, or simply Roksanda, as the brand is known. This season, she may have delivered her best collection yet. Presented on the rooftop of the National Theatre — Brutalist architecture as backdrop, dramatic violins as accompaniment — the collection took its inspiration from Swiss-American artist Françoise Grossen, known for her monumental sculptures made from knotted and braided rope. It followed, then, that braided forms rendered in vibrant red, orange and pink ran through the collection, from the clothes to the accessories. And it was the accessories that made the most impact. The bags, decorated with long fringes that cascaded all the way to the floor in burgundy, black, purple, pink and white, were the true showstoppers. A mature collection by all standards, and one with many “add to cart” temptations.
Burberry is still standing
Burberry closed fashion week on Monday evening, as it usually does; the hottest ticket on the LFW schedule. That status has not always been a given, as the brand spent years searching for its lost identity. But Burberry is a fashion week staple and a British icon for that. This season, the coats came back. The scarves came back. And with them, so did the numbers: a return to profit in FY26 and comparable store sales up 5% in the final quarter.
Daniel Lee is two years into the job, and this collection needed to prove he is more than a stylist with good instincts. He made Bottega Veneta relevant again, but his work there was more artifice than substance. At Burberry, he may have finally found his footing. This collection was, unapologetically, about coats. And that is exactly what Burberry does best. The trench appeared in every possible variation: looser with a bubble hem, in lemon with a drawstring collar, cut-off with a waterfall collar, heavily beaded on leather and the lightest sheers. Running through all of it was Celia Birtwell — the celebrated British textile artist whose prints defined the 1960s and 1970s — as creative collaborator, giving the clothes a sense of joy they don’t always have.
M&S goes full Fashion Week
Alongside the London Fashion Week staples and newcomers, a heavyweight retailer: Marks & Spencer, celebrating 100 years in the fashion industry, made its Fashion Week debut showing 59 pieces at the Design Museum in a collection that mixed womenswear and menswear. Following the see-now, buy-now model, everything on the runway was available online globally as soon as the show ended, and in ten flagship stores across the UK and Ireland. The twist? Fifty percent of the collection was priced under £50.
The front row told a story of very deliberate casting of British cultural icons: Dame Joan Collins, David Gandy, Jessie Ware, Katherine Jenkins. On the runway, models ranged in age from 21 to 60, including Lara Stone, Erin O’Connor, Jodie Kidd, Karen Elson, and Lennon Gallagher. This was, without question, the most inclusive cast on the schedule, and the one that felt most honest about who fashion is really for.
The collection itself drew on a century of M&S style: sharp tailoring alongside fluid separates, lace camisoles referencing archival lingerie, a British Millerain dry-wax car coat with a cord collar in menswear that felt completely, unapologetically English. A wardrobe true to the brand’s codes, and explicit in its intent: fashion is for everyone. And perhaps the clearest reminder of what British fashion has always understood about dressing real people.
