London Fashion Week is here for five days of fashion madness, taking over the capital from Thurs 18th – Mon 22nd September
London is one of the big four fashion capitals, alongside New York City, Milan and Paris, and London Fashion Week takes second place in that order. LFW happens twice every year, once in February, showing the autumn/winter collections for the year and once in September for the spring/summer collections, so this LFW will be all about the SS/26 looks.
The majority of catwalk shows at LFW are invite-only and reserved for celebs and those in the industry, so you can’t buy tickets. However, you can still get involved in London Fashion Week 2025 even if you’re not sitting in the front row because there are a load of style-related events happening across town. These are the places to see and be seen this LFW.
Join in London Fashion Week’s City-Wide Celebration
You don’t need to be sitting frow to enjoy London Fashion Week as the City Wide Celebration, running throughout September this year, is bringing all the fashion to you with a whole range of events and activations. There’ll be everything from exhibitions to launches to styling sessions to get involved with, featuring brands like Cos, BOSS, Bella Freud, French Connection, Whistles, AllSaints,Topshop, Vivienne Westwood, and more. eBay will be showcasing pre-loved looks on its Endless Runway; Dylon is hosting an immersive pop-up featuring upcycling workshops; Erdem is doing a guided art tour at its Mayfair store; and Barbour is putting on an immersive exhibition on tartan. There’ll also be a load of promotions and giveaways running across the week too so it’s worth making time for a little retail therapy.
On Sat 20th September, LFW partner 1664 Blanc is inviting you to step inside The Blue Room Live at Lucky Cat in the City. The ‘in conversation with’ event is being hosted by cultural commentator, model and activist James Corbin and features designer Natasha Zinko and SLMan’s Associate Editor Harvey James.
Get Snapped for Street Style Pics
During LFW the whole city turns into a catwalk, so put together your best fit and strut around outside the big shows – Chopova Lowena, Harris Reed, Bora Aksu, Mark Fast, Roksana, Harri, Richard Quinn, Simone Rocha, Marques’Almeida, Erdem, Connor Ives, Ashish, Burberry, Nanushka and Dilara Findikoglu will all be hot tickets so you can bet there’ll be photographers aplenty. 180 The Strand is the main activity hub for this year’s event, so that’s another place to see and be seen, and though Brewer Street Car Park isn’t hosting any LFW events, Soho is always a hotspot for the fashionistas and hypebeasts of the city.
Check Out the Dirty Looks Exhibition at the Barbican
After hosting shows on Viktor & Rolf, Japanese fashion and Jean Paul Gaultier in the late 2000s and 2010s, the Barbican is returning to fashion programming in 2025 with the Dirty Looks exhibition, opening on 25th September. The show will look beyond conventional beauty to see how the contemporary fashion world has embraced wear, tear, dirt and distress, and what this means for the future of fashion.
Traditionally viewed as beautiful and glamorous, over the last fifty years luxury fashion has been exploring how dirt and decay can provoke and empower, through pieces like pre-scuffed shoes, stained jeans and ruined romantic gowns. Dirty Looks will track the varied ways this dirty aesthetic has been presented, with works from over 60 designers on show, including Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, ACNE Studios, John Galliano, Maison Margiela, Hussein Chalayan, Paolo Carzana, Alice Potts, Michaela Stark, Solitude Studios and Yaz XL.
