This season there was a lot of talk about who were not present at London Fashion Week. Nevertheless, there was a bustling energy around the creative power that makes London one of the best fashion cities when it comes to cherishing rising talent. Central to this were the designers who participated in the Newgen initiative of the British Fashion Council.
Newgen, launched in 1993, played a key role in the support of some of the biggest names in British fashion, including Alexander McQueen, JW Anderson, Christopher Kane, Roksanda, Ahluwalia, Grace Wales Bonner, Molly Goddard and Bianca Saunders.
The program, which designers selects in ready -made clothing and accessories, including all categories such as shoes, bags, hats and jewelry, every participant offers financial support, presentation options and mentoring to develop crucial skills “to make their companies future -proof”.
Newgen, in collaboration with retailer Pull & Bear, also receives 2 million pounds (2.4 million euros) in financing the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is covered with presentation costs and business mentoring is offered to designers to grow and support their companies.
De BFC NewGen-cohorten van 2024/25 omvatten Aaron Esh, Ancuta Sarca, Charlie Constantinou, Chet Lo, Derrick, Di Petsa, Harri, Johanna Parv, Karoline Vitto, Kazna Asker, Leo Carlton, Lueder, Masha Popova, Paolo Carzana, Pauline Dujancourt, Sinéad O’Dwyer, Steve O Smith, The Winter House, Tolu Coker and Yaku.
During the autumn/winter season of 2025, the Welshe designer Paolo Carzana presented his collection in a classic English pub. Ayra Starr and Mia Khalifa walked along in the catwalk show of Di Petsa, Leeder took the fashion audience to a Rave and Kazna Asker brought her strong sense of community to the official BFC show space with a lively Souk to support local traders from Sheffield.
Tolu Coker opted for a presentation, inspired by Yoruba spirituality and the diaspora migration. Charlie Constantinou, a graduate of Central Saint Martins, continued his pursuit of creative evolution by experimenting with texture development, including a collaboration with ECCO Leather in collaboration with 1Granary. Pauline Dujancourt, born in London, who wants to redefine women’s clothing in London, with textile processes such as hooks and knitting, brought a tribute to her grandmother and was inspired by the Vriesea plant, a rare beauty that only blossomed and lively red flowers in the years.
It was also a bittersweet experience for Sinéad O’dwyer, who took the opportunity to reflect during her last show as a participant in the Newgen program of the BFC. This was not a collection full of nostalgic hits, but a showcase of the evolution and dress codes of the brand.
The most innovative presentation came from Yaku, founded in 2023 by Yaku Stapleton, who immersed guests in the ‘The Impossible Family Reunion in RPG Space’ series, with themes such as hope and connectedness via Afro-Futurism. This season he took guests on a journey of discovery through his fantasy worlds, where you had to discover which biow you belonged to and collect all the stamps for the passport that was handed out upon arrival.
“The shows, presentations and events were incredible,” said Caroline Rush, CEO of the BFC, during her very last LFW as director. “Boundless creativity has flowed from London, with an incredible international community of model leaders who encourage them to bloom.”
Three striking collections of BFC Newgen designers
Di Petsa ‘Reflections of Desire’ FW25
The London-based women’s clothing brand Di Petsa, founded by the Greek designer Dimitra Petsa, known for her characteristic ‘Wetlook’ dresses worn by celebrities such as Bella Hadid, FKA Twigs and Doja Cat, offered a sensual exploration of sexuality and the subversion of Longing for Fw25.
This season Petsa transformed the catwalk into a living poem, with a sensual and ethereal soundscape from Bodur, interwoven with her own poetry, to present her collection. Inspired by poets, muses and goddesses, they reinterpreted men’s clothing from a female perspective.
Central to the collection was a feeling of love and desire, as well as a craving and hunger, with handwritten love notes spread over the garments, along with printing the lips of the designer himself, who marked the items of clothing with “the intimate trail of a kiss,” the designer explains in the shownotitions, with the chest and the cross.
The silhouettes continue Di Petsa’s characteristic tension between structure and fluidity, with tailoring with velvet-covered lace and sharp cuts softened through step-by-step draperies, and vegan leather jackets that form the body, think of old-Greek sculptures. Lace underwear is also shown as a jewel, draped and wrapped around the body, with white lace strings around the neck, mixed with pearls.
There was also a theatrical element in her catwalk show with a knight in silver harness that wore a sword with pearls and diamonds, while a silk -draped angel wore a single red rose with heart -shaped wings, and a bride with a lace blindfold was accompanied by five handsome men in draped white underwear.
LUEDER ‘The Shell’ FW25 Collection
The London -based Unisex clothing label Leereder, founded by the German fashion designer Marie Leeder, recreated the sensory experience of a rave for her FW25 collection ‘The Shell’. In collaboration with DJ-DUO Two Shell, the LFW hub pulred with sound, light and energy, and the fashion audience went along in a club scene where the boundaries between the audience and the performers fade, dancing under the spotlights around the show room.
Leeder is known for her mix of modern sportswear and the aesthetics of medieval armor. For FW25, the label is inspired by 19th-century tapestries, lush curtains and complicated carpet prints that camouflaged the higher class in the decadent interior of their stately houses, and reinterprets them with a contemporary lens, with faded prints, Semipulated cotton spot and relief jeans and relief jeans and relief jeans and relief jeans and relief jeans and relief jeans and relief jeanspanoan jeans and relief jeans and relief jeanspanetoan jeans and relief jeans and relief jeans paranoned jeans and relief. Lycra.
Sustainability and innovation remain paramount in Lueder’s designethos and this season the brand introduced leather styles made of by-products from the meat industry, in addition to sustainable fake fur made of wood pulp, while favorites from previous seasons have been revived as Upcycling and Reuncerte Deadstock to create the characteristic Phantzety T-Shirts, the Phannasy T-Shirts, Charcoal Garment-Dyed Joggers from the brand.
Chet Lo ‘Modern Antiquity’ Autumn/Winter ’25 Collection
London-based Asian-American designer Chet Lo, who has become known for his avant-garde, texture-rich and tactile designs, incorporated his characteristic Merinowol-Spikes into evening dresses for his FW25 ‘Modern Antiquity’ collection.
This season, LO decided to “confront the colonialist western interpretation of Asian art” to recover Chinoiserie patterns and motifs and transform it into “something clear and authentic Asian”, the designer explains in his show notes.
He took striking prints, such as tiger stripes, and deconstructed and distorted them, while traditional cloud motifs were revised by explosions of delicate flower formations. These were combined with LO’s characteristic textures, including his wool spikes and complicated woven folds, as well as his use of a plush knitting technique to create three -dimensional flower motifs.
The collection embraced depth and structure through dust, shape and symbolism, and offered Lo’s most extensive and coherent collection with a much darker color palette of plum, black, gray and red.
Highlights were the slim evening dress with open back in 90s style with a square neckline in its texture-rich folds, refined outerwear, knitted tube skirts with floral print, knitted clothing with collar, hoodies and separates with tiger relief.
LO also debuted a collaboration with shoe brand Converse, where he added his unique characteristic Spike texture to the Run Star Trainer and Chuck 70 silhouettes, who had a rubber band with studs about the place where the laces would be.
“This collection is not just fashion – it is an act of cultural recapture, reinvention and celebration,” Chet Lo added.
