SS Daley Fall 2025
A perfect phrase slipped out of Steven Stokey-Daley’s mouth mid-preview, the kind of line that makes you stop, blink, and then immediately write it down: “It’s un-messed-about wardrobe bangers! That’s what I want to do, really.”
A perfect phrase slipped out of Steven Stokey-Daley’s mouth mid-preview, the kind of line that makes you stop, blink, and then immediately write it down: “It’s un-messed-about wardrobe bangers! That’s what I want to do, really.”
Roksanda Ilincic doesn’t just make clothes—she builds them. Big, sculptural, sometimes unwieldy things that feel like they belong in a gallery just as much as they do on a body. Think swooping drapes, ballooning proportions, sharp angles where you least expect them, and an absolutely wild approach to texture. She’s been at this for a while now, and every season, she adds another layer to the architectural playground that is her work.
A grand Georgian façade, faux railings, Richard Quinn engraved above the door like it’s always been there. A fantasy in bricks and mortar. This winter’s set wasn’t just escapism—it was a scene. “It’s after midnight, the end of a private black-tie party,” Quinn explained, setting the tone like a director calling action. “Maybe it’s a pre-wedding dinner, maybe it’s the day after—and the guests are leaving. It’s snowing. The moon is up.”
The worlds female designers build around themselves—these intricate, insular universes of memory, craft, and self-mythology—only seem to grow more expansive, more nuanced. Pauline Dujancourt spins hers from knitwear, a delicate lattice of pre-Raphaelite romanticism and obsessive handwork: fragile mohair webs, chiffon ribbons trailing like ivy, stitches so fine they barely exist. After years of quiet presentations, refining her whisper-soft sensibilities into something tangible, this was her first time on a London runway.
London feels quiet this season—like the city took a deep breath and held it. And maybe that’s why Mark Fast is feeling nostalgic. He’s been here forever (or at least, since graduating from Central Saint Martins almost two decades ago), but this season? Something feels different. “I don’t know why,” he admitted during a preview. “Something is in the air.” Which, obviously, sent me spiraling into the archives—because if a designer is having a feeling, you check if the clothes are, too. And, sure enough, Fall 2009 was staring back at me.
Up until about a week ago, Dilara Findikoglu wasn’t even sure she had a venue. And then she did—a warehouse in the loosest, most lawless sense of the word. Technically, it hosts Slimelight, London’s longest-running goth club night. Realistically, it looked like a place where you might get shaken down for cigarettes or conscripted into an underground fight ring. Climbing the damp, cavernous stairs, you were greeted by a welcoming committee in the form of a Metropolitan Police notice: VICE PATROL OFFICERS OPERATE IN THIS AREA. OFFENDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Perfect.
Dimitra Petsa has been deep in the trenches of love. Not just the saccharine, rom-com kind, but the all-consuming, boundary-blurring, body-worshipping kind—the stuff of erotic literature, Venus in Furs, divine sexuality, and feminist sexual theory. She’s been reading, obsessing, and writing—because of course, she’s writing a book. A whole book, coming out this year, dedicated to the very concept behind this collection: reclaiming female sexuality and desire, stripped of shame, on its own terms.
Let’s be real—if London Fashion Week ever lost its spark, Central Saint Martins MA graduates would be the ones to reignite the flame. They basically are London fashion. No exaggeration. Fourteen alumni—across multiple generations—are showing this week. Roksanda, Simone Rocha, Mark Fast, Ashish, Richard Quinn… the list goes on. Then there’s the new guard: Paolo Carzana, Kazna Asker, Pauline Dujancourt, Jawara Alleyne, Charlie Constantinou, Yaku. And don’t forget the ones making waves off-runway with lookbooks—Steve O Smith, Stefan Cooke, Derrick. Alexander McQueen walked so they could run. And for decades now, CSM grads have been everywhere, tucked inside the design studios of the world’s biggest fashion houses—Kim Jones is just one name in an endless sea.
Could Daniel Lee actually be the one to save Burberry? Like, for real this time? Last season was… let’s call it restrained (some would say underwhelming, but let’s be nice). Blame it on the inevitable executive shuffle—it happens. But this time? Burberry was back, in full capital-F Fashion mode. Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries turned into a who’s who of celebrity guests, the kind of blockbuster lineup that screams important fashion moment. But hype can only carry a brand so far. At the end of the day, the clothes have to hit.
Bora Aksu’s East London studio is lined with cracked china dolls. Their faces are chipped, their bodies fractured—each one carrying a quiet kind of tragedy. “I collect them wherever I go,” he says, surveying the room like a curator of forgotten souls. “But only the broken ones. The ones that have been rejected. I save them, and I mend them.”