London Fashion Week 2026 – The Comebacks, Catwalks & Trends Shaping 2027

22 September 2026

If London Fashion Week needed a comeback season, this was it.

McQueen returned to the city after 25 years, Mulberry made its runway comeback, Marks & Spencer joined the schedule, Central Cee walked for Burberry, and Annie’s Ibiza reminded everyone that getting dressed should always be extremely fun.

Across five days, the official London Fashion Week programme packed in 47 catwalk shows, 23 presentations, 10 digital activations, and 53 evening events. There were collections shown beneath chapels, inside courtrooms, across school gymnasiums, and outside the Barbican. There were Royal Ballet dancers, gowns destined for 2 am, a front-row baby or two, and a finale that left the internet with plenty to discuss.

So, what will we actually be wearing in 2027? These are the London Fashion Week 2026 highlights, show moments, and SS27 fashion trends we think will make it beyond the runway.

The London Fashion Week 2026 Moments Worth Talking About

McQueen Came Home

Some homecomings call for a party, naturally, McQueen chose the dark undercroft beneath a 17th-century chapel.

After 25 years away from the London schedule, the house returned to the city where Lee Alexander McQueen studied, worked, showed, and found so much of his inspiration. Creative director Seán McGirr presented the collection beneath Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, with a front row that included Florence Welch, Emma Corrin, Emilia Clarke, Salma Hayek, Jamie Campbell Bower, and guest of honour Siouxsie Sioux.

The clothes brought London’s contradictions together: Savile Row tailoring and rave culture, religious imagery and nightclub energy, darkness and something ethereal. It was dramatic, but in true McQueen style. 

British Heritage

McQueen wasn’t the only familiar name making a return. Mulberry came back to the runway after nine years, with Christopher Kane presenting his first collection as creative director.

The iconic Bayswater bag became a blueprint, with its shapes and hardware reworked across the clothing. Leather appeared in coats, skirts, loafers, and plenty of bags (Mulberry was hardly going to forget those), while transparent raincoats, rugby shirts, and pops of orange.

At Burberry, Daniel Lee collaborated with textile designer Celia Birtwell, loosening the famous check with hand-drawn florals, curling vines, stripes, and soft summer layers. Central Cee made his runway debut, adding one of the week’s most talked-about cameos.

M&S Took Its Place On The Schedule

Few names are as woven into everyday British life as Marks & Spencer. Their London Fashion Week debut felt surprising, but also overdue.

Celebrating a century in fashion, M&S presented 59 womenswear and menswear looks at the Design Museum. Archive references ran through tuxedos, knitwear, tailoring, florals, denim, and outerwear, but the more interesting statement was one of access. Half the collection was priced below £50 and available to shop immediately.

At a fashion week often built around clothes that most people can admire but never actually meet, there was something refreshing about seeing a look and knowing it was already online.

Annie’s Ibiza Dressed For A Good Time

Annie’s Ibiza wasn’t ever going to help anyone build a sensible capsule wardrobe, Quite the opposite, thank goodness.

Designed by Annie Doble, the SS27 collection closed the second night with embellished gowns, tiny bolero jackets, and matching sets made for a very good party. The label’s love of vintage fashion came through in the shapes and hand-finished detail, but the mood never felt stuck in the past.

Among all the serious conversation about commerciality, longevity, and what fashion should be, Annie’s Ibiza offered a useful reminder of what it can be. 

Di Petsa Gave Fashion Week Its Most Talked-About Finale

Di Petsa’s Holy Milk show was not subtle, but it wasn’t designed to be.

Pregnant singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock closed the show dressed in white, standing at the centre of the runway as a theatrical effect sent streams of milk from her sculpted bra across the models gathered around her. It was the image that has gone completely viral.

Models carried babies. Couples walked together, stopped, and kissed. Different ages, bodies, and relationships appeared across the runway. The collection explored motherhood alongside intimacy, desire, care, transformation, and bodily autonomy, with milk used as both a physical image and a wider symbol of creation.

Of course, everyone had an opinion. That was rather the point. Fashion shows are at their most interesting when they give people more to discuss than the hemline.

When The Runway Wasn’t Really A Runway

Fashion has always understood the value of an entrance, but this season designers seemed particularly uninterested in sending models down a plain strip of floor and calling it a day.

Harris Reed created a salon-style presentation. Simone Rocha took over the Old Bailey for a courthouse spectacle. Emilia Wickstead chose an intimate film screening, while Susan Fang staged an afternoon show outside the Barbican, where pupils at the City of London School gained an unexpected view from their windows. 

Edeline Lee went in a different direction again. Inside a school gymnasium in Chalk Farm, models were fitted, adjusted, and styled in front of the audience while Royal Ballet dancers stretched and rehearsed nearby. 

These settings weren’t chosen simply because they would look good in photographs. The format changed how the collection was understood. McQueen’s chapel added history and darkness. Edeline Lee’s gym exposed the labour behind beauty. Di Petsa’s runway became part fashion show, part live performance. 

At fashion week, a venue should do more than fit the guest list, and entertainment should do more than fill a gap in the running order. The strongest events use the place, people, performance, and smallest details to tell the same story. 

The 7 London Fashion Week 2026 Trends Shaping 2027

1. Clean Girl V Messy Girl

The clean girl aesthetic has enjoyed a lengthy reign: slicked-back hair, matching neutrals, glazed skin, and the general appearance of having never missed a reformer Pilates class.

Now, fashion is loosening up. The messy girl aesthetic brings clashing prints, deliberately imperfect layers, uneven styling, and a little chaos back into the wardrobe. Chopova Lowena, Conner Ives, and Sinead Gorey all embraced combinations that felt personal rather than prescribed.

This isn’t really about looking untidy. It’s about rejecting the idea that good style must be controlled, quiet, expensive-looking, and entirely free from evidence of a personality. In that sense, messy girl dressing becomes its own small act of resilience and rebellion.

2. Cottagecore Becomes Gardencore

Cottagecore has left the picnic blanket and found the garden shed.

For Spring/Summer 2027, romantic rural references were mixed with clothes that looked as though they could withstand some actual countryside: workwear shapes, aprons, practical pockets, gardening jackets, botanical prints, and sturdy layers.

It’s less about dressing like you live in an idyllic cottage with an inexplicably clean kitchen, and more about looking as though you might know what to do with the grounds. Operating a lawnmower is in fashion, darling.

3. Meet The Modern Goddess

Ancient Greece returned through draped fabrics, asymmetric necklines, fluid dresses, metallic details, and silhouettes that wrapped and twisted around the body.

With The Odyssey back in the cultural conversation, it was perhaps only a matter of time before designers reached for Grecian references. Thankfully, this was not fancy dress. Lighter construction, sheer layers, wet-look finishes, and sharper styling brought the idea into the present.

Di Petsa naturally sat at the heart of the trend, but the modern goddess appeared elsewhere in forms that felt powerful rather than precious. 

Expect to see this one move quickly into eveningwear, summer parties, weddings, and destination wardrobes in 2027.

4. Orange Is The New Black

Melon, coral, tangerine, rust, and vivid flashes of almost-neon orange appeared across the week. 

At Mulberry, Christopher Kane drew on the orange of the post-industrial Scottish landscape. Elsewhere, brighter shades cut through neutral tailoring, earthy palettes, and soft summer fabrics.

Orange can be difficult to style, which is part of its appeal. It looks great when paired with pink, brown, navy, or more orange. Pantone has not had its say yet, but we’ll be keeping a very close eye on this one.

5. Balletcore Leaves The Barre

Ballet has been circling fashion for several seasons, but SS27 gave it more character.

There were drop waists, wrap details, soft knits, fluid layers, ribbons, and square-toed shoes that echoed a dancer’s pointe shoe. At Edeline Lee, the reference became literal as dancers rehearsed within the presentation. Simone Rocha and H&M also drew on ballet’s particular mixture of  movement, and romance.

6. Texture Does The Talking

Denim, suede, leather, tassels, beads, and embellishment gave the Spring/Summer 2027 collections plenty of texture.

Mulberry went big on leather. Burberry mixed washed denim with softened checks and florals. Annie’s Ibiza sent out hand-finished pieces that caught every available scrap of light. Tassels and fringe brought movement to simpler silhouettes, while suede carried the bohemian mood into jackets, skirts, and accessories.

After years of smooth, quiet minimalism, clothes are becoming interesting to touch again.

7. No-Makeup Makeup Gets Even Barer

The beauty mood was clean, dewy, and notably light around the eyes. Skin looked fresh, brows stayed natural, and obvious mascara was missing from several shows.

It suited the clothes. With more print, texture, draping, and deliberately imperfect styling happening below the neck, faces did not need to compete for attention. 

Paired with looser hair and less controlled styling, it was another sign that the highly perfected clean-girl era is making room for something softer and more individual. 

What Will We Take From London Fashion Week 2026?

The biggest takeaway was not one colour, shoe shape, or styling trick. 

The established houses embraced their history and heritage without being trapped by it. M&S proved that accessibility can earn a place on the schedule. Younger brands delivered clothes people may actually want to wear, while designers such as Di Petsa continued to test what a runway show can say and how loudly it can say it.

Most of all, the week understood the value of a complete experience. The clothes mattered, but so did the room, the arrival, the casting, the music, the unexpected cameo, and the moment that reached people who were nowhere near the guest list.

That’s usually how the best events work, too. People may not remember every detail separately, but they do remember how those details came together.

When Is The Next London Fashion Week?

London Fashion Week returns in February 2027, with the full schedule and final dates still to be confirmed.

Show invitations may remain famously difficult to secure, but Fashion Week now reaches far beyond the front row. Presentations, parties, exhibitions, dinners, brand activations, and city-wide cultural events all become part of the week, and part of the reason to be in London while it is happening.

AOK Events helps clients experience some of the biggest dates in London’s cultural calendar through tailored hospitality and wider event support.

If you’re already looking ahead, explore our London Fashion Week hospitality or browse the latest additions to our hospitality calendar.

+44 (0)20 8222 8420 | hospitality@aokevents.com