London Fashion Week SS25: The Highlights

The biggest event on the fashion calendar has once again come to London – and we’ve got a front row seat to all the fun. These are all the highlights you might have missed at London Fashion Week SS25.

All The Highlights From London Fashion Week SS25

Monday 16 September

Edeline Lee

On the bank of the River Thames, just a stone’s throw from TATE Britain, is where you’ll find the style set gathering on Monday morning. Excitement is high at Edeline Lee’s SS25 show, as this is the designer’s first on-schedule catwalk at London Fashion Week. It’s a new chapter, one which the designer wants to use to showcase the best of her brand. ‘For me, Spring Summer 2025 is an opportunity to invite people into our world,’ says Lee in her show notes. ‘And present the meaning and the purpose behind the brand: to serve women, to design clothes that make them feel polished, ready and powerful.’

This season, the designer has built upon her signature visuals. Angular silhouettes have been adorned with crisp drapery and tassels, held together by structured, boned panniers in a celebration of the female body. The palette this season is a rainbow of colour, with bursts of orange, deep blue and dusty pink offset by polka dot prints (designed in collaboration with artist Carolina Mazzolari) and shimmering metallics.

Lee also continues to celebrate the role of clothes in mother-daughter relationships, using her runway show to launch Edeline Lee Girl, a clothing range of occasionwear for ‘girls not yet big enough to steal from their mother’s wardrobe.’

Read our post-show interview with Edeline Lee here.

Sunday 15 September

Simone Rocha

Returning to the Old Bailey for a second time, Simone Rocha debuted an SS25 collection rooted in performance and sensory stimulation. With a backing track mashing together the sounds of ‘screaming, crying, laughing, dying, flirting’, models walk down the runway in Rocha’s signature tulle gowns (this time resembling ballet tutus) stuffed with flowers. The designer was inspired by choreographers Pina Bausch and Michael Clark, and references Bausch’s ‘bouquet of dance’ piece Nelken (Carnations) with carnations tucked between the folds of fabric. Placement takes a cheeky turn with masculine ‘buttonholes’ rephrased in the feminine, complete with blooming ‘lady gardens’ spilling out of briefs.

A new addition this season is crystal-embellished denim, a nod to Rocha’s recent work at the Jean Paul Gaultier atelier as a guest designer. These new fabrics enrich the designer’s usual hyper-feminine collection with a little edge, showcasing the designer’s ability to turn her hand to any challenge as her skillset grows.

Simone Rocha SS25 (c) Ben Broomfield

Erdem

SS25 at Erdem is an exploration of ‘the push and pull of masculine and feminine dressing and identity.’ The collection was inspired by the 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness and its author, Radclyffe Hall. In the story, our protagonist is Stephen Gordon, a woman living as a man with her lover, Mary Llewellyn; it serves as a parallel to the novel’s author, Radclyffe Hall, an openly gay woman who lived with her partner Una Troubridge. Paying homage to these pairs of lovers, designer Erdem Moralıoğlu blends the boundaries of menswear and womenswear in playful juxtaposition.

The masculine is turned on its head: suits are dusted in pink and pistachio, while cardigans and blazers are worn over tea dresses. Tailoring is pieced together with drop-waist silhouettes from the 1920s, while cyanotype prints of flapper dresses feature on loosely structured garments, embellished with jewels. The designer also pays extra attention to the carnation, a longstanding queer emblem, which pops up throughout the collection. SS25 is also where Erdem introduces its first handbag; dubbed the Bloom Bag, this leather creation comes with an aptly shaped brass bud handle.

Erdem SS25

Mithridate

The latest collection for this vibrant brand, helmed by creative director Demon Zhang, was inspired by Yunnan, the southwestern province of China, known for its breathtaking landscapes, ethnic diversity and rich cultural traditions. The show location, in the Royal Horticultural Society, was apt: Yunnan is known as the ‘Flower Kingdom’, and is the second-largest flower trading city globally.

I’m sure you’re wondering, ‘florals for spring? Etc.’ But Demon’s interpretation wasn’t so literal. Multi-hued pom poms captured the colourful essence of a flower market, while delicate, metallic-flecked floral embroidery and embellishment added layers of richness to dresses, jackets and capes.

Some of Yunnan’s ancient textile techniques were also incorporated, including its tie-dying method, reimagined with contemporary fabrics like denim, and slouchy, tailored silhouettes, finished with more embellishment. The region’s distinctive silverware and accessories were also seen throughout the collection, with statement pieces that jingled and chimed with the models’ every step down the catwalk. All of this hardware was crafted in Mithridate’s own studio.

The show finished with a majestic, sequin-strewn dress and cape – coming soon to a red carpet, we hope.

Mithridate SS25 (c) Jason Lloyd Evans

Saturday 14 September

Patrick McDowell

This season, London-based designer Patrick McDowell takes their inspiration from queer British artist, Glyn Philpot. Looking to gain some personal insight into the artist’s life and work, McDowell explored the Tate archives, looked at letters written by Philpot and got in touch with remaining relatives. Seeing ‘the two contrasting lives Glyn experienced, one of society and status and one of queer identity and true expression,’ the designer created a collection that brought these two sentiments together – echoing the dual existence lived by many queer people today.

Combining fashion and performance, the show takes place at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Philpot’s portfolio has been reimagined into garments, with nuanced colours, painterly prints and silhouettes taking shape from specific artworks.

Sustainable craft continues to sit at the heart of McDowell’s own art. Vintage knits were unravelled, reconditioned and re-knitted by recent knit graduate Miranda Mallinson Pocock, bags were created using Mycelium based leather by Ecovative, and dead stock silks were sourced from fellow designer Erdem and long time collaborator Taroni silk. And for the closing look, McDowell turned quite literally to the Philpot family; Glyn’s great-great-niece, Charlotte Doherty, donated a wedding gown that was reimagined for the collection.

Patrick McDowell SS25

Friday 13 September

Bora Aksu

‘My whole identity as a designer comes via my mother,’ says Bora Aksu in his SS25 introduction. ‘Growing up watching her elegance and style as well as her strength as an independent woman instilled in me a deep reverence for femininity and a love for the process of creation, to this day she is my greatest source of inspiration.’ His latest collection is a tribute to his late mother, Birsen Aksu, and how her life and style impacts his own creative processes.

A woman who balanced motherhood, her career and a paediatrician and a love for design (which manifested into her creating her own clothing), it was early photographs of Birsen which presented dual ideas of lushness and the subdued explosions of colour that inspired the designer in his SS25 collection. The result was a curation of looks that spoke of feminine elegance across the decades, blending folk romanticism with a vision of the modern woman. Think vintage silhouettes and cuts, floaty fabrics, floral adornments and sculptural drapery.

Temperley London

It may be a crisp 10 degrees in London, but Alice Temperley MBE is firmly planted on the sunny streets of Barcelona. Inspired by a trip to the city when planning her SS25 collections, Temperley found herself drawn to the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia – and sought to create a collection that similarly captured the balance of Gothic and Art Nouveau. Split into RTW (White Label) and eveningwear (Black Label), the former is a play on contrasts: relaxed shapes and crisp tailoring, knitted classics and cotton day dresses, sandy dessert hues and Mediterranean blues. The latter, meanwhile, comes back to Temperley’s strengths: elaborate embellishment, sequins and refines textural details.

The designer is also using this season to launch her new Digital Passport system, which allows customers to authenticate, trace and track each garment’s carbon footprint. The goal is to allow for frictionless resale through a peer-to-peer application on the Temperley website, where customers can transfer a Token via Blockchain to a new owner.

Read our post-show interview with Alice Temperley here.

Temperley London SS25

Paul Costelloe

Paris is where Paul Costelloe takes us this season. The designer’s latest collection, called ‘Le ciel est bleu’ (in English, ‘The sky is blue’), takes its cues from the atmosphere of a spring day in the beloved city. And Costelloe’s models strut down the runway in light-catching, sugary pastels – pinks, yellows, greens and, most importantly, blues. This play on colour, which so animatedly captures the exuberant, youthful energy of spring, would make even Monet jealous. (Or, more likely, Emily Cooper.) Offset by Irish linens, cottons, silks, ruffles, tweeds and a specially designed floral print by William Costelloe, this is the Irish designer’s special ode to Paris.

But that wasn’t the only surprise Costelloe prepared for his SS25 London Fashion Week runway, as he saved a very special highlight for the end: his very first bridal and hosiery collection.

Paul Costelloe SS25

Noon by Noor

‘Ray of Light’ is the name of Noon by Noor’s SS25 collection, which drew inspiration from the interplay of light and shadow, as explored by photographer Man Ray and contemporary artist Katerina Jebb. In their studio in Bahrain, the brand’s designers, Shaikha Noor Rashid Al Khalifa and Shaikha Haya Mohamed Al Khalifa, explored how light can transform and reveal hidden layers within garments.

The result is a collection that experiments with gauzy layers created with sinuous, textured fabrics: tulles, cottons and linens. Fabrics are draped, pleated and folded, with dropped waists and abstract floral prints-cum-ink splatters. Delicate pastel hues are contrasted with crisp white cotton, while shimmering sequins swim under layers of tulle. A fresh, breezy proposition for spring/summer ’25.

Noon by Noor (c) Alberto Maddaloni

Thursday 12 September

Harris Reed

The runway doubles as a stage at Harris Reed’s SS25 presentation. This is the designer’s first season on the official LFW schedule, and it also marks his return to the Tate Modern. Sequestered in a dimly lit exhibition space, with only a pink structure in the centre of the room, the message is clear: this is a performance that requires all of our attention. And rightly so. Reed’s models glide through the pink arches in outfits rendered from vintage lace tablecloths, damask drapes, bedspreads, upholstery fabrics and antique curtains – making a special ‘Encore’ after their first appearance back in February. Draped over crinoline cages, moulded into corsets and pulled into sculptural ‘winged’ shapes, these fabrics are the building blocks that show off Reed’s signature structured silhouettes.

Harris Reed SS25 (c) Jason Lloyd-Evans

More London Fashion Week SS25 Highlights

You can find more London Fashion Week SS25 highlights at londonfashionweek.co.uk

Featured image: Bora Aksu SS25 (c) Iker Aldama/Jason Lloyd-Evans