17 Highlights From London Fashion Week February 2024

21.02.2024 - 17:55 / forbes.com / London

A recent British Fashion Council report confirms the fashion industry’s significant contribution to the UK economy. In 2021, the estimated £28.9 billion gross value added contribution to the economy was similar in size to that made by the car industry. And the driving force behind the industry has been London Fashion Week, the semi-annual event that just celebrated its 40th anniversary this month.

London Fashion Week is a great supporter of new talent, both through its NewGen program and with the help of excellent organisations like Fashion Scout and Global Fashion Collective. The anniversary edition of LFW showed 67 designers, with collections by many emerging designers, including several debuts this season. Here are 17 highlights, including new and more established brands.

British-Nigerian designer Tolu Coker's runway show was a joyful spectacle, filled with tires, food carts with brightly colored umbrellas and live music. Her designs for this show were equally eclectic: leather coats, both long and cropped, hoodies under long wool coats, and gowns worn over trousers. This is a young designer who is passionate to use fashion for social change. Teaming up with Vlisco and The City of Joy, Coker journeyed to the Democratic Republic of Congo where she designed a collection in honor of the lives of women survivors of rape through war violence. And in 2020, she worked with the charity Choose Love for London Fashion Week, to create a special T-shirt in honor of the communities she connected with during her time in Rwanda.

British designer Saul Nash’s genderless sportswear goes from strength to strength, both with his dance-inspired designs and through clever collaborations with Gucci, Adidas and Mercedes-Benz. In this season’s collection, some of his designs use the iconic “smiley face.” Saul Nash worked with Smiley, founded by former French journalist Franklin Loufrani who created and trademarked a smiley face in 1972 to highlight good news. Today, one of the the company’s initiatives is the Future Positive Creators Fund, a £500k fund and mentorship support scheme designed to help game-changing designers at global fashion weeks.

Stylist and Creative Director, Deborah Latouche’s new collection draws inspiration from a ground-breaking leading lady and 1980s icon: powerful, glamorous, independent businesswoman Dominique Devereux of the hit 1980s’ TV show Dynasty. The color palette is peaches and creams juxtaposed with hues of tobacco, silver and gold. Antique jewels add accents to the impeccably cut silhouettes, powdery pink-feathered hats and delicate lace eyepieces by Piers Atkinson complete the vintage glamor. With sustainability always in mind, the collection uses luxury, end-of-life fabrics sourced in