London Fashion Week: What Trends are Shaping the Fashion Industry in 2024?

Four decades on from its first catwalk show in a tent off Kensington High Street, London Fashion Week (LFW) is still the place where anything can happen. Picking up from where New York Fashion Week left off, LFW showcased how street style fashion is done, offering plenty of inspiration for transitional dressing as we head through the seasons.

Celebrating its 40th birthday in style, the 4-day fashion spectacle captured city wide attention, showcasing 67 designers across 46 catwalks and 36 events spanning the capital. London’s flagship labels, Burberry, JW Anderson and Simone Rocha, were featured alongside new exciting talent set to take the fashion world by storm throughtout 2024, such as Dilara Fidikoglu, Conner Ives and Robyn Lynch.

Reflecting on these exciting collections can be overwhelming, especially as we move toward instantaneous clothing gratification noted by the rise of ultra-fast-fashion brands such as Shein and Pretty Little Thing. As such, showcasing collections can put a pause on the disposability of the modern fashion trend-cycle, rather, giving designers the space to generate authentic fashion moments akin to Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta’s infamous runway moment at Todd Oldham’s Spring 1995 show. 

A Focus on Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility

A major theme throughout the fashion industry is sustainability and London Fashion Week wasn’t going to shy away from the conversation. Runways, workshops and partnerships built around zero-waste craftsmanship and upcycling took place across the city, all aiming to bring new life to wardrobe staples.

As western fashion continues to surge in popularity and become the aesthetic of the season, denim trends are here to stay, but so are conversations of textiles and sustainability when it comes to the stand out fabric. Award-winning designer Ahluwalia transformed deadstock denim into a head-to-toe look with pieces created from reworked denim supplied by Levi’s.

Returning to LFW, london-based designer Ancuta Sarca echoed the themes of sustainability and environmental responsibility with her Fall/Winter 2024 collection, created using deadstock leathers, faux fur and surplus fabrics from previous seasons.

Off the runway, organizers of London Fashion Week held a plethora of creative and skill based workshops and activities across the city of London that focused on the upcycling and repurposing of surplus fabrics and last season’s garments, delivered by the likes of London College of Fashion and The Fashion School.

As sustainability and environmental responsibility continues its momentum as a strong theme within fashion, retailers have the opportunity to mirror this and focus on fostering green strategies. Seemingly small changes can make a big difference for brands, for example, optimizing returns processes to minimize transport, packing waste and reducing demand on fast fashion can play a pivotal role in creating a greener retail industry. Meanwhile, effective inventory management processes can also enable retailers to gain better visibility of their stock, allowing businesses to optimize the products they order, reducing CO2 emissions produced in manufacturing, transporting and storing items.

Modernity of the Contributions to Art and Fashion

A staple of London Fashion Week’s identity comes from challenging the status quo, from Shalom Harlow’s dazzling robot paint soaked Alexander McQueen dress, to catching a glimpse of royalty in the front row, no two LFW’s are ever the same. However, what is always apparent, especially in London, is the intersection of class, society and art in developing cohesive and culturally referenced collections.

Labrum London’s ‘Designed By An Immigrant: Journey of Colors’ show paid tribute to the journey faced by immigrants coming to the UK. Using textiles from around the world to pay tribute to the globality and cultural heritage in London, Labrum incorporated patchwork, embroidery and screen-printing combined with heritage-based art to form a dazzling collection and showcasing the multiculturalism of London.

Taking inspiration from North London’s iconic garage nightlife scene, Saul Nash used this AW24 fashion show to highlight the influence of music as an art form on fashion. He used it as his base to create a themed collection that consisted of tightly fitted nylon-wear that challenges the traditional dress-codes of related clubs.

Nostalgia Influencing Fashion for a New Generation

The latest fashion resurgence to encapsulate the industry was the Y2K aesthetic, seeing consumers seek an idealized version of the past, fueled by a love of generational fashion and noughties pop culture.

Nostalgia continues to be a growing theme used by creatives to evoke emotion in their products and allow designers to pay homage to styles that used to rule the runway. JW Anderson’s collection focused on the reconfiguration of generational fashion, with inspiration taken from british women in the 1970s, we saw him mixing elements of homespun knits and trench coats with sporty shorts and ribbon-trailing skirts to curate outfits that offer a new life to to past styles.

London Fashion Week has been known to showcase some of the most prominent up and coming designers, highlighted by its NewGen initiatives. One of this year’s emerging designers, Robyn Lynch, produced a capsule of looks that reconstructed mensware for a new generation to enjoy. Taking great inspiration from her father’s wardrobe and old home video footage, Lynch explored the combining elements of the past with bold contemporary styles of design. In a collaboration with C.P Company, Robyn reimagined a selection of the brand’s sportswear pieces into one-off designs.

Designers continue to repurpose and reconstruct traditional initiatives to cater to a new generation. Likewise, the most forward-thinking retailers are now aligning themselves with the values, preferences and behaviors of the new generation of consumers in order to stay competitive. Adopting solutions that deliver high-quality customer insights – such as Teamwork Commerce’s Secure Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology – allows retailers to better understand shopper behaviors and preferences, allowing them to tailor their operations to deliver bespoke interactions and continue to meet evolving consumer demands.

Trends to Shape Retail

London Fashion Week embodies similar themes that we saw at its sister show, New York Fashion Week earlier this year. It is clear that we can expect these to be carried through and reflected in future shows.

It is imperative that retailers acknowledge the themes and trends guiding runways throughout fashion’s biggest event in order to leverage opportunities and make informed decisions that align with the direction that the fashion world is storming.

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