London Fashion Week opens with a trio of irreverent emerging brands | Canada Voices

While London Fashion Week has traditionally had a lighter schedule than its counterparts in New York, Milan and Paris, the city’s focus on emerging brands positions it as the scouting grounds for new ideas and hot, young talent.

The spring/summer 2027 season opened on Thursday with a trio of irreverent brands each making its solo debut on the official calendar: Joyce Bao, Francesca Lake and Agro Studio.

Bao, a London-based Chinese designer, launched her eponymous brand in 2024 after graduating from the esteemed Central Saint Martins MA fashion program that produced Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and John Galliano. For this season, Bao presented a tightly edited collection that challenged Western ideals of Asian femininity. A floral lace motif, reminiscent of those found on Chinese porcelain, was a recurring image, appearing on floor-grazing, open-back column gowns and strapless dresses with pleat detailing and elongated front knots. The overall effect was soft with an unexpected, alluring twist.

Meanwhile, the debut from Lake – a rising multidisciplinary artist and designer – was an homage to Jamaican churchgoing rituals. Lake’s Caribbean heritage is integral to the DNA of her brand, which has won over celebrity fans such as Rihanna, Naomi Campbell and Erykah Badu, the latter of whom wore one of her designs to the 2024 Met Gala.

The designer’s spring/summer collection, entitled Wake the Town, played with proportion, from bulbous hoop skirts to shrunken caplets worn with ruched leather gloves covering the entire arm. Voluminous and layered dresses, intricate hand-beaded embellishments, winged collars and men’s jackets reimagined in lace or subverted with a peplum completed the offering.

“It was a play on words of the idea of the wake,” Lake said in a video for British Vogue. “In Jamaican culture, I understand that as a celebration of life. So I wanted to do just that – celebrate Black existence, Black audacity and pride.”

Also making its London Fashion Week debut was Agro Studio, helmed by George Oxby and Angus Cockram. The designer duo have created memorable costumes for music royalty, such as the striking red dress Raye wears in her music video for Where is my Husband! and Lady Gaga’s scintillating Coachella playsuits.

The brand uses couture techniques to create sharp silhouettes styled with effervescence. For this season’s collection, called Glass Body, transparency was the starting point.

The designers manipulated tulle and lace by layering and distressing the material, as well as adding thousands of antique buttons to create a distorted surface. Corsets, a through line in the label’s collections, were pulled tight and juxtaposed with featherlight skirts.

Also shown were oversized outerwear in shiny satins, drop-waist tutus that hit just above or below the knee and asymmetric hems and collars. While the craft was firmly based in couture, the collection erred more toward iconoclastic than polished princess.

Elsewhere, Swedish retailer H&M’s runway was interrupted by PETA protesters carrying signs reading, “H&M: Wool is bloody cruel. Drop it!” Unlike at the COS show in New York (the brand is part of the H&M family), protesters were able to walk the entire runway before security escorted them off the premises.

Models walked against a backdrop, created using AI, that showed live sketches of their movements. The runway featured two mother-daughter pairs: legacy model Kristen McMenamy and Lily McMenamy, and supermodel Karen Elson and Scarlett White.

The collection offered an interpretation of the Edwardian era with ruffled blouses, tightly cropped jackets and satin lace-up detailing. More modern Western tropes such as the Canadian tuxedo and embroidered shirts also featured, as well as men’s wear that gave a nod to the 1980s and 1990s.

Appearing later in the schedule is a small but strong group of Canadian designers: Edeline Lee and Erdem, both of whom will show over the weekend, and Mark Fast, whose knitwear brand is a London Fashion Week stalwart.

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Heritage brands Burberry, Alexander McQueen (returning to London under creative director Sean McGirr) and Mulberry (presenting its debut collection from Christopher Kane) are the big-ticket shows this week and will undoubtedly draw star-studded front rows.

Lastly, Chanel will host the Métiers d’art Fellowships Exhibition in London, highlighting the work of recent graduates in embroidery, millinery and fashion production. The exhibition will showcase the work of the fellows at Chanel’s Métiers d’art Training Ateliers, the house’s specialized training programs, and their personal interpretations of British heritage.