From retro motifs to modern twists: London Fashion Week provided a smorgasbord of style inspiration for 2025.
British designers re-imagined florals, androgynous silhouettes and showcased contemporary takes on traditional femininity.
Here are five London Fashion Week trends we might all be wearing this year.
1. Pillbox hats
Emilia Wickstead’s 1960s collection inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Birds (1963), brought back an accessory that has already been slowly creeping onto the fashion scene since Copenhagen Fashion Week.
That is, of course, the pillbox hat.
Beginning as a form of military headgear, the pillbox hat was popularised by U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who was famed for her signature block-colour hats that matched her outfits.
Kennedy was wearing a pink pillbox hat to match her Chanel suit on the day her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963.
While multiple retro tropes graced the runway this season – from Burberry’s Eighties blouson bomber jackets to Chet Lo’s Noughties hair crimping – the most memorable fashion motif was certainly the revival of the pillbox hat.
2. Eighties’ silhouettes
Broad shoulders, bold prints, nipped-in waists and quaffed hair dominated the runway this season.
From Richard Quinn’s blouson blouses to Paul Costelloe’s full-waisted belts and S.S. Daley’s quaffed hair – it seems the 1980s is making a comeback in one way or another.
Many collections looked to archetypes of British pop culture this season, taking inspiration from musicians such as The Smiths and Siouxsie Sioux.
“This season, we started with a desire to investigate the archetypes that carved out the idea of a very British wardrobe,” designer Steven Stokey-Daley told Vogue, “so taking the donkey jacket or the duffle coat or the trench coat and creating our very core everyday version of those.”
3. Books as accessories
As observed at Erdem and JW Anderson’s collections last September, designers once again proved that books are the most sophisticated accessory.
Emilia Wickstead’s autumn/winter 2025 collection featured retro newspapers as clutches, which is a new take on the modern paperback as an outfit accompaniment.
Books and literature is increasingly playing a starring role in fashion discourse, as more celebrities are meaningfully photographed with their current reads as a status symbol and a small window into their personal interests.
At the spring/summer 2025 London Fashion Week, designer Erdem Moralioglu looked to book The Well Of Loneliness, a lesbian novel published in 1928 which was swiftly banned in England for the next two decades.
He used it as inspiration for his clothes that featured impeccable masculine tailoring of the 1920s, combined with the designer’s signature ultra-feminine dresses.
It seems we may be swapping out our totes for book bags this coming season.
4. Faux-fur accents
Simone Rocha and Burberry were among the designers showcasing faux fur accents this season.
While the ‘mob wife’ aesthetic brought back the extravagant fur coat last year, subtler trims were observed on this season’s runway, with lined leather jackets and faux fur stoles.
At Simone Rocha’s show, the Irish designer presented faux-fur coats sliced to ribbons halfway up from their hemlines – a gesture repeated across the collection.
Perhaps we’ll see deconstructed fur cropping up on the high street later this year.
5. Cropped trousers
Culottes, cropped trousers and breeches were another key trend spotted on the runways of Chet Lo, Bora Aksu and Conner Ives.
While Chloe’s spring/summer 2025 runway took the fashion world by storm with her boho lace pantaloons, it seems the cropped trouser trend isn’t just for summer.
Wool breeches, billowing culottes and crops graced both the runways and front rows this season.
Often paired with high riding boots – another trend that has permeated from last season – this season’s baggy cropped trousers evoked a blend of old-school country shooting attire and Noughties capri pants.
