What not to miss at London Fashion Week

This Friday, London will welcome the global fashion pack to the 66th edition of London Fashion Week, and with more than 80 on-schedule catwalk shows and presentations, FashionUnited rounds up the fresh emerging talent, new additions and highlights that you don’t want to miss.

Fashion week always brings newness, but this season London has a whole host of new debuts namely the highly anticipated launch of Ralph and Russo’s first ever ready-to-wear collection. The brand, launched ten years ago by founders Tamara Ralph and Michael Russo and is a regular on the Paris Couture Fashion Week schedule but it is coming home to London to debut its brand extension that it states will “remain true to the brand DNA and heritage”.

Other international names heading to London includes American fashion legend Tommy Hilfiger who is closing London Fashion Week with his see-now-buy-now collection in collaboration with model Gigi Hadid, while Emporio Armani are showing to coincide with the relaunch of their London flagship, and streetwear brand Nicopanda will unveil its unisex collection at a showcase sponsored by Amazon, with Prime customers being about to order and receive the collection within one hour of the show taking place on Saturday.

There’s also a little schedule change up for fashion week favourites Burberry, they head to their new venue at the Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell to showcase their latest collection on the Saturday instead of the traditional Monday slot. The fashion house will once again be hosting a public exhibition following the catwalk show, this time a photography exhibition that aims to explore ‘the British way of life and character’ curated by chief creative officer Christopher Bailey.

London Fashion Week welcomes a host of International additions

While a number of fashion designers are rethinking the way they present their collections, stepping away from the traditional catwalk, with Gareth Pugh presenting a new film project at the Imax cinema, while Osman is hosting an intimate dinner that will include a theatre performance, and rising star Phoebe English is down on the schedule to showcase her spring/summer 2018 collection as a “performance event” on the Saturday.

The emerging talent is once again strong this season, Fashion Scout is presenting Norwegian designer Edda Gimnes and her eponymous label Edda as its Merit Award winner, while Fashion East has added two new designers to the scheme, Charlotte Knowles and Harry Evans, and British Fashion Council’s NewGen designers keep going from strength-to-strength with this season featuring Halpern, Marta Jakubowski, Molly Goddard, Paula Knorr, Richard Malone and Sadie Williams.

This season, the British Fashion Council has also launched a number of ways the public can get involved including livestreaming with Yahoo Style and outdoor screens across Birmingham, Leeds, London, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle present fashion week content from Ocean Outdoor. While new official partner New Look will be giving customers an insiders look at London Fashion Week with in-store events across the weekend at its Oxford Circus store in London.

London Fashion Week takes place from Friday, September 15 to Tuesday, September 19.

Images: London Fashion Week SS17, courtesy of the British Fashion Council