Why there’s still a place for London Fashion Week in 2024

This year marks London Fashion Week’s 40th year.

Four decades since its inception, is this iconic event still relevant? (Alamy/PA)

London Fashion Week has started, marking the 40th anniversary of the biannual event.

Since launching in 1984, the event has grown from an avant-garde show to a giant in the fashion industry – with this year’s London Fashion Week (LFW) opening at the London Stock Exchange this week, signifying the importance of the fashion industry to the UK economy. UK womenswear sales alone are worth an estimated £30.9 billion, according to Mintel data.

But, the world has changed a lot in the past four decades – so is there still a place for LFW today?

Dr Benjamin Wild, senior lecturer of Fashion Narratives at Manchester Metropolitan University, believes so.

“Fashion is an industry that contributes just over 3% to the country’s GDP. I also think in terms of diversity and social responsibility, that’s something I think London takes very seriously. With three globally established fashion weeks, I think that it’s imperative to be different,” says Wild.

First organised by the British Fashion Council in February 1984, London Fashion Week happens twice a year – in February and September.

When it launched, there were already three well established fashion weeks running in Paris, New York and Milan, and London was considered an ‘interloper’ of the industry.

“It’s always been said – and I think it’s very much true that right from its inception, London Fashion Week has always been associated with innovation, and in terms of its creativity, there’s a greater sense of freedom,” adds Wild.

“It does capture something that is quintessentially British or English in terms of being a little bit rebellious, a little bit playful and defying the norms. I think that’s enabled London Fashion Week to really establish itself in distinction to the pre-existing fashion weeks and, over these past 40 years, it’s always had an angle, it’s always had a perspective and, if you like, a territory that is very much its own.”

In March 1984, when prime minister Margaret Thatcher hosted a reception to celebrate London Fashion Week, English designer Katharine Hamnett caused a stir by wearing a slogan tee which read ‘58% don’t want Pershing’, in response to opinion polls being against the basing of Pershing II missiles in the country.

Wilds believes politics seeps into LFW more than the other fashion weeks around the world, adding: “Fashion is a mirror of society”.

Since the Eighties, LFW has established itself as a giant within the fashion industry and is now a highly anticipated event in the fashion calendar.

However, the exclusivity of the shows has drawn criticism, and Wild says the catwalk isn’t “particularly democratic” – but he believes the event is moving with the times, with the 2009 LFW at Somerset House putting up digital screens to make the event accessible.

“The way [designers] communicate with their audiences, whether that’s taking advantage of digital technologies, has evolved over this 40-year period,” Wild adds.

London has always been a hub for innovative fashion – in the 1980s, for example, a group of designers called Body Map created designs that did not follow the natural silhouette of the body.

Wild says London Fashion Week has continued to push boundaries, with the first London Collections: Men launching in 2012, and shifting again in 2020 to become one gender-neutral event. The academic adds that being different and diverse is “very much part of the DNA of the event”.

It has had pushback over the years though, most recently from Extinction Rebellion who disrupted an event last year to call on LFW to cut their ties with Coca-Cola, criticising their plastic use.

Despite this, Wild argues LFW still has value in 2024 – but admits it will need to evolve to stay relevant. This is particularly the case in terms of sustainability/environment impact and accessibility.

“We’re increasingly thinking about sustainability, with a lot of recent reports from the industry itself, but also other international organisations, saying the fashion industry will not meet, and won’t be able to contribute to meeting sustainability goals that have been set,” Wild notes.

He also thinks the questions around whether it should move more online are important if it wants “to be increasingly relevant”.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when gatherings were limited to small numbers, organisers pivoted their approach by going digital and live-streaming shows online. This is something Wild thinks we’ll see more of in the future – “a hybridity and balance between physical and digital”.

He adds: “I think it’ll be interesting to see how it does evolve. I think the fashion industry right now, very much since the pandemic, is trying to align its priorities. There will always be that need for the physical, because of the materiality of our clothing, but we’re increasingly aware of sustainability.

“We’ll probably see more of what London Fashion Week is doing this year, emphasising the cultural element in the capital, with multi-site events and reaching out to bring in people who might not validly associate themselves with fashion.”