The 68th edition of London Fashion Week welcomes a packed schedule of the world’s most creative and innovative names in the fashion industry. The London Fashion Week platform continues to evolve, expanding the breadth of its international reach and welcoming some of the most exciting brands; with a packed schedule featuring over 80 designer names on the official catwalk and presentation schedule and over 100 brands showcasing in the Designer Showrooms, the event will welcome guests from over 50 countries from all five continents. 
The British Fashion Council (BFC) announces new industry statistics post commissioning a new Value of Fashion report, which includes new data on the British fashion industry.
The fashion industry directly contributed £32.3billion to the UK GDP in 2017 ($41.8billion)
This represents a 5.4% increase after 2016; a growth rate 1.6% higher than the rest of the economy
Fashion remains a major UK employer with 890,000 jobs supported across the industry; a 1.8% growth compared to 2016
New UK employment figures rank fashion as almost as large as the financial sector
Data from Oxford Economics, 2018
The BFC has partnered with award-winning creative innovation studio Holition as well as Google, Condé Nast and Pulsar to produce a unique data visualisation project, ‘Blossoming Fashion Conversation’ showcasing the amount of posts and reach on social, news and reviews associated to 12 major fashion topics before, during and after recent London Fashion Weeks. Key topics studied throughout the visualisation include Sustainability, Model Health, The Luxury & Streetwear Climates, Designer & Production Heritage, Emerging Talent, Diversity in the industry and Overall Innovation.
The visualisation aims to engage people inside and outside the industry to educate and intrigue them while showcasing the creativity and global impact of London Fashion Week. The data will be realised in the form of a tree with roots and branches which reflect this information and how it changes over London Fashion Weeks.
The roots represent the reach of London Fashion Week related articles from online titles split by global regions. The branches represent the total social media mentions and impressions that a topic gains per day over 19 days, sourced and aggregated from the three previous London Fashion Weeks. The link between the roots and the branches reflects time and subject matter.
The project was headed by Holition’s Creative Technologist Miguel Ceballos and Product Owner Sixtine de Cidrac in partnership with six university students from across the globe who came together in London as part of the Holition’s Summer Internship Programme.
The data visualisation will be located at The Store X, 180 Strand throughout London Fashion Week and London Fashion Week Festival.
LONDON FASHION WEEK SEPTEMBER 2018 SCHEDULE
The London Fashion Week catwalk schedule, Designer Showrooms and DiscoveryLAB at The Store X, 180 Strand feature the very best of emerging and established names within the creative industries from fashion to music, art and design. London Fashion Week is a five-day event running from Friday 14th to Tuesday 18th September 2018 and features 80 on-schedule designers; 54 of them hosting catwalk shows, 26 presentations and more than 20 events.
Over 100 designers will be showing their latest collections in the Designer Showrooms, the carefully curated exhibition of London Fashion Week. A curated area by the duo behind &FINALLY an online accessories platform, will bring a new dimension to the Designer Showrooms this season, creating space for more voices and new, exciting talent.
Following last season’s tremendous success, the DiscoveryLAB will continue to house an experiential zone for thinkers, makers, explorers and innovators across the landscape of fashion, art, technology and performance. The DiscoveryLAB will see presentations and activations from Clio Peppiatt, Emma Charles, FENGYI TAN, Gènavant, KALDA, Mark Fast, MARRKNULL, Micol Ragni, STEVE O SMITH, UNDERAGE and Wesley Harriott.
Chinese e-commerce powerhouse and London Fashion Week partner Vip.com will host an exclusive show on Thursday 13th September to showcase unique collections from 4 Chinese designers, presenting at London Fashion Week for the first time: Mukzin, Bailuyu, A Life On The Left and Kisscat. The catwalk show will be live streamed on the VIP.com app, Discovery Channel and Tencent video https://v.qq.com/ giving all Vip.com customers a behind-the-scene glimpse of the event.
Burberry will present their first and much anticipated collection under Riccardo Tisci, new Chief Creative Officer on Monday while we welcome Victoria Beckhamwho brings her show to the London schedule for the first time to celebrate a decade in business. ALEXACHUNG will stage a catwalk to present her new collection while Jenny Packham returns to London to celebrate her brand’s 30th anniversary. Furthermore, MM6 Maison Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood will both present full runway collections for the first time as part of LFW.
Molly Goddard, recipient of the 2018 BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund will show on Saturday afternoon, followed by two-time winner at The Fashion Awards 2017 in partnership with Swarovski, Jonathan Anderson who will present a co-ed show for his eponymous label JW Anderson. On Saturday evening, Mary Katrantzou will celebrate her brand’s 10th anniversary with a catwalk show while internationally acclaimed brands Anya Hindmarch, Delpozo, Johnstons of Elgin and Ports 1961will return to the LFW schedule.
The NEWGEN 2018 line-up, the internationally celebrated BFC talent identification scheme includes Richard Malone opening the first day (Friday 14), Kiko Kostadinov, launching his womenswear collection (Friday 14), Matty Bovan (Friday 14), Halpern (Saturday 15), and Supriya Lele and Paula Knorr who will both host presentations on Sunday 16 and Monday 17 respectively. Richard Quinn, recipient of the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Award for Design, will close London Fashion Week September 2018 on Tuesday 18. The NEWGEN Accessories designers Alighieri, Isosceles and The Season Hats will all have a dedicated space in the Designer Showrooms with individual activations.
Other internationally celebrated designers including Alice Archer, Amanda Wakeley, Ashley Williams, Ashish, Aspinal of London, Bobby Abley, Bora Aksu, CHALAYAN, Christopher Kane, DAVID KOMA, Edeline Lee, Emilia Wickstead, ERDEM, Eudon Choi, Faustine Steinmetz, Fashion East, FYODOR GOLAN, Gareth Pugh, Gayeon Lee, House of Holland, Huishan Zhang, Isa Arfen, J. JS Lee, Jamie Wei Huang, Jasper Conran, JULIEN MACDONALD, Malene Oddershede Bach, Margaret Howell, Markus Lupfer, Marta Jakubowski, minki, Mother of Pearl, Mulberry, NABIL NAYAL, Natasha Zinko, Nicopanda, OSMAN, Pam Hogg, palmer//harding, Paul Costelloe, Peter Pilotto, Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, Pringle of Scotland, pushBUTTON, REJINA PYO, Roberta Einer, Roksanda, Roland Mouret, Ryan LO, Sadie Williams, Simone Rocha, steventai and Teatum Jones, Temperley London, TOGA, Xiao Li, XU ZHI and Zandra Rhodes will be on schedule to showcase their latest collections. Other new additions to the schedule include Gayeon Lee, Nabil Nayal and RIXO London.
LONDON FASHION WEEK BY NUMBERS
- The womenswear clothing market is forecasted to grow by 14% between 2018 and 2022 to reach £33.5 billion (Mintel 2018)
- The UK women’s clothing market grew by 3.2% in 2017 to reach £28.4billion (Mintel 2018)
- The latest annual International Passenger Survey (IPS) figures show a 4% growth in international visitors to London from 19.1m in 2016 to 19.8m in 2017 (London & Partners 2018)
- Spending by international visitors was also up 14% year on year to a record £13.5 billion (London & Partners 2018)
- 2.5 million London Fashion Week Limited Edition Nivea deodorants produced
- Instagram stories on the official London Fashion Week account received 871,648 views in total over LFW February 2018
- Over LFW February 2018, the official LFW Instagram gained an additional 16,105 followers, increasing the account’s following to 160,328 with a total of 73 posts and 79,915 likes
- 45,000 images shot by Getty Images photographers on and off the runway over 5 days
- 32,000 miles driven between shows by a luxurious fleet of fuel-efficient chauffeured Mercedes-Benz cars
- 20,000 cups of espresso served and 200kg of Lavazza coffee consumed
- 7,014 products used by TONI&GUY and label.m backstage
- 6,000 packs of Jealous Sweets distributed
- 5,000 serves of Scavi & Ray prosecco consumed
- 3,000 copies of ES Magazine read onsite
- Liam Hodges to produce 100 pieces of merchandise as part of an exclusive collaboration with Boiler Room
- 2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of the May Fair as the Official LFW Hotel Partner
- 5 fashion businesses in the running for the DHL Award for International Fashion Potential 2018 and its £20,000 cash prize
The home for London Fashion Week is once again, the newly named, Store X located at 180 Strand, hosting the BFC Show Space, the Designer Showrooms, the NEWGEN pop-up showroom and the DiscoveryLAB.
The generosity and commitment of our sponsors is more vital than ever. Please help us by acknowledging their support for London Fashion Week September 2018: Official Sponsors Etihad Airways, Evening Standard, Lavazza, Maybelline New York, May Fair Hotel, Mercedes-Benz, Nivea, The Store X, TONI&GUY and VIP.com; Official Suppliers Bags of Ethics, DHL, Digital Domain, evian, Fashion and Beauty Monitor, Getty Images, Gold Collagen, Jealous Sweets, Launchmetrics, PROPERCORN, Propress, Scavi&Ray, Triumph, and Verve; Official Funders The European Regional Development Fund and The Mayor of London and Official Supporter The Department for International Trade.