The Kurator’s London Fashion Week SS27 Roundup

Every season, someone in London insists this is the one that matters. Usually, they are wrong. This time, they were not.

Expectations going in were the highest in years, and for once the numbers agreed with the hype, as did the schedule. Accredited buyer attendance rose 19 per cent year-on-year, international buyer attendance climbed 41 per cent, and five days produced 47 catwalk shows, 23 presentations and 53 evening events - which is either an impressive statistic or a minor endurance test, depending on how many of them you personally attempted to attend. Credit belongs to Laura Weir, whose overhaul of the British Fashion Council - waiving show fees, doubling investment in the international guest programme, folding menswear into one unified September calendar - has spent two seasons undoing London's long slide behind Paris and Milan. This was the season that strategy finally cashed its cheque, and for the first time in years, it genuinely feels as though London is finding its way back to where it used to be.

Burberry closed the week, as it always does, but long before the show, the usual question had already started doing the rounds: “What other shows do you have? Are you doing Burberry?” It is the question some dread and others desperately want to be asked. Among journalists, buyers, stylists and the wider fashion-week ecosystem, it can mean several things at once: a way of sharing the excitement with someone else who has made the cut; a tactical enquiry when your own invitation has failed to materialise; or, for those with a little more nerve, a way of establishing whether an after-party invitation might be within reach even if the show itself is not. There is also the simple matter of wanting guaranteed company in the Burberry bubble, where Jonathan Baileys of the world can glide past and everyone agrees to behave as though this happens every Monday. And then there are the moments you know you will want to talk about afterwards, preferably with someone who is not already halfway into a car. Last season it was Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. This season it was Central Cee, who appeared on the runway debuting his very calm catwalk.

Outside Chelsea College of Arts, an enormous crush of paparazzi and fashion fans gathered behind the barriers, straining for a glimpse of the arrivals. Inside, the mood changed completely. The room was gallery-like and flooded with daylight brightness that almost felt otherwordly, a striking departure from the darkened show spaces that had dominated the week. There was nowhere for the clothes to hide: every seam, proportion and colour had to hold its own.

This was one of Burberry’s most daring collections in years, although its boldness had little to do with shock for shock’s sake. Daniel Lee had invited Celia Birtwell, now 85, into the centre of the conversation: the textile artist whose loose, hand-drawn prints helped define the visual language of 1960s and 1970s Britain through her partnership with Ossie Clark and close association with David Hockney. Her influence was everywhere. The house check loosened into gingham; gingham gave way to stripes; then came faces, flowers and bursts of colour. The palette began in familiar Burberry neutrals, making each eruption of print land with greater force. This was not Birtwell pasted onto Burberry. Her hand had got under the skin of the house.

Lee did not abandon Burberry’s iconic visuals; he loosened its grip. The trench remained, as did the check, the equestrian references and the British practicality that have long formed part of the brand’s mythology. But everything had been allowed to move. Washed silk and cotton looked faded and lived-in rather than pristine. Leather was transformed through a clever matelassé technique into a puckered, almost seersucker-like surface. Menswear came shorter and boxier, with the peculiar familiarity of something borrowed from a parent or grandparent’s wardrobe and then sent to an exceptionally good tailor.

It suggested a different idea of luxury: not the untouched perfection of something newly bought, but the pleasure of something already carrying a little history. Burberry has always been a house built around protection - from the rain, the cold, the elements, the world. Here, some of that armour had been loosened. The clothes remained rooted in Burberry’s visual language, but looked as though they had lived a life before arriving on the runway. Even the venue had a memory. Chelsea College of Arts was where Burberry first showed in London in 2010, after its Milan years, and where Thomas Burberry’s granddaughter once studied window dressing. Fashion loves a full circle, particularly when the building can provide the punchline. Perhaps that was also what made the collection work. It did not look like Burberry desperately searching for a new identity. It looked like a house confident enough in its own history to let someone scribble over it. The trench was still a trench. The check was still the check. But suddenly there were flowers growing through the cracks.

Erdem always brings one of the true pinch-yourself moments of London Fashion Week, not only for the eye-line to Anna Wintour, or the sight of Suzy Menkes, perpetual queen of the front row, sweeping backstage before the lights have even come up, but because the collection itself is, without fail, always excellent. That is rarer than you would think, given how many shows a single week demands and how few leave you with something after.

This season, Moralioglu built the collection around Barbette, born Vander Clyde Broadway in Texas, the aerialist who arrived in Paris in the 1920s as a woman and descended the trapeze as a man, becoming a muse to Jean Cocteau along the way. Cocteau wrote about him in 1926 as a performer who could move between masculine and feminine with such conviction that neither seemed like the definitive version. Even the removal of his wig at the end of the act was not quite a reveal; it was another part of the performance.

Erdem translated that ambiguity into clothes with real tension. Masculine tailoring met nipped circus bodysuits and showgirl plumage; a severe dinner jacket erupted into a lace-and-tulle bustle; military parkas were layered over delicate, embellished underwear; tuxedo jackets were interrupted by satin and oversized feathers. It was theatrical without becoming a costume.

There is also something about the atmosphere of an Erdem show. Moralioglu himself is so modest and nonchalant that, even if you know what he looks like, meeting him can make you question whether you have the right person. Yet the network he has built around the brand - artists, designers, writers, stylists and loyal clients - gives the show an energy that is immediately apparent. His generosity seems to have travelled through the people around him.

Backstage, that is perhaps most obvious. Erdem's area is almost always overflowing with admirers who have come not simply to see the clothes but to see him. This season was no exception.

Roksanda took over the roof garden of the National Theatre, and, thankfully, London decided to cooperate. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and the elevated setting meant people crossing the bridge above could stop and look down at a fashion show happening beneath them. For once, the city itself had been given a front-row seat. It was a brilliant setting for Roksanda, because this collection was about opening things up too: moving beyond the grand occasion dressing she has long done so well and into a fuller, more lived-in wardrobe, without losing any of the drama that makes her clothes so recognisable.

The starting point was Françoise Grossen, the Swiss-American textile artist whose monumental sculptures are built from braided, knotted and coiled rope. Roksanda translated that language into clothes with remarkable ease: braids cinched the backs of tailored jackets, travelled down dresses and grew into sculptural flourishes on the finale gowns. There was something wonderfully tactile about it all, as though the clothes had been pulled, twisted and tied into shape by hand.

And the colour cravings were duly fed. Vivid pinks, reds and purples cut through the collection, alongside painterly brushstrokes and fragmented faces across silk pieces. The portraits came from Roksanda’s own return to painting this summer, while Grossen’s influence gave the collection another layer of texture and structure. Nothing felt timid. Even the tailoring had an appetite.

That was the cleverest part. Roksanda has always known how to make an entrance, but here she was making a case for everything that happens before you get there. Relaxed tailoring, poplin shirts, safari-inspired jackets and scarf-like pieces sat alongside the enormous gowns, giving the collection the feeling of a wardrobe rather than a red-carpet delivery system. Although, thankfully, the red-carpet dresses are still very much alive and well. Roksanda knows how to make a gown that can stop a room, and there were several here that already look ready for their awards-season close-up. You can practically see the stylists fighting over them.

Mulberry was always going to be one of the big moments of the season. Christopher Kane’s arrival as creative director marked his first collection since the closure of his own label in 2023, and the anticipation was palpable before a single look appeared. The show ended in a standing ovation, but the clothes were more interesting than the reception alone suggested.

Kane described the collection as “City Town Country”, using Mulberry’s heritage as a starting point rather than a costume. The curved flap of the Bayswater became a recurring graphic across leather coats, dresses and skirts, while the new Axe and Chop bags pushed the accessories into sharper territory. Archive references, from the country check to an old Mulberry polo, were folded into a wardrobe that felt recognisably British without becoming twee.

There was plenty of Kane in it too: leather, geometric cut-outs, sharp little dresses and oversized outerwear, balanced with parkas, polos, denim and tailoring. It felt less like Kane taking over Mulberry than the two finally finding the point where their identities make sense together.

Simone Rocha returned to the marble halls of the Old Bailey for the third time and used the setting to do something quite rare for her: undress, quite literally. Titled I Was Trying To Love You and drawn from Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ, a painting rediscovered decades after being dismissed as a copy, the collection abandoned Rocha's signature layering for something far more exposed. Sheer dresses revealed coloured underwear beneath, leather jackets plunged nearly to the waist, and her trademark roses appeared in exaggerated, almost architectural proportions. Rocha said she wanted the collection to feel vulnerable rather than protective, and it showed: nothing looked too perfect, silk slips hanging as though caught mid-dress, taffeta structures pushed slightly out of shape.

Her first womenswear-only catwalk since SS23, and arguably her most emotionally direct collection in years. She has built a career on romantic excess; watching her strip it back and really do something new was refreshing and exciting.

Ahluwalia threw a party, essentially, staging Revel at the Rosewood and unveiling the third drop of her Puma collaboration alongside a collection built from an unexpectedly tender research trail: photographs of off-duty Black Panther members, caught in moments of rest and friendship rather than protest. That contrast, between resistance and repose, defined everything that followed. Draping that has traditionally pulled inward now pushed outward, skirts and shoulders growing in volume, satin sculpted into fuller silhouettes. An abstract red, green and white print, drawn from aerial imagery connected to FESTAC '77, the 1977 Lagos celebration of Black and African culture, turned a piece of history into something that read as celebratory rather than archival. Trainers styled with tailoring, tracksuits cut with real precision, proof that Ahluwalia's sportswear instincts are every bit as sharp as her eveningwear, and rather more fun.

Richard Quinn, London’s reigning couture showman, delivered the kind of high-drama fashion moment the week needs somewhere on its schedule, because a London season without at least one designer threatening to bankrupt themselves on tulle would feel incomplete. Staged inside a mirrored ballroom, the collection was pure Quinn: maximalist florals, extravagant volume and gowns engineered for maximum impact. It was the sort of clothes that explain why his front row has, over the years, included everyone from the late Queen to Naomi Campbell.

Quinn’s real talent is making that level of excess feel like craft rather than simply decoration. The embroidery, construction and sheer labour are never lost beneath the drama. This season was no exception, and frankly, some traditions are better left alone.

Chopova Lowena

Chopova Lowena took over a London bowling alley, a suitably unlikely setting for Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons, whose Central Saint Martins sensibility has always thrived on putting strange ideas together and making them feel entirely convincing. This season, the duo went deep into Slavic folklore, drawing on figures including Baba Yaga and the death goddess Morana, and channelled those darker stories through their familiar mix of carabiner-clipped kilts, folkloric craft and feminine punk.

The result felt more sinister and mythic than usual, but still unmistakably Chopova Lowena: eccentric, meticulously considered and completely unwilling to behave like conventional fashion. The bowling alley only made the point clearer. In London, you do not necessarily need a grand ballroom to make a memorable show. Sometimes the more unlikely the setting, the better the clothes have a chance to haunt you.

Emilia Wickstead looked to the American abstract expressionist Lee Krasner for a collection built around discipline, spontaneity and constant reinvention - qualities that could just as easily describe Wickstead herself. Krasner’s influence brought a new sense of movement and expression to Wickstead’s famously polished world, with looser shapes, painterly marks and flashes of volume disrupting the composure without losing any of the elegance her clients return for.

What made the reference work was the tension between the two women. Krasner’s paintings were instinctive, layered and full of movement, while Wickstead has built her reputation on clothes that are carefully considered and impeccably finished. This season, those instincts met somewhere in the middle: skirts moved more freely, surfaces became more expressive and familiar silhouettes were given room to breathe. It felt like Wickstead allowing a little more of herself to show.

MAX&Co. made its presence felt beyond the runway too, hosting three events across London as part of its arrival in the city under a new creative direction called The Vision Ahead. The day began with a morning talk at 180 The Strand, fashion journalist Caroline Issa in conversation with the brand's creative collaborator Edward Buchanan, before the action moved to the new Regent Street store for an intimate talk with the campaign's cast followed by cocktails, and closed out at Club 77 with a DJ set from Paloma Le Friant, face of the brand's eyewear campaign. It was a smart way to plug into the week without simply adding another show to an already packed schedule, giving the brand a presence that felt social rather than purely commercial.

SKIMS, meanwhile, made its first international flagship opening feel like a full-blown London Fashion Week event. The Regent Street launch, a 12,000-square-foot space designed by architect Rafael de Cárdenas inside the old Ted Baker store, was packed with the sort of guest list usually reserved for the biggest shows: Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede brought together names spanning fashion, music, sport and culture, from Central Cee and Troye Sivan to Kim Jones and Sha'Carri Richardson. Kardashian made her entrance from upstairs down to the ground floor, heading straight for the photobooth, a genuinely cinematic moment that set the tone for the rest of the night. The main party had all the ingredients you would expect, cocktails, a DJ set from Kim Turnbull, branded sliders and a photobooth for the full crowd, before a smaller group peeled off for an intimate dinner to close out the night, alongside an impressive procession of looks from Kardashian herself. But the real achievement was getting Laura Weir, the British Fashion Council's chief executive, into the room too. When the woman responsible for the entire London Fashion Week schedule can be tempted away from it, you know the event has done its job.