LFW AW25: The Collections That Defined the Season
- Pampler Editorial Team
- Mar 3
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 24
London has long been the breeding ground for rebellion, a place where designers dismantle and reconstruct the codes of fashion with a certain recklessness. But this season at LFW AW25, something shifted. The provocation was quieter. The statements, more introspective. Instead of shock tactics, designers leaned into memory, craft, and a kind of measured evolution—less about breaking the mold, more about refining it.
Erdem wove a study of preservation and decay, sending models through the British Museum in garments that felt like artifacts themselves—fragile yet enduring. Simone Rocha, ever the romantic, explored structure through tension, soft tulle armoring the body rather than embellishing it. Daniel Lee’s Burberry continued its recalibration, trading aggressive branding for a subtler take on Britishness, while newcomers like Dreaming Eli charged emotion into every seam.
London didn’t play it safe, but it played it smart. In a season where quiet luxury still lingers and viral gimmicks feel tired, the most compelling collections weren’t about reinvention for reinvention’s sake. They were about knowing exactly when to push forward—and when to hold back.
Simone Rocha: A Fable in Fabric
Simone Rocha’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection unfolded like a fable—part nostalgia, part quiet rebellion. Rooted in The Tortoise & The Hare, Rocha cast herself as the steady tortoise, reflecting on 15 years of deliberate evolution. The result? A collection where romance met restraint, softness met seduction.
Mary Jane-strapped ballet flats, trimmed in fur, padded down the runway—playful yet subversive. Shimmering satins, sheer layers, and slashed faux-fur coats sharpened Rocha’s signature femininity, edging it with tension. Lingerie-adjacent shorts paired with boxy denim jackets and cardigans, amplifying contrast.
Menswear, a growing thread in Rocha’s world, borrowed from childhood uniforms—pleated knee-length shorts, fur-trimmed knits, and bead-detailed suiting. Fiona Shaw, in a duchesse-satin egg dress bound by bicycle-lock chains, embodied Rocha’s fascination with restraint and release.
No rush, no reinvention—just Rocha refining her language, slow and steady.
Erdem: The Art of Memory
For Autumn/Winter 2025, Erdem Moralıoğlu dipped into the past—both his own and a more abstract, painterly one. The collection, presented in the grand halls of the British Museum, was a meditation on memory, art, and the spectral presence of those who linger beyond their time. At its heart was a collaboration with artist Kaye Donachie, a longtime peer from the Royal College of Art, whose ethereal portraits—more residue than realism—became the ghostly fingerprints across the collection.
Donachie’s hand materialized in engineered prints on bonded canvas and the whisper of portraits embroidered in technical organza. Dresses with slashed necklines and skeletal corsetry felt like figures half-fading from a canvas, their forms still taking shape in brushstrokes. A sculpted bell dress bloomed with Donachie’s ink-sketched faces, while column gowns and pencil skirts shimmered in glossed black spike sequins, catching the light like the remnants of a dream.
The show’s setting—an institution built to house relics of lost civilizations—felt deeply personal, a perfect stage for Erdem’s exploration of the liminal space between past and present. If Donachie’s paintings offer an imaginary conversation between artist and subject, then this collection did the same—fashion as a dialogue with memory, pigment as an emotional imprint.
Dreaming Eli: Between My Heart & Ribs
Elisa Trombatore’s Dreaming Eli is not for the faint-hearted. This season, the designer carves deeper into the body—its tensions, its wounds, its raw, untamed beauty. Between My Heart & Ribs is both visceral and intimate, a study in the language of flesh, movement, and transformation.
Shibori-manipulated fabrics tighten and release, mirroring the tension of muscle beneath skin, while distressed layers unravel the complexities of womanhood—where bondage and liberation blur. A palette of searing reds, nudes, and bruised pinks underscores themes of trauma, power, and desire. Torn threads trace the body like veins, corseted outerwear sculpts, and sinewy knitwear—new to the brand—heightens the collection’s tactile intensity. Upcycled denim, edged with lace, meets deconstructed lingerie, both raw and unbound, refusing containment.
The London Fashion Week presentation was performance as process. Painter Sophie Tea worked live, her brushstrokes bleeding into fabric, while ballet dancers and contortionists pushed the limits of physical expression, mirroring the collection’s themes of constraint and liberation. And with the debut of Dreaming Eli’s first bag collection—a collaboration with 3D designer Harry Mack—Trombatore extends her vision into the digital realm, fusing organic imperfection with technological precision.
This is fashion as catharsis, as reclamation. A body bound, unraveled, and reborn.
Heritage in Motion: Paul Costelloe’s Masterclass in Dressage
Paul Costelloe opened the day with a masterclass in heritage—authentic and personal. Staged at The Waldorf’s Palm Court, against hand-drawn horse sketches, Dressage, a revival of his late ’80s equestrian-inspired collection was a lesson in precision. Broad shoulders and cinched waists carved out strong, sculptural silhouettes, nodding to the power dressing of the past but with a renewed sense of ease.
Tweed from Magee of Ireland and Harris of Scotland anchored the collection in rich, tactile tradition, while structured mini dresses paired with wool hosiery gave it a sharp, youthful edge. Costelloe’s painterly approach to color played out in an autumnal spectrum—chestnut, berry, midnight black—alongside in-house prints that told their own equestrian narrative. The accessories were just as considered: saddle bags in full-grain leather, wide belts that sculpted the waist like dressage reins, and riding gloves that felt less costume, more attitude.
There is nothing 'quiet' about Costelloe's luxury. His accessories carried the discipline of dressage—full-grain leather saddle bags, corset belts that demanded posture, high-heeled boots built for purpose. A collaboration with jeweler P.K. Bijoux added just enough glint to shift the balance from sport to spectacle. Then came the final note: a Rod Stewart ballad, sentimental yet assured.
A fitting end to a collection that proved Costelloe isn’t just preserving tradition—he’s commanding it.
A New Era at MITHRIDATE: Daniel Fletcher’s Debut
Daniel Fletcher’s debut at MITHRIDATE was less a departure than an evolution—his signature tailoring, sharpened on Savile Row, lent structure to the brand’s fluid, art-driven aesthetic. This season, he wove British heritage and Chinese craftsmanship into a collection that felt like a dialogue between past and present, precision and instinct.
The tension played out in contrasts: saccharine pastels against deep navy wools and tan leathers, full skirts tempered by strong-shouldered tailoring, rock’n’roll rebellion spliced with prim, ladylike codes. A tailored coat thrown over a drop-waist ball gown conjured visions of a Cambridge summer ball at dawn, while a wool zip-up hoodie under an elegant silhouette gave the kind of ease that belongs to a life fully lived, not just styled.
Fletcher’s vision is rooted in storytelling—a protagonist’s wardrobe built for romance, adventure, and a touch of British eccentricity. There was an embrace of so-called bad taste, a playful nod to the Eighties and Noughties, where awkward pastels met preppy hues and rebellious prints. Outerwear catered to every whim of Britain’s shifting climate, from donnish corduroy blazers to sailor jackets with blanket-stitched edges. Long silk scarves and layered ties riffed on the raconteurs of British music, a finishing touch to a collection that rephrased tradition with contemporary clarity.
MITHRIDATE’s new era isn’t about breaking with the past but reconfiguring it—turning familiar references on their heads to create something unexpected, something that lives.
S.S. Daley: Reimagining British Heritage
Steven Stokey-Daley has always had a way of mining British nostalgia—not as a romanticized past, but as a living, breathing force of reinvention. This season, he turned his lens toward a cast of cultural icons: Kate Bush’s eccentricity, Maggie Smith’s theatricality, Marianne Faithfull’s rebellious femininity. But rather than imitation, Daley distilled their essence into something new—his vision of a modern British wardrobe, playful in its proportions yet deeply rooted in heritage.
Outerwear took center stage, from cropped quilted jackets in bursts of tangerine to sharp, structured trenches that cinched and flared in unexpected places. The signature schoolboy tailoring remained but arrived softened, undone—pleated skirts pooled asymmetrically over brogues, while high-necked knits nodded to an aristocratic past without feeling precious. A tension between prim and punk pulsed throughout, echoed in the soundtrack: the melancholy lyricism of The Smiths giving way to the pulsating synths of the Pet Shop Boys.
Prints and textures told their own story—checks layered over pinstripes, satins draped against heavy wool, all styled with a deliberate sense of mischief. The collection was an exercise in contrast, where the stiffness of a high-collared coat met the slouch of a cashmere trouser, and a ruffled poet’s blouse peeked from beneath a sharply tailored blazer. Daley’s signature storytelling was alive in every stitch, each piece crafted for a character—whether she was running through a field or slipping through a side door at a country estate party.
At a time when heritage brands are eager to shed their pasts, Daley makes a case for embracing history—not as a burden, but as a foundation to build something bolder. This was British nostalgia at its most subversive, charmingly undone and utterly contemporary.
Burberry: A Countryside Reverie
Daniel Lee’s tenure at Burberry has been about re-grounding the brand in its Britishness, but his Fall/Winter 2025 collection took that mission somewhere richer, more tactile. This was Burberry not as urban uniform but as a countryside escape, a daydream of rolling hills, weather-worn estates, and stolen afternoons wrapped in oversized scarves.
Outerwear—unsurprisingly—anchored the collection, but in Lee’s hands, it was more than function. Coats came in enveloping proportions, some trailing dramatically behind like makeshift capes, others cinched at the waist with belts that evoked old-school military styling. The palette felt like a direct pull from the English landscape: russet browns, mossy greens, and golden wheat tones, punctuated by stormy greys and deep oxblood.
The play with texture added depth—plush wool trenches, waxed cotton jackets with exaggerated lapels, shearling collars peeking out from under layered knits. Tapestry-style prints wove through the collection, appearing on long, fringed scarves and oversized ponchos, a nod to the grand, slightly faded interiors of stately homes. But beneath the pastoral romance, there was a sharpness—a crisp navy duffle coat worn over a gauzy chiffon dress, a butter-soft leather trench toughened up with heavy-soled boots.
Lee has a knack for blending pragmatism with desirability, and here, that meant clothes that felt as suited to a windswept walk through the Highlands as they did to the streets of London. His Burberry isn’t about reinvention for reinvention’s sake; it’s about refinement, the kind that makes a trench coat feel as essential now as it was a century ago. This collection proved he’s found the balance between honoring the house’s DNA and shaping its future—one thoughtful, impeccably cut layer at a time.
This season made one thing clear: London’s designers are thinking long-term. The urge to provoke has softened into something more deliberate—an exercise in precision, restraint, and the quiet power of evolution. The next chapter won’t be dictated by fleeting trends but by those who understand that real impact comes from what endures.