LFW unveils busy season with Joseph return, final Paul Costelloe colleciton

London Fashion Week has unveiled a busy calendar for its next runway season in February that includes the return of UK fashion label Joseph and the final collection from the late Paul Costelloe.

 
Scheduled to run from Thursday, February 19 to Monday, February 23, the five-day event will feature some 46 runway shows, and a further 15 presentations, according to the official calendar release on Friday by the British Fashion Council. Along with 19 purely digital displays on the final day by fledgling designers. The season will present the fall/winter 2025/26 collections.
 
The house of Paul Costelloe will open the season at noon on Thursday with a posthumous show by the late great Irish designer, known for being the personal designer of Princess Diana. Costelloe passed away aged 80 in November.

While Burberry, by far the UK’s leading luxury label, will climax the season on Monday with an evening show by its designer Daniel Lee.
 
As noted, Joseph will return to London after a seven-year hiatus. When recently appointed creative director Mario Arena will show his second collection for the label. In another comeback, Julien Macdonald will return to the runways after a half-decade absence.
 
The week will include many of London’s heavy hitter advanced designers including Erdem, Simone Rocha, Richard Quinn, and Harris Reed.
 
However, several highly respected female designers are missing from the calendar, such as Roksanda and Molly Goddard. While what was previously the hottest runway show in London, J.W. Anderson, will be absent, as the Northern Irish designer pivots the marque into a lifestyle brand while he focuses on his main job in Paris, creative director of Dior.
 
Though the greatest lure of LFW is often the discovery of fresh, fashion forward talent, graduates of great UK fashion colleges such as Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion, or Loughborough University. Hence, hundreds of buyers and editors will flock in their hundreds to joint graduate shows or multi-designer catwalks like Fashion East, still to most observers the greatest incubator in fashion anywhere.