Laura Weir Sets Out A New Vision for London Fashion Week
01-09-2025
London Fashion Week (18th – 22nd September 2025) will soon be upon us. However, this season, British Fashion Council (BFC) chief executive Laura Weir is adamant to implement a reset—redefining the future of British fashion with accessibility, innovation, and global relevance at its core.
At the BFC’s annual summer event at the Serpentine Gallery, Laura Weir, just 11 weeks into her tenure, called for a revival. “Since Brexit and Covid, we have been sleeping on the creative British asset that quite literally touches everyone. It is time to reset,” she declared, emphasising the need to reclaim London’s creative leadership and infrastructure.
In a bold move, Weir announced that from September 2025, BFC members will no longer pay to show at London Fashion Week—placing London on par with smaller international fashion weeks like Berlin and Stockholm.
To elevate visibility and engagement, the BFC will double its investment in the guest programme, aiming to draw increased international press, buyers, and cultural influencers.
Weir secured a government agreement to extend the NewGen programme by three years starting from 2026, reinforcing support for emerging talent through showcasing, mentoring, and financial assistance.
Plans to increase scholarship funding were also mentioned, though details remain forthcoming. Additionally, the BFC is launching a new pilot initiative: BFC Fashion Assembly, which will bring designers back into their former schools nationwide to inspire wider, inclusive access.
Beyond London, the BFC is staging a City Wide Celebration, extending fashion events, talks, and panels to Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle. This strategy supports regional access to fashion’s cultural and educational ecosystem.
(Citywide talk – Free People – Oihane Molinero – courtesy of the BFC)
While these ambitious initiatives mark the start of what Laura Weir calls a “next British fashion era”— there is still a key part of the industry that fails to gain attention: manufacturing!
Weir rightly noted: “We are losing talent to Paris, Milan, and Berlin – not because of a lack of creativity, but because of a lack of infrastructure to support our designers to make, create, show, and importantly, to scale in this country.”
Yes, – and that infrastructure begins in the factories and workshops of the UK, many of which are fighting to survive post-Brexit, post-Covid, and post-relevance in the eyes of a still-London-centric industry. If we truly want to support designers through to “sustained scale,” we must also invest in the very system that enables scale: British manufacturing.
So, let’s not forget about this missing piece. Let’s talk about UK manufacturing. Let’s open up Fashion Week to include the entire supply chain – not just as a back-of-house necessity, but as a front-and-centre pillar of our fashion identity.
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