The Brands and Designers Bringing Sustainability to London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week (LFW) has just wrapped for another season, and it was a big one for sustainability – London became the first of the big four fashion capitals to adopt minimum sustainability requirements.

In January, the British Fashion Council (BFC) announced that it was adopting the minimum sustainability requirements which were first developed by Copenhagen Fashion Week back in 2019 and fully implemented for the AW23 season in the Danish capital. 

The standards include having a preferred materials list in place, educating customers about sustainability practices, having a formal sustainability plan in place, not using single-use plastic to produce fashion week showcases, and not destroying unsold clothes and samples from previous collections. For now, they are being piloted only with a selection of the BFC’s emerging NEWGEN brands. They will apply to all NEWGEN brands from January 2026 and the BFC will work on a plan to implement the standards across the whole LFW schedule thereafter. 

The real impact will come when the big brands – who have by far the biggest environmental impact – eventually have to comply with the standards. But for now, a host of pioneering, independent brands (not just the NEWGEN cohort) have already set a shining example for AW25.

At its LFW debut, East London brand E.L.V. Denim kicked things off as the first upcycled brand on the schedule. Amid an immersive set which included a huge pile of denim and live sewing, the brand showcased a 100% upcycled collection of jeans, shirting, ties, jackets, easy dresses and a showstopping pleated gown, all made solely from reclaimed denim, leather, bedsheets, and used clothing. E.L.V. is proof that a brand can make upcycling work at scale. 

Having staged his last collection in his own back garden, Paolo Carzana chose The Holy Tavern pub, which dates back to 1720, in East London for his AW25 showcase. In a continuation of the designer’s rejection of synthetic fibres and toxic chemical processes, models wandered past the pint-laden tables wearing an array of carefully chosen natural fibres artfully draped, crumpled, shirred, gathered and layered by hand. A celebration of nature’s gifts, Carzana’s silks, cottons, and linens were dyed with natural pigments and dyes, from turmeric and hibiscus to onion skins and umber. 

In her collection, “Another Possibility”, Yuyao Zhuo explored new lives and contexts for fashion’s glut of packaging. Bubble wrap became a trench coat, luxury dust bags were filled and draped to become a cumbersome gown – a visual metaphor for fashion’s environmental burden – and branded ribbons were transformed into everything from bikinis to shoes. 

Since launching in 2018, Tolu Coker has mastered the storytelling behind sustainability. Her approach isn’t just about using better materials or circular design, but about the equity, opportunity, connection and expression they can engender. Often drawing upon her Yoruba heritage, Coker has been particularly successful at spotlighting regions across the Global South as pioneers of sustainable practices and cultures, crucial when the West maintains the narrative that sustainability didn’t exist until it invented it. For AW25, Tolu Coker invited guests to experience the process of fashion, rather than just the final product. With a live atelier creating and tweaking designs in real time, attendees could see how underlying themes were interpreted into cloth, how their meaning informed shape and silhouette, and how reclaimed fabrics were cut and stitched into heirloom garments. “This is a conversation,” the designer said. “An offering to slow down, to reflect, and to witness fashion as it unfolds in real time.” 

Bad Habits was built upon the ethos of creating meaningful pieces for maximum joy and expression. The brand uses eco-friendly fibres and natural dyes, and manufactures only in limited runs to reduce waste. For AW25 it went one step further by producing a collection entirely re-worked from its own archive. With its latest offering “Soul of the Past”, the brand transformed pieces from past collections, creating evolved silhouettes and new (natural) palettes by over-dyeing in fresh tones.

With her streetwear concept brand ALA TIANAN, designer Tianan Ding takes a sideways look at value and affordability in fashion. She ‘revalues’ materials that have no apparent value attached to them by turning them into highly desirable wearable pieces. Laminated kitchen towels, expired plasters (or band-aids), and worn-out pleather from cheap sofas are all in Ding’s material repertoire. For AW25, the designer collaborated with musicians Iceboy Violet and Charity Ssb on the video “Silk Body, Plastic Limbs” which riffs on the brand’s ‘revalues’. “What are we chasing besides expensive fabric clothes?” the designer asks.

Since its inception, YAKU has inhabited an Afrofuturist fantasy realm, each look designed for an RPG character in a limitless world. The AW25 presentation invited attendees into the world as the characters—dressed in acid bright co-ord sweats, creature backpacks, armoured hoods, and distressed utilitarian separates—read books, fought using whimsical cloth weapons, crafted, played, and cooked. As if creating an entire fictional world isn’t enough innovation for a young brand, YAKU’s pieces are hand-dyed, sewn and manipulated from deadstock fabrics. The brand even crafts its sets from deadstock fabrics and later repurposes them into garments. Purpose, process and narrative intertwine. 

Presenting as part of the NEWGEN showcase, Ancuța Sarca was back for AW25 with a new footwear collection. Working with repurposed fabric cutouts and deadstock materials and designing within a circular framework, the footwear designer crafted a collection in her signature sneaker-heel hybrid style, spanning sleek slingbacks, slouchy 80s-inspired fold down boots, and lace-up knee highs.