2 weeks Ago By Mahoro Seward
Keeping up with fashion month is an ask even for us, people whose literal job is to do so. Amid the blockbuster shows, viral runway stunts and glittering FROWs , paying attention to everything over four blink-and-you’ll-miss-it weeks is no mean feat. With the hubbub since faded and our attention spans relatively restored, we’ve taken a moment to comb through all of spring/summer 2025’s shows, presentations and collection releases, and in doing so realised that some of our highlights came from the emerging talents that Britain is known for.
From Loutre’s show-stopping debut on the Fashion East runway to off-schedule releases from cult favourites like YAKU and VeniceW, here’s a run-through of some of the best SS25 collections from Britain’s brightest indie brands. Loutre London is a city defined, if anything, by its inherent eclecticism and spirit of contrast. It’s ever-changing nature might make it feel a bit hard to pin down for some, but for Pia Schiele – the German-born, London-based founder of Loutre – this dynamism is a perennial font of inspiration.
The brand’s first runway show – which also marked its debut as part of Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East roster – presented an elevated motley crew of the sorts of characters you could imaging milling about the East London streets beyond the show venue: straggly haired neo-dandies in baseball caps, faux fur coats and billowing trousers; carefree cool girls in oversized bombers and slashed plaid skirts; and commuters bustling to Liverpool Street in chopped and screwed trench coats. To say that it was a winner of a collection is selling it short. Indepéndantes de Coeur Valeriane Venance’s Indépendantes de Coeur is something of a cult favourite among the London style set, and it’s most recent collection proves why.
Released as a lookbook styled by Ellie Grace Cumming, Venance’s latest body of work showcases a knack for complex yet understated garment construction, a savvy sense for subtle material contrasts, and razor sharp pattern-cutting skills. Instant adds to next season’s shopping cart include a half-zippered, funnel-neck leather vest cut to skim the figure, a pleated leather maxi kilt, and trousers featuring the brand’s signature jaunty rear silhouette. YAKU Yaku Stapleton’s recurring design inspiration can be found close to home.
Since his Central Saint Martins MA graduate collection in 2023, each of his collections has reimagined the designer’s own family members as characters within a limitless fantasy realm, drawing upon the structure-shattering tenants of Afrofuturism. This season, though, the designer sought to look beyond the expansive potential that the cultural philosophy offers and contemplate the complex – painful, even – contexts that incubated its birth. Indeed, Afrofuturist thought expresses a sense of limitless possibility, but it is ultimately the product of people dreaming of and deserving more than what the world – in its given structure – is willing to offer.
The conceptual underpinnings of this collection are too rich to fully unpack within my allocated word count (which I’ve already significantly overstepped), but safe to say that the cerebral rigour and sensitivity are imbued in the clothes. That’s not to say they feel heavy handed, though – board shorts in psychedelic tie-dies, spike-shouldered full-length gauntlets and horned hoodies bring a Runescape spirit of escapism to prosaic staples. VeniceW The point of departure for a VeniceW collection is typically a pretty leftfield thought.
Following on from such contemplations as “if clothes were people, what would they want to wear?” and “if bags were birds, what would they be?”, this season, Venice Wanakornkul asked “what if, instead of throwing coins into regal fountains to make wishes, we threw them into humble paper coffee cups?” How, you may be asking yourself, that can translate to a fashion collection is a fair question. Wanakornkul’s material interpretations of such musings, however, are less focused on actually bringing them to life, and more on illustrating the possibilities that reveal themselves when you refuse to just take things as they supposedly are. Her louchely draped garments, for example, may seem humble at first glance, but look closer and you’ll see that the hoodies compiled of seemingly haphazard layers of raw-edged, tissue-y linen and floor-grazing jersey skirts are expertly constructed.
Ellie Misner I Love Lamp is the title of London-based demi-couturier Ellie Misner’s latest collection. While a conscious nod to the goofy one-liner from Anchorman, it is in fact a testament to the designer’s love for literal lamps – specifically, the decorative lampshades and Erté illustrations that filled her grandmothers’ houses. The inspiration makes itself felt most directly in a corsetted strapless column dress with a stiff overhanging peplum dripping with beads, as well as in the fluted silhouettes of expertly constructed skirts, but the collection’s real lightbulb moment was without a doubt a bold-shouldered, whittle-waisted chartreuse dress with “fur” trimmed sleeves – they’re actually created using the fabric scraps from its construction, resulting in a zero waste piece.
Bright work indeed. Lueder Lueder presented the first part of its SS25 collection during Berlin Fashion Week this summer, while London played host to the second. For its first presentation as part of the BFC’s NEWGEN initiative, the label explored the medieval practice of alchemy – specifically Albedo, the transformative stage of purification.
A sense of purity can indeed be felt across the clean white cottons and silvery velvets from which drop-shouldered bomber jackets were crafted, while the spirit of the Middle Ages was subtly expressed through ribbed armour-like knits, rigid denim jeans with warped seams, and zany graphic prints. The chicest renaissance-esque gear you’ll find around. Mainline Rus/Fr.
CA/DE This season, Mainline Rus/Fr.CA/DE (named for the home countries of its original three founders) chose to present off-schedule at twos, an IYKYK hub for London’s style savvy. Marking five years in operation, the show was a celebration of the confidently off-kilter, sexy-yet-comfy aesthetic that they’ve earned a cult reputation for, replete with webby jersey gowns, purposely undersized knit cardigans that cling to the body and girl-on-the-go baguettes in crumpled, coin-embellished leather.
Keep your eyes peeled for what the next five years bring..
