Forward Growth from London’s Exciting Underground
Review of Fashion East Fall 2025 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Twisted tailoring. Sculptural draping. Reconstructed techwear.
When everything from internal industry issues to external challenges like the skyrocketing price of housing in cities like London are conspiring to crush emerging talent before it has a chance, platforms like Fashion East continue to feel like a gift. It’s no secret that most of the biggest names to emerge from the London scene who are shaping fashion today were part of the incubator, and it continues to do great work in providing resources and opportunities for recently graduated designers who represent the next generation of creativity.
For the first time in recent memory, the project is embracing a change of pace and keeping the same lineup for two seasons in a row. Thus, all three brands that showed last season – Louther, Shinder, Nuba, and Olly Shinder – returned for Fall 2025. The benefits of this tweaked format were readily on display, as each designer built on the strengths of their previous collections while honing their visions to feel both more cohesive and more commercially viable.
Led by creative director Olympia Schiele, Louther (previously known as Loutre) kicked things off with another evolution of her cleverly and subversively reconsidered classics. Fans of Martine Rose and Magliano will resonate with the designer’s ability to hybridize familiar pieces like a trench coat and a nylon bomber into twisted new expressions, but her voice still feels original. She also deserves commendation for the slick tailoring and ability to bring a just-subtle-enough dose of seductive drama.
Last season, Nuba’s duo of Cameron Williams and Jebi Labembike were a Fashion East standout for their ability to reflect London’s underground of immigrant subcultures through a beautiful approach to avant-garde draping. While draping is still a key element, this season sees them embrace more structured forms and knitwear, arriving at uniquely striking silhouettes that are at once minimalist, languorous, and powerful.
This season’s longest-standing member of the Fashion East program, cult-favorite Olly Shinder pivoted from the dystopian uniforms of last season to find something more realistically wearable without losing his penchant for techwear experimentation.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
These are three very different designers, so it’s hard to pull a centralized thematic conclusion from their work. But taken together, they do emphasize the importance of a program like Fashion East for bridging the unbridled creativity of recent fashion school graduates with the realities of what it takes to consistently produce cohesive, commercially viable collections in a challenging economic landscape. It’s exciting to see how Louther, Nuba, and Olly Shinder have done the work to refine their visions even just from last season, and we feel freshly inspired about the next generation that will shape the future of fashion.
