These days it is tough to be a young designer—from the scarcity of funding to the pressures of turning out a full runway show season after season, the decline in retailers to actually buy your designs, soaring rents and the dearth in studio space, material sourcing… and all the rest. You could say, for those putting themselves out there on the official, it’s like heading into battle.
At London Fashion Week’s fall 2025 collections, an interesting common thread—or metal ingot, in this case—emerged among designers of differing styles and aesthetics: armor. At Burberry, a guest in a literal silver knight suit sat front row, but the real action was on the runways.
Harris Reed featured breasts blooming with gold-leaf painted spikes and a spear-armed corset that climbed a meter from the bustline. He told Vogue he wanted to play with his continued interest in armory as a way to declare strong intentions, themes of vulnerability and strength. “Every look claims space,” Reed said. “With a queer and female team, I’m thinking about how we protect ourselves in ways that make us feel elevated and beautiful.”
At Denzil Patrick, Daniel Gayle and James Bosley wanted to subvert historical narratives of masculinity. “We’ve found a sensuality for the men behind any kind of armor, mask, or shield,” Gayle said. This meant delicate patterned shirting banded with the shapes of a corselet, silvery chestplates layered over thick, regal red knits and under tailored trenches, and a silk tunic printed with an image from the kooky 1981 film Knightriders about a medieval reenactment group jousting on motorcycles. Even their new collection of leather bags are shaped like shields.
Dilara Findikoglu returned to the London Fashion Week runway with a “divine feminine mutiny,” featuring a breastplate of shells, pearls, and rows of silver safety pins. Her finale look was a very armor-like moulded tan leather dress created by Whitaker Malem, the artisan duo favored by everyone from Madonna to Jean Paul Gaultier to Hollywood (they made Christian Bale’s Batsuit). While Di Petsa’s Dimitra Petsa played with the fairytales of knights in shining armor, with ornate jeweled swords and handcarved silver metal torsos, amid swaths of chainmail and medieval-like headgear. Her brigade was sensual and erotic, prodding at longheld images of female lust and desire, which recalled Alexander McQueen’s use of sculpture and armor for his fall winter 1998 collection—and its tightrope walk of feminine vulnerability and power. Elsewhere in London, Callon’s Jaimee McKenna references the armory in London’s Wallace Collection, Joan of Arc, and Boudica in her sensual, handwoven knits. “It’s not so exact for me—it’s creating a garment that imbues a sense of inner strength for its wearer,” she says.
Of course, body-moulded battle gear is something that has long pervaded fashion. The breastplate or ‘cuirass’ was first created for the Greek army in the 5th century, usually in hammered bronze to reflect the idealized torso of a God. It became the uniform of the battlefields, peaking in the Medieval times in more rotund shapes and iron. As designers through the 19th century onward began to sculpt designs closer to the female form and find more architectural silhouettes, the chestplate was prime for reference: Yves Saint Laurent’s 1969 fall Empreintes collection, featured moulded Claude Lalanne casts of model Veruschka’s bust and torso by Claude Lalanne. Then came Mugler’s motorcycle corsets on futuristic, battle-primed femmes, and Alexander McQueen’s Joan of Arc-emboldened armory. The liquid Issey Miyake breastplate was beloved by Grace Jones. And just a few seasons ago, Daniel Roseberry made ab-sculpted breastplates for Schiaparelli spring 2021, inspired by the anatomically correct mannequins of Else Schiaparelli’s studio space.
“I’ve always loved the idea of clothing that looks as good off the body as on, and I think that’s what armor does,” says Whitaker Malen’s Patrick Whitaker. “We don’t have to look too far to wonder why people are so interested in armor and protection, in such uncertain and dark times in the world. We want protective shells, and armor comes with a confidence boost. I’ve always been inspired by Barbarella, the warrior woman. I’m intrigued to see people still coming up with extraordinary variations of it.”
