This season marks 40 years of London Fashion Week, and we are celebrating it with a special dispatch from Mark Holgate, Vogue’s fashion news director, who has been covering shows in London since the ’90s. He shares memories of seeing his first Alexander McQueen show—the spring 1995 collection known as The Birds—and getting bumped from his first-row seat at a Joe Casely-Hayford show because “someone very important was coming,” who turned out to be Diana, Princess of Wales.
From the current London Fashion Week spring 2025 shows, Holgate was impressed by JW Anderson’s show at Old Billingsgate, which used to be a fish market back in the day but has since become an event space. “What I loved about Jonathan’s show was just the absolute rigor and focus on silhouette,” he shared. “Also tremendous energy, amazing soundtrack.” He also highlighted the Roksanda show because of its beauty but also her tenacity as a designer, as one of the many labels affected by the fall of MatchesFashion. “She just always finds a kind of beauty,” he added.
Also on this episode, Chioma Nnadi sat down with New Zealand–born, London-based designer Emilia Wickstead, a favorite of Catherine, Princess of Wales, who has also dressed everyone from Lady Gaga to Kerry Washington to Olivia Colman. In her conversation with Nnadi, she explains that her proudest moments as a designer occur when she sees women on the street wearing her clothes. “There’s something so special about that,” Wickstead said. “That’s when I feel like we’ve really made it.”
