London Fashion Week’s Fall/Winter 2026 edition kicked off with a surprise guest: none other than King Charles III himself, who sat front row at Tolu Coker’s show at the NewGen Space at 180 Strand on Thursday afternoon. “I heard that rumor as well,” the British-Nigerian designer laughs, when asked a couple of days before the show about the murmurings that His Royal Highness would be making a special appearance.
In many ways, the presence of King Charles marks a full circle moment for Coker, who received mentorship via the Prince’s Trust when she first decided to set up her own brand back in 2018. “When you’ve got a dream of doing something, [you need to understand] what’s the reality, the logistics, the practicality of it,” she explains. “The Prince’s Trust was a big resource for that. I met a lot of people who are now entrepreneurs, people from working-class backgrounds who just wanted to start a business.”
While designing her FW26 collection, Coker was looking back at her roots growing up on the Mozart council estate in west London, following the death of her neighbor of 20 years just over a year ago. “It took me back to when we were younger, and what it was like to be on our block, playing out and hanging out, the simplicity of things,” she reflects.
As a working-class designer creating luxury womenswear, Coker was also thinking about the idea of social mobility this season. One of her first jobs was as a sales assistant for the Louis Vuitton concession at Selfridges, when she was given her first luxury outfit to wear. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s like my first designer thing’, but it’s your uniform, right?” she recalls, noting that some of the tailoring is reflective of that suit you might have borrowed for a job interview. “The collection is a big commentary on social mobility and how our wardrobes mobilize with us.”
It’s somewhat fitting, then, that King Charles should be sat front row as Coker recreated her block for the show, despite the designer not knowing that the monarch would be in attendance when creating the collection. “It’s ironic; it kind of feels like divine alignment,” the designer says. “I think there’s something very beautiful and powerful to be able to invite the King of England to our block, you know? It’s a big statement of: this is London in all its color, beauty, and glory. It’s what I set out to do, having important conversations through clothing. I don’t want to sanitize the space that I came from.”