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The British Fashion Council published its provisional schedule for London Fashion Week’s spring/summer 2027 season this week, confirming five days of shows across the capital from September 17 to 21. The standout news: Alexander McQueen returns to the city where the label was founded, and Marks & Spencer mounts its first-ever catwalk show. BFC chief executive Laura Weir unveiled the line-up on the back of her recent announcements of a five-city Fashion Britain programme and new support for London-based designers, framing the September calendar as evidence of the confidence and momentum building across British fashion.
Seán McGirr will present his first London show as McQueen’s creative director on Sunday, September 20, showing coed womenswear and menswear under a house that started here before Lee Alexander McQueen’s early theatrical shows gave way to Paris in 2001. McGirr called the city “uniquely visceral” in a statement announcing the show. The label has staged occasional one-off London events since leaving, most recently in 2022 under previous creative director Sarah Burton, but nothing on this scale or with this level of BFC backing. The collection is expected to continue McGirr’s exploration of the house’s archive, revisiting the sharp tailoring and dark romanticism that built its reputation. Weir framed the return as proof of how bold and distinctive British design can be at its best.
McQueen has spent the past two years working through a contraction under owner Kering. Revenue fell by roughly 60 per cent between 2022 and 2025, and the fallout has included store closures and workforce cuts at its Italian production sites, with staff protests breaking out only weeks before this announcement. The September show is McGirr’s fifth ready-to-wear collection for the house since taking over from Burton in October 2023.
Christopher Kane’s debut collection for Mulberry also lands on the schedule this September, giving the day McGirr shows his first McQueen collection an added weight on the calendar. What the new schedule adds is confirmation that both shows fall on the same date, on a week the BFC has otherwise built around a handful of comeback stories.
Marks & Spencer’s LFW debut doubles as a centenary marker for its fashion business, with the “see now, buy now” womenswear and menswear pieces going straight into UK stores and onto the M&S website as the show ends. Chief executive Stuart Machin has been building toward this for a year, first with a livestreamed show from Ibiza that drew more than 26 million views, then with a pit-lane catwalk at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone. Anyone not on the guest list will be able to watch the M&S show through a livestream.
H&M returns on September 17, teaming up with photographer Nick Knight and the digital platform SHOWstudio for a presentation built around self-expression and creative innovation. Last year’s show at 180 Strand unfolded across three acts and closed with a performance from Lola Young, drawing a crowd of 700, so this season’s format marks another shift. H&M’s head of design and creative adviser, Ann-Sofie Johansson, called last year’s show “a defining moment for the brand” in the run-up to this year’s announcement. M&S and H&M now sit on a schedule that has, for most of its history, belonged to independent designers and established luxury houses.
Away from the marquee names, the schedule leans on the BFC’s talent incubators to justify its claim to discovery. Fashion East returns after fresh BFC investment. Newgen welcomes London debuts from Francesca Lake, Gui Rosa and Petra Fagerström and returns eight designers to the scheme this season, among them Octi, The Ouze and Yaku, alongside Charlie Constantinou, E.W. Usie, Liza Keane, Oscar Ouyang and Pauline Dujancourt. The wider calendar brings back established names including Barbour, Burberry, Emilia Wickstead, Erdem, Harris Reed, Richard Quinn, Roksanda and Simone Rocha, alongside Aaron Esh, Ashley Williams, Chopova Lowena, Knwls and Paolo Carzana. The schedule also folds in consumer-facing programming beyond the official shows, including a day-long showcase at Devonshire Square on September 19 hosted by Oxford Fashion Studio, open to attendees beyond the usual industry list.
Weir’s push to draw major names home didn’t start with this announcement. The BFC waived show fees for designers presenting physically at SS26 last September, then extended the waiver through AW26 in February, a policy aimed squarely at brands weighing London against cheaper or better-resourced alternatives abroad. Waived fees don’t explain why McQueen chose London specifically, or why M&S picked this September for its debut. They do lower the cost of saying yes, and enough brands have said yes at the same time that the schedule looks different than it has in years. What happens next depends on numbers nobody has yet: order books this autumn and whichever sales figures Mulberry, M&S and McQueen report once the season ends.
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