An emerging brand's road to success in 2025

The game is harder, but not impossible, for London designers starting their own labels.

Cast your mind back to the halcyon early 2010s, a time when the fashion industry was undergoing the great emerging designer boom. J-Dubs was rising the ranks, Matches Fashion was alive and well, and buyers were actually showing up to London Fashion Week. We even had a men’s schedule! Then, look to now: a time when myriad names have sold up, changed career trajectory, or fallen off the face of the earth, unable to thrive in a more challenging ecosystem. And yes, independent designers are still owed money from Matches.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. We heard the lamentations from virtually everyone who visited last year’s Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion exhibition – a dedicated showcase of NEWGEN’s fashion support recipients – and we won’t repeat them. While it might have pointed to the increasingly precarious conditions of surviving as an emerging designer, it did also remind us that pressure makes diamonds. And now, more than ever, young creatives are feeling the pressure.